Americanah
Ratings282
Average rating4.2
So glad I finally picked this one up - rich, full, brimming with life, it was a pleasure to lose myself in this world. A completely modern love story, with just enough heartbreak to be real. A fascinating look at race and culture and how those words mean different things in different parts of the world. An excellent, rewarding read.
Ahhh, so that's why people read novels. What else have I been missing!?!?
Long ago, maybe in 2008, I stopped reading literary and mainstream fiction. I discovered non-fiction and sci-fi, and could never suspend my disbelief very easily again. “What's the point?!” I'd rant as I paged torturously through stories of modern people doing mundane, modern things. I hated, with the passion of a thousand suns, the faddish “quirky” titles of lame mainstream pop fiction, The Adventures of the Dog In the Moonlight, A Tragedy of Small Things, The Sisterhood of Pancakes. I hated (and still hate) the high-minded but fundamentally stupid books of Fancy Entitled Older Dudes, like Martin Amis or Ian McEwan or Salman Rushdie or John Updike or that whole stupid “Fond Memories of Vagina” bullshit. NO ONE CARES. Or I don't, at least. Uggghhhh. I could sort of tolerate post-colonial stuff (which, of course, Americanah is) because I am a bleeding heart Orientalist, but even some of that just seemed like cheap, dumb shit. As Ifemelu would say, what rubbish!!
So I decided perhaps novels were no longer for me, and became a bitter shell.
But I knew - and friends told me, and research showed - that there is a special something to be found in sharply observed, well-told novels. And Americanah is a novel so sharply observed, so smartly told, that I found myself often shaking my head, smiling, at its genius. And such wide-ranging genius! I recognized hidden-in-plain-sight truths about Dar es Salaam and Accra (and Delhi) in the portrayal of Lagos. I recognized similar realities about American college life, and the life of an immigrant in the US, and culture shock going every which way, and white liberal guilt, and the insidiousness of racism in America. It feels so banal to say that this book is about race, globalization, migration, modern life, post-colonialism, and LURRRVVEEE?! And yet - IT IS! And it revealed things that have always been in front of me, and did it in a way that felt grand and big. The moment when one character, in a hair salon in Trenton, New Jersey, sends an e-mail to the old love of her life in Lagos, and he reads it on his Blackberry in the busy, buzzing traffic of the city - COULD ANYTHING BE MORE EPIC? MORE DIVINE? The answer is no.
Briefly, Americanah is a love story between two Nigerian kids: Ifemelu and Obinze. It follows them from fun teenage blush to an epic-ly adult yearning. From the 1990s to the 2010s? Ifemelu is snarky and bold and clearly she must be a stand-in for the author?! Obinze, instead, is mellow, thoughtful, a deep reservoir of empathy. In 1980s/1990s Nigeria, when the country is under military dictatorship, Ifemelu gets a scholarship to a US liberal arts college in Philly. The vague plan is that Obinze will join her. Instead, life happens; and Obinze ends up trying (and failing) to emigrate to the UK, eventually getting deported back.
While the love story is the core - and it is an epic love story, hot damn - there's SO MUCH going on in this book that you sometimes forget that's what it's basically about. America, the UK, and Nigeria are portrayed so well - aghh. I especially loved all the details about Lagos as an explosive, rapidly changing city, a white hot molten core of nakedly capitalist hustle. The observations of returnees' alienation resonated with what an Indian-American friend once told me about going back to Delhi: you return and return to an increasingly changed place, you no longer recognize it. My “native place” is a small town in Italy which, thanks to Europe's refugee crisis, has also been greatly changed. DO I SENSE A MAINSTREAM NOVEL IN ME? Gosh, I could only dream of having Adichie's eye for detail and human behavior.
A side note: I read this book's moving portrayal of Obama's 2008 victory last night (did I mention the genius of this book in its precise observations of race and class in America and OMG HOW COULD I FORGET OBAMA HAPPENED!?!), just when Obama started giving his farewell address in Chicago. The interplay of life and art - WHOA.
Another side note: I “read” this using my new favorite format for everything, the audiobook! And the Audible reader, Adjoa Andoh, did an amazing job navigating all the accents and characters. Her American accent was just OK/shaky, but her Nigerian accent was delightful, as were her different UK accents - the Cockney (?) friend of Obinze, Nigel, and the posh accents of those London people. Is the internet going to shame me if I admit that I liked practicing the accents myself?!?! WHAT, I FIND ACCENTS CHARMING AND LINGUISTICALLY INTERESTING, DON'T JUDGE ME. Don't even get me started on Indian English, especially Hinglish, or how this blog is so hilarious.
The last side note: There is apparently supposed to be a movie adaptation, starring Lupita Nyong'o as Ifemelu and David Oyelowo as Obinze. David Oyelowo has kinda already stolen my heart as a mellow, thoughtful, Good Dude in The Queen of Katwe, so PLEASE, universe/Hollywood people, make this movie happen! Also, please find a role for Chiwetel Ejiofor - he can play Blaine (okay, it'd be ironic to have the Nigerian-British actor playing the American in a movie about Nigeria, but he's meant to be hot, right?!). Just think of that Trenton-Lagos smartphone-Blackberry cross-cut?! My heart is aflutter.
- 4.5 -
Un libro sobre el cabello, la raza y un poco de Barack Obama.
He sentido que he acompañado a los personajes principales, Ifemelu y Obizne en su viaje desde Nigeria, Estados Unidos e Inglaterra. Y aún habiendo escuchado mucho sobre el racismo de repente fue darme cuenta que no sabía nada.
Seguimos principalmente el punto de vista de Ifemelu, su vida en Nigeria y el gran cambio que se da cuando se le presenta la oportunidad de ir a estudiar a los Estados Unidos y enfrentarse a un mundo completamente diferente. Y es que Ifemelu es un personajes bastante fuerte, con muchas opiniones, que a veces me llegaba a desesperar, pero así somos los seres humanos, yo también en ocasiones (o casi siempre) me autosaboteo y no tengo idea que quiero o quien soy. La vida de Ifemelu tiene sus altas y bajas, a veces mas bajas que altas, hasta que llega a escribir un Blog, cuyo nombre no recuerdo, donde habla sobre sus experiencias con las diferencias de razas y el racismo desde el punto de vista de alguien negro que no es americano. Seguimos así todas sus experiencias a lo largo de más de una década.
Por otro lado, Obizne que siempre ha tenido la ilusión de ir a los Estados Unidos, se encuentra con que tal vez sea más complicado de lo que pensaba. Hay solo alguna parte al final que no me gustó tanto, y me desespero un poco. Y en serio, todos necesitamos un Obizne en nuestra vida.
Estará entre mis lecturas favoritas de este año, eso seguro.
Yes. This is great writing. This is how I want to write. I related very much to Ifemelu, since we are both writers and we are sometimes insecure about writing and what others will think of it. I could not point to enough passages in this that resonated with me and feelings/thoughts I've had, but here's an example of one:
...a part of her always stiffened with apprenhension, expecting the person on the other end to realize that she was play-acting this professional, this negotiator of terms, to see that she was, in fact, an unemployed person who wore a rumpled nightshirt all day, to call her “Fraud!” and hang up.
This was so wonderful that I don't have anything original or insightful to say about it. It's a very complex novel, but two of the blurbs summarize it nicely for me: the reviewer at the SF Chronicle said it was “dazzling....Funny and defiant, and simuntaneously so wise....Brilliant,” and NPR's reviewer commented, “[A] knockout of a novel about immigration, American dreams, the power of first love, and the shifting meanings of skin color....A marvel.” I've been listening to the BBC World News podcast lately, and I think the non-US-centric perspective is good for me as an American listener. I loved this novel for similar reasons; Adichie casts her critical and also lyrical eye on the world from a fully intersectional perspective, considering race, class, immigration status, culture, location within cultures, language, gender, and more. I feel enriched for having read it, and it was beautiful.
Just read it. It's so good and so true.
Adichie's prose is excellent, her characters are complex and compelling, and all of her observations about race, gender, and life are SPOT ON.
Lovely writing
Beautiful style. Very visual and rhythmic. I didn't have strong feelings for the characters but that made it easier to read.
I really enjoyed reading this book, but when I came to the end I was unsatisfied. When all was said and done, it seemed that the two main characters, Ifemelu and Obinze, had just taken a years long and ocean-spanning detour, only to end up where they meant to be all along. The detour involved a lot of interesting observations about race and racism in America and England, descriptions of hairstyling for kinky hair, and some fascinating but underdeveloped characters (Ifemelu's boyfriends, mostly, but what was the deal with Blaine's sister, Shan?), but did it involve any growth? I learned some things about a non-American black woman's experiences of America, but what did Ifemelu and Obinze learn?
Some other Goodreads reviewers have said that they found Ifemelu unlikeable. She certainly is outspoken, somewhat demanding, brutally honest at times when maybe a lighter touch would make things go more smoothly. I actually had no complaint with this–it made me like her, root for her to succeed, in fact. My question at the end was whether coming back to Nigeria and rekindling her love with Obinze was enough of a success. My heart says no.
I'm so happy I caved and read it... I'm usually a snob about books everyone is talking about, but I loved it! thestory is fluid, well written, varied, intersting, multicultural, bittersweet, and deep inside, it all overlays a love story! loved it to bits.
I want to sit on a park bench with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and have her tell me the story of everyone that walks by. In Americanah she is scathing, witty and honest. With fine detail she manages to capture the gum snapping New Jersey girl at the hair salon, desperate to land a husband; to the newly moneyed, smug liberals at a dinner party.
I found myself reading it in small snippets, poring over every phrase. Even now I can flip to any random page and there find something finely wrought. No one better writes of the “water” we all swim in.
“Racism should never have happened and so you don't get a cookie for reducing it.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah
What a beautiful way to kick off a new year of reading good books. I thoroughly enjoyed the writing and story Ms. Adichie presents to us. Thank you for showing me America from a different point of view and opening my eyes a little bit wider.
Thanks to Mary Beth and Paul for sending this novel along as a new year present.
Let me get this out of the way first: was I primarily interested in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie because Beyonce sampled her in “Flawless”? Yes, of course. (I also later realized that we listened to her TED Talk The danger of a single story in my grad school storytelling class, and I HIGHLY recommend it. It definitely informed my reading of this. And of like, everything.)
Anyway, I just thought this was such a smart, funny, important book. It's roughly the story of Ifemelu and Obinze, two smart, middle class-ish Nigerian teenagers who fall in love in high school, and then are separated as they try to pursue college/jobs abroad, in the US and the UK, respectively. Ugh, it's SUCH a cutting and insightful examination of race in America. But also, a beautifully developed love story. I love, love, LOVED Ifemelu. What a complicated, well-developed character.
I've read Adichie twice before and both times I was drawn into her big-and-yet-small, exotic-and-yet-universal stories.
This book was different.
Maybe there are some readers who like diatribes mixed with their stories. Not this reader. I find myself, time and again, just starting to ease into the characters when up would pop a blog post from the main character or a dinner party conversation and I'd suddenly feel like my channel had been switched and some fellow was standing there, ranting about An Important Issue.
Had I been her editor (not that I'm worthy) I'd have cut all the rants and I'd have kept all the lovely pages where the characters experience the terrible cruelties of life.
Just the small frustrations of a small reader: Please don't lecture me. Please don't preach. Just tell your story and all the rest will follow.
The first half of the book was 5-star worthy. However, the second half became slower and more preachy with too much telling and not enough showing. Overall, Americanah is a fascinating, thought-provoking novel that is worth the praise it has received.