HALF OF A YELLOW SUN: August 2011 Un-schedule

[Melissa_W Moderator]

Sort of like an un-birthday   Because we have different people at different points in the book, I'm not going to stipulate certain weeks for discussion.  It would get crazy.  I will have a thread for each of the four sections of the book and everyone can comment where appropriate.

For those who are curious, Half of a Yellow Sun is available stateside as a trade paperback (and

ebook )

[chadadanielleKR]

Since there is another book from Chimanda Ngozi Adichie in my little local library (in French) I read it also and enjoyed it very much: Purple Hibiscus.It might be not as brilliant as Half of a yellow Sun but it is definitely worth reading.

I also recommend  it because since it is an earlier book, it better puts the second one "Half of a yellow Sun" in perspective and gives the reader more information about Nigeria, which is, by the way, one of the most heavily populated country in Africa.

The style is the same but the historical setting is different (the war is over but many problems remain), the geographical setting is partly the same (the university area of Nsukka), the main characters belong to the educated middle class community as well but they are not equally wealthy, the main character is a 15 y old educated young woman and the disruptive element of the story is not war but religion... 

[Peppermill]

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chadadanielleKR wrote:

Since there is another book from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in my little local library (in French) I read it also and enjoyed it very much:  Purple Hibiscus. It might be not as brilliant as Half of a Yellow Sun but it is definitely worth reading.

I also recommend it because since it is an earlier book, it better puts the second one "Half of a Yellow Sun" in perspective and gives the reader more information about Nigeria, which is, by the way, one of the most heavily populated countries in Africa.

The style is the same but the historical setting is different (the war is over but many problems remain), the geographical setting is partly the same (the university area of Nsukka), the main characters belong to the educated middle class community as well but they are not equally wealthy, the main character is a 15 y old educated young woman and the disruptive element of the story is not war but religion... 

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Thanks for that information, Danielle.  (I do see Purple Hibiscus named on the cover of my HYS, now that you have called the book to our attention.)

I am reminded once again of how little I know about African history at I read HYS.

I just took a look at Adichie's Wikipedia entry.  According to it: "Her third book, a collection of short stories titled The Thing Around Your Neck, was published in April 2009."

She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2008, the same year she received her Masters in African studies from Yale University.  She was born in 1977 and will be 34 in September.

It says she lived for awhile in Chinua Achebe's house.  As I was reading tonight, I wondered when Things Fall Apart (1958) and No Longer at Ease (1960) were written.

[Peppermill]

Here are some links of a bit of background searching I just did on Nigeria and Biafra:

Nigeria Wikipedia Entry

"The country is located in West Africaand shares land borderswith the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in the north. Its coast in the south lies on the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean. The three largest and most influential ethnic groups in Nigeria are the Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. In terms of religion Nigeria is roughly split half and half between Muslims and Christians with a very small minority who practice traditional religion.

"The people of Nigeria have an extensive history. Archaeologicalevidence shows that human habitation of the area dates back to at least 9000 BCE.The area around the Benueand Cross Riveris thought to be the original homeland of the Bantu migrantswho spread across most of central and southern Africain waves between the 1st millennium BCE and the 2nd millennium.

"The name Nigeria was taken from the Niger River running through the country. This name was coined by Flora Shaw, the future wife of Baron Lugard, a British colonial administrator, in the late 19th century.

"Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, the seven most populous country in the world, and the most populous country in the world in which the majority of the population is black. It is listed among the "Next Eleven" economies, and is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The economy of Nigeria is one of the fastest growing in the world, with the International Monetary Fund projecting a growth of 9% in 2008 and 8.3% in 2009...."

  Biafra's Flag -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biafra

[Peppermill]

This map shows some of the locations talked about in HYS:

States of Nigeria, there are a total of 36 states in Nigeria and then Abuja, the federal capital territory.

[Peppermill]

Finished HYS this evening.  We did two tough books in a row on this board!

I was impressed with the subtlety of Adichie's portrayals of feelings -- she could show simultaneous almost contradictory feelings as well as any author I recall.

Melissa -- are you going to put up additional threads or should we make all our comments here, since this is already the third week of the month?

[Peppermill]

"Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart   is one of the most popular novels to depict Igbo culture and changes under colonialism."

We read two of Achebe's books several years ago in my f2f book club.  I always remembered the taboo towards twins, so it was fascinating to me that the two key female characters in HYS are fraternal twins.  I have wondered whether this was a statement that the ancient taboo is no longer practiced?

The Wikipedia article on Igbo people is worthy of at least a quick skim.

I truly wish the book itself had included a map that made at least reasonably clear the various settings of the story and gave some sense of the distances between them.

Eventually, trying to not linger any more over the reading, I found it difficult to keep track of the large number of characters and their relationships, let alone the development of their individual personalities across the range of the book, except, of course, for the major characters.  But there were even a fair number of them:  Olanna, Kainenie, Odenigbo, Richard, Baby (Chiamaka), Ugwu, ....

[Peppermill]

Here is the Bight of Bonny mentioned in HYS. 

"The Bight of Bonny (also known as the Bight of Biafra) is a bight off the West African coast, in the easternmost part (beyond the Bight of Benin to the West) of the Gulf of Guinea. It extends from the rive delta of the Niger in the north until it reaches Cape Lopez in Gabon."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bight_of_Bonny

"In geography, bight has two meanings. A bight can be simply a bend or curve in any geographical feature—usually a bend or curve in the line between land and water.

"Alternatively, the term can refer to a large (and often only slightly receding) bay. It is distinguished from a soundby being shallower. Traditionally explorers defined a bight as a bay that could be sailed out of on a single tackin a square-riggedsailing vessel, regardless of the direction of the wind (typically meaning the apex of the bight is less than 25 degrees from the edges)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bight_(geography)

Bight from Merriam-Webster Unabridged:

3 a : a bend or curve especially in a river or a mountain chain; specifically : a bend in a coast forming an open bay b : a bay formed by such a bend <the Bight of Benin> <the Great Australian bight>

"bight." Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (16 Aug. 2011).

The etymology is Old English, i.e., northern Europe, not African.

[Peppermill]

Under the Neem tree.  Might this have been what some of Olanna's teaching conditions were like when she kept teaching after the war had destroyed the classrooms?  There is at least one reference to a neem tree in the first section of the book.  The Google search of images shows that some of these trees are very large.

http://www1.american.edu/ted/neemtree.htm -- I just scanned this, but it seems to suggest that the Neem tree is native to India (perhaps as well as Africa?) and has medicinal and soil restorative properties as well as being long lived, yet fast growing with minimal rainfall (this latter I may have read on another site -- check if you really want to know -- the take-away for me is that the neem is as integral for the setting as oaks or maples would be for mid-Atlantic U.S.).

[Peppermill]

Here is a photo of Kano, Nigeria.  Not sure how meaningful it is, however.

Kano is very much in the north and is where or near where Uncle Mbaezi, Aunty Ifeka, Arize, and Mohammad lived. (p. 39).

[Peppermill]

http://www.encyclopedia.com/video/eqLtVmnsfmc-about-abuja-nigeria.aspx

This almost 10 minute You-tube on Abuja, Nigeria, is very much a best foot forward PR piece.  Yet, it is a fascinating glimpse of the topography and architecture of the capital city.  (Abuja is not  featured in HYS, however.  I just came across this in looking for other possibilities and found it interesting enough to decide to call to our attention.)

[Fozzie]

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Peppermill wrote:

Eventually, trying to not linger any more over the reading, I found it difficult to keep track of the large number of characters and their relationships, let alone the development of their individual personalities across the range of the book, except, of course, for the major characters.  But there were even a fair number of them:  Olanna, Kainenie, Odenigbo, Richard, Baby (Chiamaka), Ugwu, ....

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I could not keep track of the people who came to Odenigbo's house for talks of politics.  I quickly gave that up.  It did take concentration to keep track of all but the main four or five characters.