Book Blogger – Page 6 – …on the B.L.

Read Yes
Length 433
Quick Review If you want to read a novel about Africa and the consequences of colonization, this is it. It humanizes a continent, issue, country and people the media have consistently dehumanized. Incredibly relatable while highlighting issues spanning the world.

“Flawless” introduced Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to the world’s dinner tables, bars, study halls, car concerts, Grammy’s, and the multitudes of other ways the pop-culturally aware socialize. I am not that person. I listened – just now, by the way – to “Flawless” by Beyonce because of Adichie.

I am the bibliophile extraordinaire. I would love to say I know about what’s going on in the world of Hollywood or music, but I don’t. I knowish what’s going on in the science world. Definitely the literary scene. Linguistics, I’m on top of it. My Western European pop culture references between the years of 1520 and 1890 are pretty top notch, but today’s world I can tell you what lol means. Can someone please explain what smh or af means? Snapchat’s Cosmo thingybopper consistently loses me lexically.

I had a Chinua Achebe revisiting phase a few years back. Adichie’s work was referenced in various places as they are both Nigerian writers of Igbo heritage. I stuck her on my list. Unfortunately, I have a tendency to put contemporary authors towards the end of the must read list. After putting her off for a good three or so years, I finally read one of her books, then a short story, then an essay, another short story, and now another novel.

Half of a Yellow Sun is fabulous, timeless, human, vibrant, and utterly engaging. The narrative follows several different characters through the early and late sixties during the war fought against Nigeria to found the independent nation: Biafra. The different viewpoints show male, female, rich, poor, business person, intellectual, servant, and those in between. With twists and turns, you’re never bored during a story, which could have easily been bogged down by sadness.

Adichie’s writing is graceful, and the five hundred pages go by easily. Though the writing flows, her ability to nuance is unparalleled. There is no wavering in the most difficult passages. She is straight forward with the simultaneous yet contrasting hope and anguish war brings. The imagery is striking and heartbreaking yet quintessentially human.

For a topic I knew nothing about, I could not have become more invested in a story so far away from my own reality. Through Adichie’s story telling, I have learned so much about a country I knew little about. I would absolutely recommend this book.

I watched the movie version. It was good, but like always the book is better. The screenplay had to leave a lot of really important things out, and I was disappointed. In general, I think it completely missed the point of the book: how normal and good people are affected, changed, and ultimately take part in the atrocities of war.

Memorable Quotes
“It did not kill me, it made me knowledgeable.”
“You must never behave as if your life belongs to a man… Your life belongs to you and you alone.”

Title: Half of a Yellow Sun
Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Publisher: Anchor
Copyright: 2007
ISBN: 978-1400095209

Read Yes
Length 244
Quick Review A young woman’s coming of age story as she grapples with working, the big city, friendship, sexuality, mental illness, and growing up female.

Literally anyone who has any knowledge of remarkable literary works knows about Sylvia Plath’s oven incident, as well as her writing. The Bell Jar is such a widely referenced book, it’s surprising how few people have actually read it. I, myself, thought it would an incredibly dense and arduous book to work through. It always seems the shorter the book the more wearisome the syntax. I am ashamed to say I made it to 25 without having ever attempted to read it. It has sat on my must read list for a decade without once glancing at a copy in a bookstore. With pen in hand, a quiet room, a cup of tea, I sat down with the most serious of intentions to delve into this onerous work.

Never have I been so wrong.

I read it in a day, an afternoon actually.

Esther Greenwood is a young and talented girl exploring the world around her as well as herself. The Bell Jar is known as a book about depression, but it is more than that. It is a book about self discovery and coming of age. It is intrinsically feminist without meaning to be. Though many decades ago, the trials Esther experiences are so in tune with the trials girls go through today: self confidence, body image, boys, sex, dating, career, education, and mental health.

The female version of The Catcher in the Rye, I’m beyond disappointed this novel has not made it onto the required reading lists for high schoolers. Though complexly nuanced, it is no more taboo than a swearing, hormonal teenage boy.

Plath is an incredible talent (Ariel at a later date; I must read it first), who has been turned into a compounded punch line of the crazy writer. She is best remembered for her clinical depression and infamous suicide than her startling talent as a poet and novelist.

Memorable Quotes
“If you expect nothing from somebody, you are never disappointed.”
“The silence depressed me. It wasn’t the silence of silence. It was my own silence.”
“The trouble was, I had been inadequate all along, I simply hadn’t thought about it.”
“There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends.”

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Title: The Bell Jar
Author: Sylvia Plath
Copyright: 2006
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
ISBN: 9780061148514