Americanah

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2013)

I first read Americanah in 2013 and wrote about it here. This year I suggested it for my library's Community Read and read it again since it had been a couple of years and I wanted a refresher before we come together as a committee to vote. As much as I loved this book I wasn't especially keen to read it again when so many other books I haven't read yet are calling to me, but once I started I became pretty engrossed, even reading over 200 pages on the day I finished it.

Last time I focused on how Ifemelu viewed race in America. Her acerbic observations were witty and completely spot-on, and I was struck by how obvious it all seemed though I've never heard anyone come out and say those things before. When she went back to Nigeria after so much time away, she had conflicted feelings about the way of life in her homeland. These pieces of the immigrant experience were what made the strongest impressions on me the first time I read it.

Overall Americanah is a love story, and this time I was more focused on the relationship between Ifemelu and Obinze. Their relationship felt real from the very beginning, Ifemelu uncertain about whether he liked her, their small quarrels. When he pressed a copy of Huckleberry Finn on her in an effort to get her to read "proper books," she declared it "unreadable nonsense" and reminded him that she always won at Scrabble. Although they become very close, they allowed themselves to be torn apart. Through a large portion of the book, Ifemelu is in Trenton, NJ having her hair braided, thinking about their past as she prepares to meet him again for the first time in many years. He is married and has a child, so this is not a simple reunion in which they can pick up where they left off. Ifemelu doesn't even know if he will forgive her for how she ended their relationship. It's complicated and messy and I wanted nothing more than for the two of them to find their way back to each other.

Some cultural moments stood out to me as well. In America, a white woman came into the hair salon where Ifemelu sat and asked for braids in her hair, like Bo Derek's in the movie 10. As her stylist got to work, she began talking about her upcoming trip to Africa and how she was preparing by reading books. She criticized Things Fall Apart as "quaint" and says "I've just read this great book, A Bend in the River. It made me truly understand how modern Africa works." She rounded it out by saying "It's just so honest, the most honest book I've read about Africa." This from someone who had not yet been there. The scene made me cringe, and was totally believable. This character was not the only American in the novel to completely overcompensate in a misguided effort to express love for Africa.

When Ifemelu returned to Nigeria she bonded with others who had also lived abroad, and although they had chosen to return home they shared criticisms of their country. Ifemelu worked in an office with two women, one returned from abroad like her, and one who had never left Nigeria. This poor woman felt totally left out when Ifemelu and Doris started making fun of how Nigerians say "I'm pressed" when they need to go to the bathroom. By this point in the book I felt bad for Ifemelu, because it was clear that neither America nor Nigeria seemed like home to her anymore.

When I first wrote about Americanah, I said I thought it would be great for a book group and that still holds true. Obviously I can go on and on about it; I've written two posts so far and there's still more I want to say. Adichie is an incredibly talented storyteller who is observant about the world around her and transports her readers with her vivid descriptions and realistically imperfect characters. If anything I've said about Americanah sounds appealing and you haven't yet read it, I urge you to do so. It's well worth your time.

Americanah

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2013)

In this new novel by the author of Half of a Yellow Sun, a woman named Ifemelu is preparing to return to Nigeria after more than a decade in the U.S. She had left behind her first love, Obinze, and she contacts him to let him know she will be returning. Obinze also left Nigeria at one point, for England, and now he is back in his native country, married and with a child. But he has never forgotten Ifemelu, nor she him. In the U.S. Ifemelu has had her own relationships, including the one she is ending to move back to Nigeria. She has become well-known through her blog Raceteenth or Various Observations About American Blacks (Those Formerly Known as Negroes) by a Non-American Black. The story moves back and forth between present day and the time before Ifemelu left, and from continent to continent.

As the novel begins, Ifemelu is driving from Princeton to Trenton, NJ to have her hair done at the only place around that does African hair braiding. Hair is an oft-visited political theme in the story and effectively illustrates many of Ifemelu's identity struggles. One point she returns to again and again is the difference between Africans and African-Americans. She says, "When you make the choice to come to America, you become black." Until that point she was only Nigerian, but in America she is suddenly classified as black and grouped with people whose experiences are very different from hers. She didn't know the stereotypes or the political nuances of race in the United States and found times when she was "supposed to" be offended but wasn't. It's really fascinating.

Adichie's observations about American life were spot-on without being too critical. Ifemelu had a fascinating conversation with her friend Ginika soon after arriving about the nuances of referring to someone as "thin" versus "slim" and "half-caste" versus "biracial" and how the connotations are different here in the U.S. than how they are perceived in Nigeria. Other characters discuss how everything in America requires a diagnosis, one character remarking: "Everybody is conflicted, identity this, identity that. Somebody will commit murder and say it is because his mother did not hug him when he was three years old."

Later when Ifemelu returns to Africa, she is unable to just pick up where she left off. America has changed her. She has different tastes and has become used to a different lifestyle, making integration in her homeland tougher than she anticipated. She befriends a coworker who has also recently returned from the U.S. and they bond over their shared experiences, even going so far as to make fun of how Nigerians talk.

There was much to love even aside from the observations about race and immigration. I loved Ifemelu and Obinze and the other characters, and thought that Adichie did a wonderful job of fleshing them out and making them seem real. Additionally, she added many details that made the story seem so very present (as with Half of a Yellow Sun). There's a scene near the end that takes place in Nigeria, in which Ifemelu and Obinze stop at a roadside hawker to buy plantains and something about that scene was incredibly transportive. Have you ever been to another country and noticed how even the smells and sounds and lights are somehow different and strange but exciting? That's kind of what that scene was like. Adichie writes many scenes that feel vivid and immediate like that.

Some reviews found Americanah a bit too polished, and I guess I can see what they mean, but I still enjoyed it immensely. No, it's not like Half of a Yellow Sun, but it can't be - this isn't a war-torn setting, there's no death or destruction. Yellow Sun was pretty raw and dramatic, but it was about war and Americanah is simply a different sort of book. Coming in at close to 500 pages, I think it could have been a bit shorter but I didn't struggle to get through it at all. I couldn't put it down, and read it in just a few days. There's a lot to discuss about it, and many passages I thought were especially clever. What a great choice it would be for a book group.