This is my review of Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Bright and from an early age too outspoken for her own good, Ifemelu is made aware of racial differences for the first time when she leaves Nigeria to study in the States, where, after a rocky start, she achieves success with a Princetown fellowship and much-read “lifestyle” blog with a focus on American race relations.

We know from the outset that, a more than a decade on, Ifemelu decides to dump her latest longterm lover and comfortable life in America , in order to return to Nigeria. It gradually becomes clear that this is just another example of her apparently capricious tendency to disrupt an enviable situation because “There was a feeling I wanted to feel that I did not feel”. One suspects this is because her life can never be complete without the love of her first boyfriend Obinze, “the only person with whom she had never felt the need to explain herself”, who after an unsuccessful attempt to emigrate to Britain returns to become a successful businessman in Nigeria.

What could be reduced in summary to a corny love story becomes engrossing in the hands of a skilful storyteller, who develops a wide range of mostly convincing characters. For me, this is the kind of novel one does not wish to finish, absorbed by the vivid sense of place, strong often funny dialogues and sharp insights into both Nigerian society and different racial groups in America. The author made me appreciate for the first time the difference in outlook between American Africans, with a strong sense of their own culture, and African Americans burdened by the injustice of past slavery and current prejudice. I now look on African hair with new eyes, having been made aware of the dangers of chemicals used to straighten it and the effort required to create a natural-looking Afro style.

I agree that the book is technically too long (although I didn’t mind since I enjoyed reading it), the frequent verbatim blogs often seem contrived as vehicles for the author to express her personal observations on American society. Perhaps because there is an element of autobiography in the tale, she appears a little too forgiving of the at times ruthless Ifemelu who casually abuses a close friendship by making Ranyinudo’s personal life the subject of a blog for public consumption, and who seems to feel no compunction over breaking up a marriage, too easily justified by the belief it is built on sand. Some of the privileged American dinner party conversations seem artificial and pretentious, but may well be realistic. Nigerian society is painted in an unflattering light, as corrupt, materialistic, superstitious and socially divided as any western class system. There is a troubling moral ambiguity in the implication that Obinze’s emotional detachment from his lifestyle somehow absolves him from the guilt of enriching himself through working for a wheeler-dealing crook.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

This is my review of Brazil Red by Jean-Christophe Rufin.

When Just and his younger sister Colombe are left by their soldier father in the care of an unscrupulous relative, she seizes the chance to send them off on an expedition to found a new French colony in Brazil, children being in demand as future interpreters because of their ability to pick languages up quickly. It is the mid-1500s, and France is keen to curtail Portuguese imperial ambitions in the New World, to gain access to resources, such as the red dye obtainable from Brazilian trees (hence the title) and to convert the savage Indians to Christianity. However, with the Reformation in full spate, what are they to be taught: the old Catholic faith, or which version of Protestantism including the extreme, apparently abstruse, doctrine of Calvin?

The crew on board ship are a motley bunch, including criminals and Protestants escaping persecution, including a crazed band of Anabaptists, so Colombe’s disguise as a boy probably provides much-needed protection. Once the pair’s aristocratic connections become known, they are taken under the wing of the charismatic but unstable commander Villegagnon, based on a real-life character. Having reached their destination in Guanabara Bay, the site of the present-day Rio de Janeiro, Just readily accepts the life of constructing a fortress and learning how to defend it against future attacks. More reflective, Colombe who has been sent to learn the local Tupi language, identifies strongly with the Indians, living in harmony with nature and free from sterile wrangling over Christian rituals and doctrine.

With his experience as a diplomat and human rights’ worker, including a decade spent living in Rio de Janeiro, Rufin has researched the historical period in depth. This novel is a variation on a theme which absorbs him: the dramatic effects of the meeting between very different cultures, and the sense which many of those involved feel of being in a state of limbo, not clearly belonging to either.

Although Rufin creates a convincing impression of life on board ship, I found the first half of this book intolerably tedious. He no doubt intentionally adopts the formal, literary style of a nineteenth century classical novel, peppered with the authentic terms for items of clothing or parts of a ship, culled from histories of the sixteenth century. However, there are too many over-detailed or unnecessary scenes which could have been pruned down or omitted altogether. Colombe is idealised, and seems too mature and articulate for her age. Most of the other characters are caricatures, dialogues wooden and often the action does not seem far removed from a “Boys’ Own” yarn.

However, when the Calvinists whom Villegagnon has requested to assist him prove to be religious bigots, while Colombe’s experience of life with the Indians highlights the hollowness of so-called European “civilisation”, I began to find my interest engaged. It is as if, having waded through to the point where he wants to be, analysing cultural relations, Rufin comes into his own and his writing takes off, presenting points of view from all angles, with the irony becoming sharper. Yet he can never quite avoid straying into the corny or sentimental at the expense of his serious intent.

The descriptions of the landscape, the great bay with the distinctive sugarloaf mountain and forest teeming with unfamiliar vegetation and wildlife are very vivid. There is some thought-provoking philosophy, as when Pay-Lo, the wise old European conveniently gone native, enabling him to explain Indian thought to Colombe, justifies cannibalism. He likens it to the European habit of killing one’s enemies: to eat one’s enemy is merely a logical part of a life lived close to nature in which everything is recycled and returned to the earth to regrow. Rufin has sanitised and glamorised the lives of the Indians somewhat, but they are clearly underestimated by the Huguenots who decide that trying to convert them is as futile as the attempt to bring an antelope to the knowledge of Christ.

Despite the unusual and potentially interesting subject-matter, the novel is too long and laboured. I would have preferred a well-written history of the period.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

This is my review of Cousins by Salley Vickers.

After the accident which befalls brilliant but troubled, aptly-named Will, his sister Hetta is driven to delve for the chain of events which may have led to it, and to understand its serious repercussions for some family members. The accident is remarkably similar to that suffered years earlier by his Uncle Nat.

Sally Vickers’ approach is ambitious – instead of providing a family saga over three generations or more, she inverts the process by switching between the viewpoints of three women who recall their memories, with distinct personalities and “voices”: Hetta, her aunt Bell, and grandmother Betsy. On reflection, it requires great skill to sustain this approach, gradually revealing facts as in a detective mystery, with the added interest of describing the same situation or character from different viewpoints, some clearly mistaken, or in possession of fewer "facts" than the reader.

The author admits to “plundering and imbibing” experiences from her parents who were lifelong communists, like Betsy’s husband Fred who casually put his political beliefs before the needs of his wife and children, but Sally Vickers’ insight as a psychiatric social worker and psychoanalyst are really what give this novel its “edge”.

Most likely to appeal to readers with an interest in psychological drama in which thought-provoking comments are more important than the plot, however superficially gripping, it is probably necessary to read this a second time to absorb and reflect on all the author’s observations and how they might apply to oneself. It is hard to do this on the first reading partly because intense concentration is needed to grasp all the details, never being quite sure which are important to remember, plus this is a page-turner as regards finding out how it will end, although at times the bleak intensity of it forced me to take a break. The conclusion proves quite philosophically up-beat, perhaps an appropriate reflection of how in reality one moves from anger and denial to positive acceptance.

I agree with readers who feel there are too many characters, some of whom could have been omitted, although others on the periphery who are given such a brief mention as to be forgotten turn out to be important, which suggests they should have been developed in more depth. There often seems to be too much “telling” of details from the past, which could make the reader glaze over mentally, but for the acute perceptions and flashes of wry humour which leap off the page without warning. Although there is less of the strong sense of place to be found in some of her previous novels, the Northumberland coast and Holy Island of St. Cuthbert fame form a recurring background.

The plot is well-structured, starting with the “hook” of Hetta’s conviction that Will is going to die, but we don’t yet know why, and gathering pace to a plausible but not too predictable or neat conclusion. Since the author is clearly so interested in how family members relate to each other, I am unsure to what extent she intends us to feel that their guilt is an unnecessary burden, responsibility for Will’s accident seeming to lie mainly with “outsiders”. I was disappointed that these are portrayed as two-dimensional, almost “pantomime” villains.

Occasionally, the novel strikes too sentimental a note for my liking as when Betsy suggests that the loss of his twin sister at birth meant that “life was never quite right” for Will because of the burden of being a survivor – evident from his newborn “strangely unchildlike”, “relentless frantic wail”.

Recommended overall, including as a book group choice to provoke discussion.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars