Book Club discussion

This is a book that I really throughly did not enjoy.

The book hasn't really got a plot. Ifemelu goes abroad, spends some time abroad and then decides it's time to go home, much of this is told through flashback. There's no suspense, nothing revealed in the plot. Also, Obinze has a mini arc but it is barely formed. (For practical purposes they are the same person, to be discussed later.)

That's not necessarily bad, it's a book about characters!

Well, yes and no, it's a book with what seems like a million characters, but they are all flat 2D characters. The narrator connects with absolutely no one (other than Dike). Instead each other character serves to represent a worldview that the narrator has rejected. For it is the narrator who has ventured into the world, but now must suffer all its fools who cannot see what fools they are. A brief sampling of these characters:

Anty Uju: Anty Uju represents grift and desperation, she also seems to represent the lack of ambition of certain people from Ifemeulu's home coutnry that she seeks to criticize. When we first meet her, she is the concubine of Nigerian "Big Man." As concubine she has surrendered her status and power to this man. When this man dies she is forced to flee, with Dike, her infant son, to America. In America she repeats the patern of looking "Big Man" which in America is just a lowly accountant who doesn't value her either. Aunty Uju freely gives up who she is, her story is most important for the impact that it has on Dike.

Ginika: Ifemelu's friend who has settled in America. She is physically changed by America, being "much thinner" when Ifemelu see's her again, looking like an "exotic animal." Ginika's difference is a physical manifestation of the ills that adapting to American culture can have on people. Ginika's friends also all act in a "choreographed" manner, further telling the psycological toll that trying to fit -n in America can bring upon a person. Further it is Ginika who points out "you're supposed to pretend you don't notice certain things." Notably, she says this aloud, notihng in the plot takes us there, we're led to dismiss her and see the error of her ways through the aforementioned physical and mentioned deterioration. This theme of moral judgements based on physical charateristics or apperances is pervasive in the nove, for examplel: "he walked with too much rhytm in his step, which suggested a certain fickleness of character. A man not worth paying attention to." But it's more prevalent in the theme of hair and Ifemelu's visiting a hair parlour to start the novel. Using articial chemicals to tame one's hair is the metaphore for America, shiny, bland, atificial conformity.

Kimberly: aka Karen. Is kind to Ifemelu, but is considered callous in her kindess. Ignorant in her inability to understand what she does not understand. When she tries to be accomodating she is "sheer in her yieldingness" When she displays interest it is "aggressive, unaffectionate interest.' Kimberly is irrideemably poisoned by her class, and her classist assumptions of what Ifemelu's life could be like. Because of this she views poverty as an affliction, not as a character failing, but as a beautiful struggle, and similarly she, concious of her race, always reviews people from other races as beautiful, without honestly reflecting on why she says this and unable to recognize that it is the poised fruit of her own oppression that leads her to say such things.

Claire: Aka young Karen, represent the future of Karens, in the words of the narrator she's the shiny falseness of the new american self, spoilt and childish. Aggressive, friendly, nationalist (but denying to be so), knowing.

Curt: Mr Priviledge, basically a version of old and young Karen but sandpapered down enough to be plausible as a date for Ifemelu. The relationship is haunted by the spectre that Curt is only dating her because she is beautiful (à la old Karen) and she is exotic (à la young Karen). Assuming this, that Curt's origin is his destiny and that he cannot be reformed and will never understand Ifemelu their relationship is doomed. The weight of these presumptions hanging over the relationshi drives Ifemelu to cheat on him as a way to exit from the relationship.

Emenike: Is from Obinze's little arc. He's a contemporary of Obinze meant to illustrate the friends who have moved abroad and become "unreliable... hostile versions of their former selves." Emenike also represents, to a reversal of the Aunty Uju idea of finding a "big man" but, instead, he has found himself a "big woman." She is something like a decade older than him, and then novel implies that this means that could not possibly be in real love (one of the many aggressive presumptions which i I could not agree with, but which was none the less presented as fact in the novel). This weakness in Emenike and the fact that he is just looking for a "big man" is further validated at the end of the novel when it is mentioned that Emenike is now reaching out to Obinze to try and get in on some of his business deals. Also during the dinner party Obinze has the impression that Emenike has a "continuous flirtatiousness" with someone rich Philippe. Also, importantly, Emenike considers himself British, he has surrendered his nationality just as with his pride.



Ifemelu & Obinze's romance is predicated on their being on the same level about literature. At points in the novel they offer their interpretation on works of fiction in contrast to the flawed perspective of the above mentioned characters who see the world in the wrong way. In this way, this way they are drawn together because they are the only two who see the world clearly amongst all the other characters in the book (Dike notwithsanding). Obinze is just basically a less outspoken and articulate version of Ifemelu.

Blake: Part of the book where things start to get weird. Blake is the relationship with the African American. Since they are from different places the implication is that the relationship cannot work, they have different views in novels. Blake criticizes her views and challenges her blog writing. Ifemelu ultimately rejects this. But they bond, in a super weird manner over Obama. He's even there when they are intimate.

Shan: Honestly the most baffling character to me. This seems to me like a personal vendetta, or an attack on an actual person, I don't know why else why the person was discredited to such a through degree or why it was worth bringing her up again. She is portrayed by the narrator as driving a wedge between her and Blake, but the wedge was always there and none of this was necessary from a character perspective.

Dike: Represents the decision that Ifemelu makes not to assimilate. He is the physical manifestation of Ifemelu's conciousness. Early in the novel Ifemelu notes "he would have to chose what he was, or rather, what he was would be chose for him." Skipping ahead, maybe the closest to a climax in the plot is that we find out that Dike tried to kill himself. Ifemelu immediately blames Aunty Uju "his depression is because of his experience, Aunty!." Dike could not withstand the battle that Ifemelu won. Ifemelu rejected the americaness and was able to stay true to herself, but Dike was too in-between and the experience was too much to bear, he was neither African nor American. If Ifemelu had submitted to Americaness the same depression would've befallen her.

Then there's a section where Ifemelu and Obinze return to Nigeria and Ifemelu lampoons all the Nigerians who have returned with American habits. The worst, but also kind of funny was her collegue who finishes every sentance with a question mark even when it is clearly not warranted, as America seems to have shattered her confidence and sense of self. Obinze also struggles with leaving his wife, but there's enough time allocated to show that she too is a husk of a person and a shallow opportunist like every person in this novel who is not Ifemelu, Obinze or Dike.

To me, the most telling part of the book was the final paragraph of page 29, I want to quote it, but with the parts of it that dealt with international migration cut out:

"They would not understand the the need to escape the oppressive lethargy of choicelessness. They wold not understand why people... mired in dissatisfaction, conditioned from birth to look towards somewhere else, eternally convinced that real lives happened in that somewhere else were... merely hungry for choice and certainty"

At it's core, it's a true statement, it's a good statement, it shows that the author has a good voice and knows what she's talking about, but she's also blinded herself.

If the cardboard cutout characters weren't unsubtle enough, the novel is full of blog posts that blast out "subtext" of the interactions. This is intentional, there is no need for subltly because it's not like "like life is fucking subtle." Underneath it's glittering surface, America will corrupt you.

The prose isn't bad, This has to be longest thing I've written. So this book has made me think about things. But I can't recommend this book to anyone. I think good novels at their core need to have at least one of a good plot, or to have good characters to show you something. To challenge you. To help you think in ways you didn't before. This book relies too much on taking the narrator the for granted, no real plot challenges the narrator. This to me, made finishing the book a challenge.