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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
I kept half-joking as I read this book that I was bracing myself for the surely terrible things that were to come. I read THE FISHERMEN, a beautiful gut-punch of a book, and while I didn't approach Obioma's second novel with trepidation I did approach with caution. Sure enough, this is another book where some pretty terrible things happen. (FYI avoid the marketing copy on this one, yes including the Goodreads summary, which on its own takes you through like 60% of the plot.)
In style, at least, this book is very different from his last. Our narrator is a chi, which in Igbo beliefs is a kind of soul or guardian angel. The chi begins the book letting us know that his host has done something horrible and that he is appearing before the great God to speak for him. Each chapter begins with a sort of incantation, often a supplication complete with a parable. As a reader it took me a little while to get into this rhythm, I think I would have had an easier time on audio (which was how I read THE FISHERMEN). The chi sees everything our protagonist, Chinonso, sees but can also leave his body to see the happenings of the spirit world. It's a smart spin on the semi-omniscient narrator, the chi is separate enough from Chinonso that it cannot control him but enough of a part of him that it knows all his feelings.
It's an ambitious novel and a powerful one, but ultimately it left me unsure of how to feel about the story. Over the course of its long tale we understand how Chinonso ends up where he does, and there are portions of it where the comparisons to THE ODYSSEY feel purposeful. But ultimately this seems to be the story of how a person becomes broken beyond repair, of how a certain kind of love and obsession can turn good intentions into horrible outcomes. And when it's over I just felt kind of empty.
Obioma impressed me just as much here as he did with his first book. And I am definitely going to continue reading anything he writes. I'll just be sure to brace myself.
In style, at least, this book is very different from his last. Our narrator is a chi, which in Igbo beliefs is a kind of soul or guardian angel. The chi begins the book letting us know that his host has done something horrible and that he is appearing before the great God to speak for him. Each chapter begins with a sort of incantation, often a supplication complete with a parable. As a reader it took me a little while to get into this rhythm, I think I would have had an easier time on audio (which was how I read THE FISHERMEN). The chi sees everything our protagonist, Chinonso, sees but can also leave his body to see the happenings of the spirit world. It's a smart spin on the semi-omniscient narrator, the chi is separate enough from Chinonso that it cannot control him but enough of a part of him that it knows all his feelings.
It's an ambitious novel and a powerful one, but ultimately it left me unsure of how to feel about the story. Over the course of its long tale we understand how Chinonso ends up where he does, and there are portions of it where the comparisons to THE ODYSSEY feel purposeful. But ultimately this seems to be the story of how a person becomes broken beyond repair, of how a certain kind of love and obsession can turn good intentions into horrible outcomes. And when it's over I just felt kind of empty.
Obioma impressed me just as much here as he did with his first book. And I am definitely going to continue reading anything he writes. I'll just be sure to brace myself.
"An Orchestra of Minorities" is a spell-binding, heart-wrenching, epic love story that is doomed from the very first line of the book. As the young people say, I literally can't.
Narrated from the point of view of the protagonist's chi, which, in Igbo culture, is the guardian spirit attached to the physical body (host), this novel perfectly blends spirituality and the occult to a tale as old as time: a love story between two people who aren't deemed fit for each other.
After a string of unforeseeable events, triggered by a suicide attempt, Chinonso, a farmer, falls in love with Ndali, a British-educated Nigerian woman who comes from an upper class family. She also falls in love with him and they embark on a passionate and fiery affair that ultimately alters both their lives in incalculable ways.
However, her parents and family are staunchly against their union, unable to comprehend what Ndali, who is studying to become a pharmacist, could possible see in a lowly farmer who tends to chickens and fowls to earn his daily bread.
Troubled, humiliated, helpless and admonished, Chinonso decides to take fate in his own hands by selling all his worldly possessions to get a university degree in another land, far from Nigeria and far from Ndali.
Set across Nigeria and Cyprus, "The Orchestra of Minorities" sets the tone from the very beginning: this will not be a happy tale with a happy ending. Chinonso's chi is narrating the story to the court of spirits in Eluigwe "the land of eternal, luminous light", testifying in Chinonso's name, pleading to Chukwu, the "creator of all" to forgive the actions of his host.
I mean, this book is just downright incredible. The depth of the characters, the details, the setting, the story, the originality of having a guardian spirit narrate it, everything is just beautifully executed. I just kept reading and reading and nodding and exclaiming and I even cried because some parts of the story were too hard to stomach. This is the kind of book I would love to write some day and, if I ever come close to writing something as good I think I will just quit everything and go live a beach bum life somewhere in the world because nothing else would matter.
Much like a toxic ex-partner, this is a book that plays with your soul, destroys it, gives it hope, toys with it again, and leaves you aching for more. Damn. Nothing worse than reading a book so good even if you know that there is no possible way for the tale to end well. But you keep hoping.
I guess that's the signature move of a master storyteller.
Narrated from the point of view of the protagonist's chi, which, in Igbo culture, is the guardian spirit attached to the physical body (host), this novel perfectly blends spirituality and the occult to a tale as old as time: a love story between two people who aren't deemed fit for each other.
After a string of unforeseeable events, triggered by a suicide attempt, Chinonso, a farmer, falls in love with Ndali, a British-educated Nigerian woman who comes from an upper class family. She also falls in love with him and they embark on a passionate and fiery affair that ultimately alters both their lives in incalculable ways.
However, her parents and family are staunchly against their union, unable to comprehend what Ndali, who is studying to become a pharmacist, could possible see in a lowly farmer who tends to chickens and fowls to earn his daily bread.
Troubled, humiliated, helpless and admonished, Chinonso decides to take fate in his own hands by selling all his worldly possessions to get a university degree in another land, far from Nigeria and far from Ndali.
Set across Nigeria and Cyprus, "The Orchestra of Minorities" sets the tone from the very beginning: this will not be a happy tale with a happy ending. Chinonso's chi is narrating the story to the court of spirits in Eluigwe "the land of eternal, luminous light", testifying in Chinonso's name, pleading to Chukwu, the "creator of all" to forgive the actions of his host.
I mean, this book is just downright incredible. The depth of the characters, the details, the setting, the story, the originality of having a guardian spirit narrate it, everything is just beautifully executed. I just kept reading and reading and nodding and exclaiming and I even cried because some parts of the story were too hard to stomach. This is the kind of book I would love to write some day and, if I ever come close to writing something as good I think I will just quit everything and go live a beach bum life somewhere in the world because nothing else would matter.
Much like a toxic ex-partner, this is a book that plays with your soul, destroys it, gives it hope, toys with it again, and leaves you aching for more. Damn. Nothing worse than reading a book so good even if you know that there is no possible way for the tale to end well. But you keep hoping.
I guess that's the signature move of a master storyteller.