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A review by shorshewitch
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
5.0
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
My Rating 5/5
Like all the other wars, the Biafran war was also a war of miseries. Like all the other war stories, Adichie’s story on Nigerian Civil War, set between 1967 and 1970, about everything from circumstances to relationships, about love and deceit, about peace and war, about loss and hope has opened so many more dimensions in my mind about human nature. We are a vivid species. And no matter how principled we think we are, what we do in the face of war, is not something that we would even start to know unless we are faced with the inevitability of it. How easy it is to watch destruction as long as it is far away! The things that had seemed worthless when seen from afar, suddenly start happening around you, and start making so much sense that your whole life changes in seconds! Hunger drives human beings insane. Whatever one can lay a bare hand upon, is cooked and eaten or is sometimes devoured raw when the stomach churns wildly as if the heavens might fall if not fed! And while you are being pushed into oblivion by the calamity, you start knowing yourself more. I am starting to wonder if this is the reason that all the enigmatic and classic literature was written by people who were directly or indirectly affected by the hollowness that the war created inside them.
The story revolves around multiple characters; Divided in four different parts the plot doesn’t just talk about the war. It introduces us to the characters and then spans across the early sixties and the late sixties, the revolution that started it all, the deafening cries of people all over who suffered, Nigerians and Biafrans, everyone suffered. This is a remarkable account that emphasizes that war doesn’t just affect one set of people. It depicts a heinous fact that war and brainless politics are monsters that gobble up everything that lies in their way - humans, animals, ideologies, rules, constitutions, history – anything and everything that has ever affected civilization. The author confirms that the story is fictitious – but the characters may be a work of imagination – the underlying truth of the story isn’t a work of fiction. It is a glaring truth told right in the face of the reader. The style of writing was clear and crisp, the story told through perspectives of Ugwu, a young 13-year old servant who shows immense interest in learning; Olanna, one of the twin sisters, eager to please, kind-hearted, forgiving and Richard; a white man who felt for the country he was so fascinated with that he chose to risk everything to stay there. I would have loved to know the perspectives of some other characters too especially Kainene, Olanna’s fierce, independent, dry-humored and confident twin sister. But in a way I am glad I don’t know the goings of her mind. Keeps the door open for me to put in my own vision of her. A brilliantly written book.
Some quotes that I admired -
"Olanna wished they would; it was such a simple thing to do, to acknowledge the humanity of the people who served them"
"She felt as if there were a mixture of peppers and sand inside them, pricking and burning her lids. It was agony to blink, agony to keep them closed, agony to leave them open."
"The crowd cheered. So did Olanna. She remembered the pro-Independence rallies at university; mass movements always made her feel empowered, the thought that for a thin slice of time all these people were united by a single possibility."
"You must never behave as if your life belongs to a man. Do you hear me?" "Your life belongs to you and you alone, soso gi. "
"When I lost my whole family, every single one, it was as if I had been born all over again," "I was a new person because I no longer had family to remind me of what I had been.""
"She wanted him to cry and cry until he dislodged the pain that clogged his throat, until he rinsed away his sullen grief."
"We never actively remember death," Odenigbo said. "The reason we live as we do is because we do not remember that we will die. We will all die.""
"There are some things that are so unforgivable that they make other things easily forgivable," Kainene said."
"She slapped a fly away from her face and thought how healthy all the flies looked, how alive, how vibrant."
"You needn't imagine. There were photos Displayed in gloss-filled pages of your Life. Did you see? Did you feel sorry briefly, Then turn round to hold your lover or wife?"
"She was strengthened, emboldened, by the madness of grief and she fought off everyone who tried to hold her. "
"If the sun refuses to rise, we will make it rise. "
"Clay pots fired in zeal, they will cool our feet as we climb"
"He wanted to clean. He wanted to scrub furiously. He feared, though, that it would change nothing. Perhaps the house was stained to its very foundation and that smell of something long dead and dried would always cling to the rooms and the rustle of rats would always come from the ceiling. "
"You're burning memory," he told her. "I am not." She would not place her memory on things that strangers could barge in and take away. "My memory is inside me.""
My Rating 5/5
Like all the other wars, the Biafran war was also a war of miseries. Like all the other war stories, Adichie’s story on Nigerian Civil War, set between 1967 and 1970, about everything from circumstances to relationships, about love and deceit, about peace and war, about loss and hope has opened so many more dimensions in my mind about human nature. We are a vivid species. And no matter how principled we think we are, what we do in the face of war, is not something that we would even start to know unless we are faced with the inevitability of it. How easy it is to watch destruction as long as it is far away! The things that had seemed worthless when seen from afar, suddenly start happening around you, and start making so much sense that your whole life changes in seconds! Hunger drives human beings insane. Whatever one can lay a bare hand upon, is cooked and eaten or is sometimes devoured raw when the stomach churns wildly as if the heavens might fall if not fed! And while you are being pushed into oblivion by the calamity, you start knowing yourself more. I am starting to wonder if this is the reason that all the enigmatic and classic literature was written by people who were directly or indirectly affected by the hollowness that the war created inside them.
The story revolves around multiple characters; Divided in four different parts the plot doesn’t just talk about the war. It introduces us to the characters and then spans across the early sixties and the late sixties, the revolution that started it all, the deafening cries of people all over who suffered, Nigerians and Biafrans, everyone suffered. This is a remarkable account that emphasizes that war doesn’t just affect one set of people. It depicts a heinous fact that war and brainless politics are monsters that gobble up everything that lies in their way - humans, animals, ideologies, rules, constitutions, history – anything and everything that has ever affected civilization. The author confirms that the story is fictitious – but the characters may be a work of imagination – the underlying truth of the story isn’t a work of fiction. It is a glaring truth told right in the face of the reader. The style of writing was clear and crisp, the story told through perspectives of Ugwu, a young 13-year old servant who shows immense interest in learning; Olanna, one of the twin sisters, eager to please, kind-hearted, forgiving and Richard; a white man who felt for the country he was so fascinated with that he chose to risk everything to stay there. I would have loved to know the perspectives of some other characters too especially Kainene, Olanna’s fierce, independent, dry-humored and confident twin sister. But in a way I am glad I don’t know the goings of her mind. Keeps the door open for me to put in my own vision of her. A brilliantly written book.
Some quotes that I admired -
"Olanna wished they would; it was such a simple thing to do, to acknowledge the humanity of the people who served them"
"She felt as if there were a mixture of peppers and sand inside them, pricking and burning her lids. It was agony to blink, agony to keep them closed, agony to leave them open."
"The crowd cheered. So did Olanna. She remembered the pro-Independence rallies at university; mass movements always made her feel empowered, the thought that for a thin slice of time all these people were united by a single possibility."
"You must never behave as if your life belongs to a man. Do you hear me?" "Your life belongs to you and you alone, soso gi. "
"When I lost my whole family, every single one, it was as if I had been born all over again," "I was a new person because I no longer had family to remind me of what I had been.""
"She wanted him to cry and cry until he dislodged the pain that clogged his throat, until he rinsed away his sullen grief."
"We never actively remember death," Odenigbo said. "The reason we live as we do is because we do not remember that we will die. We will all die.""
"There are some things that are so unforgivable that they make other things easily forgivable," Kainene said."
"She slapped a fly away from her face and thought how healthy all the flies looked, how alive, how vibrant."
"You needn't imagine. There were photos Displayed in gloss-filled pages of your Life. Did you see? Did you feel sorry briefly, Then turn round to hold your lover or wife?"
"She was strengthened, emboldened, by the madness of grief and she fought off everyone who tried to hold her. "
"If the sun refuses to rise, we will make it rise. "
"Clay pots fired in zeal, they will cool our feet as we climb"
"He wanted to clean. He wanted to scrub furiously. He feared, though, that it would change nothing. Perhaps the house was stained to its very foundation and that smell of something long dead and dried would always cling to the rooms and the rustle of rats would always come from the ceiling. "
"You're burning memory," he told her. "I am not." She would not place her memory on things that strangers could barge in and take away. "My memory is inside me.""