Half of the sun chapters 25 & 26

Hello Bookworms,

Sorry to have wandered off from this blog in the past few weeks. I have been reading...just very busy!

So onto the story. I really like this book and find it very descriptive and well written but also quite depressing. The writer has a way of putting you in this story so does anyone else actually start to feel anxious or nervous at parts? I do, maybe I just get that engaged in her writings. My stomach would tense up whenever an air raid would start to occur, hoping everyone makes it to the bomb shelter. I can't even imagine what this life would be like. To be scared just to go to school is beyond me. Life shouldn't be like this. I of course keep being reminded of the war happening right now as I read this but I won't go into Mr. Bushs war because that's a whole other can of worms!

So in chapter 25 we are basically experiencing through words what it's like to live in fear. Baby is very sick but seems to pull through once they discover the dried egg yolk (yuk) and it gives Olanna a bit of relief. Speaking of Olanna, this chapter focuses around her trips to the relief center and just how hard it is for everyone. How they run out of food and sometimes it's a sad trip for nothing. She fortunately runs into that young man from the airport whose mother she calmed down. He seems to help her out with food, which is one positive aspect of this sad trek she makes each day.

In the next chapter, things get even more tense. The school is attacked so Olanna, the mother and Ugwu start teaching in the back yard. I really like how strong and determined Olanna becomes. She won't let anything stop her from teaching ideas she feels passionate about. Also more tragedy occurs when Odenigbos mother dies from trying to get salt. That really blew me away, to die just for trying to get salt?? something so simple that we have everyday. This book makes me feel extremely blessed. So to end the chapter Odenigbo drives off to bury her and leaves Olanna worried and scared for him.

What do you think will happen next? Do you think Odenigbo will die? I honestly hope not because I don't think Olanna needs any more pain in her life. Also do you think love will ever happen for Ugwu....;p? It seems he is always falling for girls that don't like him back. Also I find it interesting all the sexual references....or just flat out having sex. I wonder why she focuses on that as much as she does...hmmm.

Share your thoughts friends! Enjoy your weekend :)

chapters 18-24

hi bookclub friends.

so much is revealed in this portion of the book, and we finally get some answers to the questions we've been posing here. abigail, lisa: your insights were right on!

to me, this portion of the book centered around secrets, betrayals, and turmoil. the characters' lives are falling apart as the political situation worsens.

in chapters 17 and 18, the setting is still the late sixties and war feels imminent. olanna's parents are fleeing to cameroon and exercise their privilege by doing so. others who do not have the money or connections are left without this choice. still, odenigbo and olanna stay despite the fact that they continue to be pushed back first to abba and then to umiuahia. they continue to be hopeful (or in denial) and eventually they find themselves in the middle of an air raid on their wedding day.

the turmoil of this day seems to mirror the troubles in their relationship (we soon learn that both odenigbo and olanna had affairs). it was interesting to me that the author chooses to revisit olanna's dislike of fake flowers on her wedding day. i feel like the author's emphasis on this must be important. did you notice this? what did you think about? it made me think back to a quote on page 233-234 where olanna was thinking about why she and odenigbo were not married yet.

"It had made sense to her, the decision not to marry, the need to preserve what they had by wrapping it in a shawl of difference. But the old framework that fit her ideals was gone now that Arize and Aunty Ifeka and Uncle Mbaezi would always be frozen faces in her album."

"preserve what they had by wrapping it in a shawl of difference"...i really love that line.

chapters 19-24 take place in the early sixties and we quickly find out why baby refers to olanna as mummy ola instead of mummy.

in chapters 19 and 20, adiche writes about deceptions: ugwu wanting to give nnesinachi tear gas and mama scheming for an heir by giving odenigbo palm wine and encouraging (yes?) amala to go to his room, richard and olanna. superstitions play a major role in these chapters, too, as ugwu tries to come to terms with why odenigbo would betray olanna. he becomes convinced that mama went to the dibia. he looks for signs and omens...the flies, mama rubbing something on amala's back.

i felt so sorry for amala throughout this section. how she is down on all fours crawling around the garden eating hot peppers because she doesn't want the baby, how she seems so depressed and miserable in the hospital and doesn't want to eat.

the other quote that stood out to me was on page 313:

"Amala mumbled something. Finally she turned her face toward them and Olanna looked at her: a plain village girl curled up on the bed as if she were cringing from one more furious blow from life. She never once looked at Odenigbo. What she must feel for him was an awed fear. Whether or not Mama had told her to go to his room, she had not said no to Odenigbo because she not even considered that she could say no. Odengibo made a drunken pass and she submitted willingly and promptly: He was the master, he spoke English, he had a car. It was the way it should be."

and then there is olanna and richard's affair and the ways in which all of the characters deal with the truth. so much to talk about here.

what were your thoughts?

ch. 14-17 - marching towards war

i don't know about you, but i read these chapters faster. impending doom. i the pace was quicker. shorter sentences. people keep saying war is not coming but it feels like a false hope. an empty hope. a prayful hope.

so in ch. 14 richard is once again the bumbling white guy in africa. no gifts for nnaemeka's family... at this point i think i actually feel sorry for him because i think he does actually care for the igbo, and kainene and his life there, but he just always gets it wrong. to be perfectly honest, i should admit that part of me is actually happy to see the colonialist portrayed as the outsider. i like the part where he admints to kainene "i'm going on. life is the same. I should be reacting; thisngs should be different" [UM YEAH] p. 210

i also felt totally absorbed and involved in the political rally. again so much hope - perhaps just knowing that it would end in doom - it felt so sad. i had a hard time reading the words : Give us guns! There is anger in our hearts! it's so hard to stop the war/hate machine once it gets going. people just line up - one by one - like the tanks i'm pinning in the above image. no one is really asking questions. no one is challenging their leaders. even olanna and odenigbo - educated professors. [although olanna does anger at odenigbo for his treatment of adebayo - pg. 219] it makes me think about the current political process in my country. [whole other topic].

and ugwu. he just keeps evolving, no? pg. 221 when he lies to his aunty about having her find him a wife. but really he will spend years and years reading books before he does.

and then it comes. the evacuation. when i was a kid i used to lie in bed thinking about what i would stuff into a garbage bag if there was a fire. but olanna and odenigbo and ugwu have been living with blinders on. not prepared. i really felt the dazement and confusion and the scurrying here. pg. 224-225

SO WHAT IS GOING ON between kainene, olanna, richard and odenigbo? something something something. there are so many clues - but nothing has been explained. it's like the confusion of the war is our confusion when it comes to their personal lives.

i feel as though at this point i'm really pondering how damaged everyone has become. or those who have escaped true fear and sadness thus far and how they might just be walking up to their own "damage". can you substitute the idea of growth? meaning could it actually be good to be exposed to killing, death, books - because they make you change who you are - for better or for worse.

i'm still fascinated with how a greater event is being told through a microcosm. a single family and their relations. i have to say it reminded me of how ken burns approaches his documentaries. we learn of individuals and through them get a glimpse - much more personal - of a larger history.....

and you? what are you thinking about?

waiting for chapter #'s

hi all...

so the british book has different page #'s from my version - so i'm waiting to hear form abigail about chapters so i don't accidentally overlap. i have a pretty good idea, but i want to be sure....

my thoughts on the next section soon!

Part Two {the late sixties} pages 119 -163...

Part two begins with the prefix, the late Sixties...so at this point, we know we have made a considerable jump forward in time. From being so engrossed in the slow and steady development of relationships - Olanna and Odenigbo, Olanna and Ugwu, Kainene and Richard - this has lulled us into a certain sense of finely tuned interest. To suddenly make this jump in time, knowing how much I had missed, made me feel a little funny, like something had really happened...something we will find out about later on perhaps {but something that definitely needed to be glossed over right now in order for us to concentrate on what was about to happen now}? It does not seem the writers style not to tell us all the little details after all. We will see....

We begin with Ugwu being at home on a visit - showing us starkly how much he has changed and has left his old life behind. I feel very strongly that he is embarrassed and ashamed by it...certainly, turned off by it. Considering his interest and pride in food and it's preparation...this paragraph spoke volumes to me...


"His mother's food was unpalatable. The vegetables were overcooked, the cornmeal was too lumpy, the soup too watery, and the yam slices coarse from being boiled without a dollop of butter. He could not wait to get back to Nsukka and finally eat a real meal" p. 119


...so interesting this, considering when he first came to Nsukka, it was his involvement with his mother and her cooking that made him think he could make and provide good meals for his Master. I had mixed feelings when his sister, Anulika, gave him a dressing down a few pages later too...

"You have forgotten where you came from, and now you have become so foolish you think you are a Big Man" p. 121

I wondered if this drew parallels with Odenigbo and his Mother...how she might feel about her son, who has left home, changed so much and become a Big Man? The forgetting, or feeling ashamed of the roots that are so essential to their lives seems to be a big theme.....

I find the way the chapters have gotten shorter and shorter as the book goes on {after the first enormously long chapters at the beginning} is a really fantastic tool to portray the quickening of the pace in the story - the rapid political and personal changes that take place over these pages. How things can end so quickly.

As with many of the chapters, parallels are drawn between Ugwu and Olanna - with her trip to see her family in Kano following up Ugwu's. Her difference, sense of 'other', and slight awkwardness at being in this place where she does not quite fit..not for want of trying, but because her experiences have changed her irreversibly. What later kicks off in Kano, with the massacre of Olannas family {the people she feels closest to in the world after Odenigbo} is truly awful...and with the terrible knowledge of seeing the sights she has seen, it is natural to see Olanna fall into something from which we don't yet know if she will recover. The Black Swoops...these made me think of the magic and superstition Lisa mentioned before...especially this line....

"A thick blanket descended from above and pressed itself over her face, firmly, while she struggled to breathe." p. 156

...this giving of action and purpose to objects seems magical and superstitious to me. This description of feelings and emotions as articles and actions, rather than cause and effect per se....does that make sense? Like a slightly different take on things?...

The political situation is now escalating, and everything has a sense of uncertainty and fear.

Even Richard and Kainene are touched by this, with Richard viewing the killings at the airport, only escaping because he is white, and, for the first time - really having to come face to face with the reality of his mixed race relationship and what that might mean...the difficulties it may cause. I thought it was so sad when what hit him the most about the killings was that he knew if Kainene had been with him, he would not have been able to protect her.

..this also made me think about his character. Perhaps about his lack of backbone....does this mean he would have not tried to protect her? Would he have laid down his life to try and save her? I felt this may be the real reason he is upset...he knows he would not, or could not??

By this point - I felt fairly sure that something has happened between the two of them...something damaging. That they are just getting over something. What that something is, I am fairly sure we will find out about later on. The note Richard saved from Kainene gives a glimpse into the more tender side of their odd relationship....
" Is love this misguided need to have you beside me most of the time? Is love this safety I feel in our silences? Is it this belonging, this completeness?" p. 150

...I also felt, this writing by Kainene, so direct and beautiful had something behind it too - as Richard is a writer, and not the best one either. Almost, perhaps, a sense of 'anything you can do...I can do better'? I don't know....but it made me wonder that she wrote it, rather than said it, when she is all about words...cutting, precise and calculated words....usually spoken.

One more thing - in a sea of hundreds of things I could pick out - is it odd that Baby calls Olanna 'Mummy Ola' and not just 'Mummy'? I am interested in whether 'Baby' {not having a name} and this 'Mummy Olanna' title, may be a cultural thing, or something more deeply rooted in the story...again, something to become untangled and clearer later on. The fact that a baby is here alone is a big deal, and one that has gone unexplained.

So! What did you think of this section?...it covered so, so much, right? I know for me, this is a book I have had to put down for a few days in between chapters {through necessity rather than choice} and have been able to pick it up and be right back in to it straight away....no need for me to scan back through the pages - every detail seems to go in, my mind does not wander when I read each page as it sometimes can when you are reading. I really like that escapist aspect of it.....

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this and if you had any insights into the few questions I have raised here :)

Wishing you all a good weekend...and happy reading,
xo

Half Of A Yellow Sun Chapter 5 & 6

Hello fellow shipmates -

I apologize for this late posting. I have been working on a huge project deadline for the past few months and now it's finally over. Despite my busy state, I simply have not been able to put this book down. I am not sure whether it's just been the right type of book that my brain was craving or whether it's just a subject that is just really fascinating to me. I have to admit that I am sorely ignorant of African politics and history. This book has really made me want to read up more. I like that Adiche not only gets you emotionally involved with the characters but also the world and times that they live in.

I quite like Olanna..... As Abigail mentioned in a comment in Ash's post, I do feel that Olanna is a victim of her own physical beauty. Not only is she physically beautiful but she is also smart. Secretly, we envy people who have both these attributes and are threatened by them.

In regards to the altercation between Odenigbo's mother and Olanna, I am leaning more towards Olanna's side. I don't know whether it's a cultural thing but Odenigbo's mother's treatment of her potential daughter-in-law is not unheard or unwritten by others. A matriarchal figure in a society who emphasizes on tribal/social/caste standings will often challenge another female figure who threatens the matriarch's position in the male figure's life.

I actually like how Adiche manages to capture how males and females can react to the same situation in very two different ways:

She felt as if she had somehow failed him and herself by letting his mother's behavior to upset her. She should be above it; she should shrug it off as the ranting of a village woman; she should not be thinking of all the retorts she could have made instead of just standing mutely in the kitchen. But she was upset, and made even more so by Odenigbo's expression, as if he could she was not as high minded as he thought. He was making her feel small and absurdly petulant and worse yet, she suspected he was right. pg 128

Olanna and Kainene's relationship with one another fascinate me. One often has the misconception that twins are closer than other siblings, but these two are currently further apart than strangers on a street. Even worse, being part of the same family but being chasms apart. You feel Olanna's loneliness in this chapter at not having anyone to turn to in her moment of need.

The next chapter talks about Richard. Richard is in a really interesting position, being a white man in an African nation, on the cusp of a political movement. He's in love with the country and Kainene but is somewhat mocked for that genuine feeling. He tries so desperately to somehow fit but he doesn't and the thought bristles at him. But I think what he doesn't realize is that he also hasn't figured out who he is yet, and until he does, no matter where he is, he'll never really fit in anywhere.

It was the look of Okeoma's eyes that worried him the most: a disdainful distrust that made him think of reading somewhere that the African and the European would always be irreconcilable. It was wrong of Okeoma to assume that he was one of those Englishmen who did not give the African the benefit of an equal intelligence. pg 143

He thought of telling her about that day in Wentnor when he hid from Molly and felt, for the first time, the possibility of shaping his own destiny.... They had not planned to have him and, because of that, they had raised him as an afterthought. pg 146

What do you guys think of the first half of the book so far? Any characters or things that have peaked your interest?