#6 Chimamanda Ngozi Achidie, Purple Hibiscus

[waelisc.livejournal.com]

Purple Hibiscus is beautifully written and compelling, and at the same time there's a lot of sadness in it. I ached for the characters.

The narrator is Kambili, a 15-year-old Nigerian girl. Her father is a wealthy and influential man - he owns factories, and a newspaper in Nigeria's capital city - and is widely respected. He has recently won an international human rights award, he gives money to every charity, he pays the school fees for scores of children from their home village. But at home he's a fanatically religious Roman Catholic and incredibly dictatorial about every detail of his family's lives. Kambili has protectively drawn into herself so completely that she rarely speaks, and has difficulty with stuttering when she does try to say anything. Her classmates envy the advantages they think she has and mock her awkwardness.

At the beginning I was horrified at how strongly Kambili's father identifies with white colonial power (including the white missionaries) and has absorbed all their worst, racist attitudes and beliefs. He criticizes everything Nigerian and aspires to do everything like the white people. As the novel goes on, though, it's harder and harder to sympathize with him. I'm still thinking through my reactions, but the question I'm wrestling with most is how the father became so extremely tyrannical. Was it only exposure to white European assumptions of superiority in his schooling that made Kambili's father the way he was? Or was he a man who was inclined to be domineering and controlling anyway, and that was encouraged and deepened by what he experienced in European-run schools and churches? The author doesn't speculate on this directly (that is, Kambili doesn't wonder how her father got to be the person he is) but there is the contrast of Kambili's aunt, her father's sister, who had the same education and religious training but lives a very different life.

Spoilers/warnings: Not a spoiler for the whole plot, just a heads-up that there is one incident of severe domestic violence 'onstage' and another half-dozen references to Kambili's father inflicting violence on his wife and children.

Comments

[coloronline.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

I loved this book. We have it in our library. You might want to check out Adichie's other novel, Half Of A Yellow Sun.

[waelisc.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, on my list! I was glad when I checked the pub date of this one, halfway through, and saw it was far back enough that she might have finished a second book.