Every Day is for the Thief, by Teju Cole

9780812995787
Random House, 2014
163 pp

hardcover

"All people who are far from home have something they hold on to."

Every Day is for the Thief is a story related by a young Nigerian man currently living in New York who has returned to Lagos after an absence of fifteen years.  As this unnamed narrator  notes,  “It feels longer still because I left under a cloud.”  The story behind that cryptic remark  is left nearly until the end. In the meantime,  as he's being driven,  rides on a bus, or walks throughout the city, he notices things at  particular moments that capture his attention and weaves it into his own narrative about the issues he finds facing people there and how the people have just sort of let things happen.  He also considers whether or not he could seriously live here again, especially considering that now he's gazing at his "home" (an ambiguous concept in this book) through the eyes of someone who's been away for so long. The book is structured in a series of vignettes, linked together partially through the discoveries he makes,  partially by the narrator's "inquiry into what it was I longed for all those times I longed for home, " and by his search in this city for hope for its people's future.  I couldn't put this book down -- I was so wrapped up in the city of Lagos that I read this book in one sitting.

His tale begins even before he leaves New York City, where he runs up against corruption and bribery in the Nigerian consulate office while trying to get a new Nigerian passport.  Then once he's in the city and on the way home from the airport, the sight of two policemen arguing over bribe territory on a roundabout sparks a discussion about " 'the informal economy' of Lagos" found everywhere, a thread that reappears throughout the novel.  The view into the gorge from the back porch of his aunt's house takes him back to his past when the gorge was "pristine;" now it's set for housing developments where "white satellite television dishes" cling to the houses "like barnacles."  Internet cafes are everywhere, as are young men who sit and write those emails that turn up in my spam folder from time to time, the 419 scams which are against the law but still flourish.  A chance glance on a bus at a woman reading a novel by Michael Ondaatje brings up discussion about the low Nigerian literacy rate, and the fact that "literary habits are inculcated in very few of the so-called literate."   And there's much more.  There are also some wonderful but often--perplexing photographs which record some of these moments -- and set them down for all to see and to remember.  

One of the main themes  seems to be the idea that people in this country tend have little connection to their national/cultural/historical past. History goes "uncontested" these days in this city where "one has to forget about yesterday," and focus on the needs of the now.    A visit to the CSS Bookshop, a childhood destination, where in the only part of the store there is more than one customer, yields "reiterations of a few themes" including quick money making, discovering God's plan for life, or "how to live a healthy, wealthy, and victorious life" according to the Pentecostal Church.    There is no section for the works of Nigeria-based writers, no "international literary fiction," and an "absence" of poets.   Then, when the narrator visits the National Museum, a "memorial touchstone" for him, he is appalled by a "pitiful" archaeological collection,  "gaps" in the artifact collections, mildewed  plaques that provide texts that are "sycophantic, inaccurate,uncritical,"  leaving him with the idea that "History, which elsewhere is a bone of contention, has yet to enter the Nigerian public consciousness, at least judging by institutions like the museum.”  All is not darkness though:  he does find a couple of places from which hope might spring, places where creativity abounds.

Before I bought it, I saw that there was some sort of controversy as to whether or not this book should be considered to be a novel. It does read like a month-long travel experience, and  there is not really a plot or character development, but if the author says it's fiction,  what's all the fuss?  This was a non-issue for me (since I'm just a casual reader and not a critic)  -- I read it as a fictional novel with a whole lot of truths  to be told, as the narrator's disillusioned "love affair" with the city.

  There are a number of reasons I like Every Day is for the Thief besides the fact that it offers a look at a place I'm never going to be and a place I've been interested in reading about for years because of  how the oil companies have changed this country  and because of the environmental issues.  The main one is that I'm walking away from this book with the idea that there is a lot of life and excitement to be found in Lagos despite  the negatives, which are generally what the media covers.   The narrator notes that the city is a place of "a million untold stories," where "There is no end of fascinations."   But I also believe that the author is  angered or dismayed by the attitudes that have helped  the city (and the country) to become what it is now, and that this book is a vehicle through which he can express both views.

I'd recommend it to people who are interested in Nigeria (like myself); to people who are interested in urban culture, and to people who want something very different in terms of fiction writing.  

Foreign Gods, Inc., by Okey Ndibe

9781616953133
Soho, 2014
336 pp

arc from the publisher -- thank you!

New this month, Foreign Gods, Inc. is definitely an original.  The premise is very different, the writing is first class, and frankly, even the ending is unlike anything I've ever seen before.  It's the story of one African immigrant for whom the dream has become a veritable nightmare -- and the unorthodox way in which he tries to remedy things for himself.  

Ikechukwu "Ike" Uzandu  (pronounced "Ee-kay") has been in New York for thirteen years.  Coming here from Nigeria, he earned a degree (cum laude) in economics from Amherst College, which he thought would be his ticket to a prosperous life.  Where once he used to believe that "America offers great opportunities,"  during a job interview at a prestigious firm,  he is basically told that the company would love to have him, but his accent is too strong so he won't be getting a job there.  Two job interviews later, where he was also well qualified but without proper authorization to work in the US, he married Bernita, aka Queen B, but quickly learned that

" a man chasing simultaneously after love and a green card had to contend with the elusiveness of the ideal spouse." 

His marriage, one he'd never revealed to his mother, didn't last long -- Bernita had demands for his money that didn't quit, and because he tried to keep her satisfied,  quickly ran out of money to send home to his family.  Constant fighting, his own mental emasculation and her constant demands for cash to fill her closets lead Ike into gambling a year after moving to New York City, but this "brings him only sorrow."  Bernita eventually leaves, taking Ike's savings with her. Now, as the novel opens, Ike has hit on a way to make some desperately needed cash -- his plan is to return to his Nigerian home, steal the local war deity named Ngene, for whom his uncle is the chief priest.  He'd read an article about a gallery some time earlier called Foreign Gods., Inc, a place where people traded in deities.  At first, "the idea of a few wealthy individuals buying so-called foreign gods and sacred objects didn't sit well," and the  "sport" was the "height of arrogance." However, his  friend put the idea of stealing Ngene into Ike's head saying that a) it really wasn't needed there since there were no wars; b) if it were to come to America it could "enter the oppressive system and fight the power," and c) a revolution was needed.  Ike continued to read the article until his "initial disgust disappears," and realizes that perhaps there is a way Ngene can do him some good -- he'll sell it to Foreign Gods Inc. From the catalog listing the inventory of a by-invitation-only room of the gallery called "Heaven," he sees that gods are going for unbelievable prices -- on the low end about 172 thousand, moving to the high end of over a million dollars.  Selling his god will change his life -- or so he believes. With a maxed-out credit card, borrowed money and the dream of future riches to solve all of his problems, he leaves for Nigeria.

The book is really good in  terms of the examination of immigrant experience, but the best parts of this novel take place in the small Nigerian village that is Ike's home. A reader can lose himself/herself here, caught up in the people who inhabit this place. It is a place where corruption abounds; where the capitalist present and traditional past meet head to head; where Christianity is in conflict with local religious tradition and divides the locals, even within families.   It is a place where so much has changed while Ike's been gone that people from his past are hardly recognizable in the way he remembers them, and not always for the better. It's a place where everyone assumes that just because Ike is in America, he's living the dream.  It is also a place with its own "foreign gods," who hold out promises of their own for those who dream of something better, as in one scene where Michael Jordan becomes a deity in his own right.  As crazy as this entire story is, it is definitely the Nigerian characters and their colorful language  who make Foreign Gods, Inc. the wonderful novel it turns out to be, especially Ike, who clearly has a foot in both worlds.  They range from the scamming church pastor to Ike's uncle and Ngene's chief priest,  to Ike's mother who is worried that Ike will be possessed by demons by hanging out with said uncle, and Ike's first love, whose life turned out so badly that he hardly recognizes her.   Thematically, this is a rich book -- well beyond being just another take on the immigrant experience, there's much to say here about art, about conflict (especially inner conflict within a troubled and divided soul), about religion, about the importance of the past and tradition vs. the modern world; you also get a look at the very male-oriented culture in this country, the colonial aspects, and there's also quite a lot in here about the power of stories. The river is also ever present throughout this book, as a source of life, power and conflict.

I loved this story with its  conflicted main character who faces a number of  obstacles before he can reach his intended goal.  However, the strange but highly appropriate ending is unlike anything I've experienced before -- seriously, it was almost at the edge of surreal, something along the lines of  the bizarre endings in novels of many works of  weird fiction I've read.  Its abruptness immediately leaves pause for the reader to conjure in his or her head exactly what's going on here, and it's a stunner.  Foreign Gods, Inc. is a novel I highly, highly recommend, one that casual readers like myself can fully enjoy.  It's a book that I know is going to stay with me a very long time.

*We Need New Names, by NoViolet Bulawayo

9780316250810
Reagan Arthur Books/Little Brown & Company/Hachette
292 pp

hardcover
(read in June)

"... a country is a Coca-Cola bottle that can smash on the floor and disappoint you.”

Rarely, and I do mean rarely, does a novel come along that actually moves me like this one.  Skipping right to the chase, READ THIS BOOK.   Between the stories in this novel and the creative, dynamic  use of language, it was easy sometimes to feel as if I was an onlooker rather than merely a reader looking into other people's lives. It's also a timely read ... at the end of this month, elections are scheduled once again in Zimbabwe, and Robert Mugabe, in power since 1980, is once again a candidate. 

The novel is divided into two parts, the first set in Zimbabwe and the second in the US.  The central focus is on a character named Darling, a young girl who lives with her mother in a tin shack in an area ironically named Paradise. It hadn't always been so -- until their entire neighborhood of brick homes was razed out of the blue by bulldozers whose operators were protected by the police, she and her family had lived a good life until they were displaced due to policies set in motion by the country's ruler.  Displacement is a major theme in this novel, which also deals also with the concept of  identity as people move away from their homes -- in Darling's case, to the United States -- and the ties that keep them connected to what they've left behind.  The first part of the book is comprised of Darling's observations about her friends, her life, and what it's like living in a country where poverty, political corruption and betrayal of a cause are day-to-day realities, while the second part takes Darling to the US, where she lives with her aunt's family and can't return to Zimbabwe because of her visa.
 
 This is not an easy novel to read on an emotional level. Darling and her friends are hungry and fill their empty bellies by strolling through more affluent neighborhoods and stealing guavas, or finding things to sell.  The schools have closed down, the teachers have all left, attracted by better pay in other countries, and this group of kids spend their days roaming around, playing often bizarre games and observing what's going on all around them. But for Darling, there's a way out -- she is able to make it to the US to the home of her aunt.  Her observations about what it takes to fit into this alien culture reveal painful adjustments and provide a way for Darling to examine her Zimbabwe life, but as time goes on, she comes to the painful realization that while she can stay connected with people in Zimbabwe via the internet and phone, she finds it harder and harder to stay connected with them on a more meaningful level: 

"It's hard to explain, this feeling; it's like there's two of me. One part is yearning for my friends; the other doesn't know how to connect with them anymore, as if they are people I've never met. I feel a little guilty but I brush the feeling away."

While she tries to fit in with her new friends and her new life, she constantly alters different aspects of her outward life while remaining an honest observer of what's going on all around her in her new home.  A lot of it, plainly and simply, is not pretty, either  in her native home or the one she's come to.

There's so much more to this book that but above all, the language the author employs here makes you feel less like a reader and more of an onlooker. There are some sections in this novel  that are incredibly difficult to read, but the ugly realities are not the main focus here -- it's more a case of living in altered realities at particular moments in time and how people adapt -- and the costs of doing so.    For me, the first part of this novel absolutely sings and stuns at the same time -- and though the second half continues Darling's astounding honesty in her observations, for the most part I just didn't find it as compelling as the scenes in Zimbabwe.  I also have to admit to being worried about the author choosing a young girl as the voice of her narrative, but believe me, I was relieved to discover that there's no young adult feel to this book at all -- on the contrary, this is very mature territory.

Super book, and highly recommended.  Funny, but the reviewers who gave this book low ratings seemed to have missed the entire point -- as in this one from Amazon: "Another "poverty African" story to appease Western tastes." Obviously this person has no clue.  

Philida, by André Brink

9781846557040
Harvill Secker, 2012
310 pp

[also available in paperback:
9780345805034
Vintage]

"This whole land is built on our sweat and our blood."  

This novel was longlisted for the 2012 Booker Prize, and I finally found it again after having lost it for months.  Don't ask...the lack of shelf space for my books is reaching critical mass so books tend to get buried around here. Anyway, I'm happy to have read it, and even happier to have discovered André Brink  as an author.  Philida is a work of historical fiction, based on a real person in his family's history who worked as a knitting girl on the Brink family farm Zandvliet from 1824 to 1832.  In the acknowledgments section of his novel, Brink notes that

"The discovery that her master Cornelis Brink was a brother of one of my own direct ancestors, and that he sold her at auction after his son Francois Gerhard Jacob Brink had made four children with her..."

was the catalyst for his story. This re-imagined Philida is no ordinary slave; as the novel opens she's on her way to lodge a complaint against Francois who, after fathering four children with her,  had promised to buy her freedom.  He, of course, has no power to free her, since Philida is the property of his father.  She makes the trek to see the Slave Protector to air her grievances, a journey that will ultimately have consequences not only for Philida, but for others in her life as well.  

Told via alternating perspectives with chapter headings that read like something from Dickens,  the story begins in1832; by now the rumors are rampant that the British will soon be freeing the South African slaves. Philida is well aware of this fact, as are the other slaves and their masters. Philida also has a very keen sense of what it is to be a slave, noting "I am never the one to decide where to go and when to go. It’s always they, it’s always somebody else. Never I," and realizes that she is a "piece of knitting that is knitted by somebody else." Throughout this story, she is looking to find out who she when the word "slave" is set aside, as well as where she really belongs.  The author returns repeatedly to this knitting motif, in terms of planning and patterning, unraveling and starting over again, important  in Philida's quest to "get to the right place," where you "pick up the wrong stitches and you knit them right," for a "beautiful piece of knitting that is perfect." It takes her some time, but ultimately she will come to understand that she first has to learn where she doesn't belong before finding the place where she does. How she comes to this realization makes up most of this novel.

The book makes for compelling reading, and while the horrors of slavery are certainly included in the narrative, they are there without the sensationalism that is usually present. And while this may sound a little weird, while I had absolutely zero sympathy for the key players in the Brink family (Cornelis, Francois and especially Mrs. Brink), the use of changing points of view helps to provide perspective from their side -- not just in terms of a lack of humanity but also in the bigger economic and cultural picture of an uncertain future.  The story also focuses on the power of stories, as well as connections to the land.  Sometimes I'll admit that Philida's philosophizing got tiring, and I also found that in some spots the way she spoke was more eloquent and refined than it probably should have been.  For me, the knitting analogy was just a wee bit overdone and a bit obvious, although I get that from Philida's point of view, it was a way for her to express herself.  However, I liked this book.  From a casual reader's perspective, it's an easy read, although for some readers there are certain scenes and depictions that may be tough going in an emotional sense. This is not your usual novel about slavery, by any means, and  I'd definitely urge you to give it a try. 

fiction from South Africa