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beastreader's review against another edition
1.0
I attempted to read this book but with little to no interest. I mean the story started out fine and for a while I was actually intrigued with what happened to Paul but my excitement disappeared and I found myself just going through the motions until I finally put the book down with no sadness or care for finishing the book. None of the rest of the characters voices were that strong other than for Ajie but even as the story went on his voice grew silent. The other voices were just not loud enough for my to stay invested in the story. Plus, the switching from past to present I found was not as streamlined as I liked and it would stop my flow of reading at times to the point that I would have to re-read the section. Of course part of this could have been due to the fact that I was not focused on the story as a whole 100%.
mellabella's review against another edition
3.0
The 3 stars is for the way the book is written.
I'm being generous.
You don't get to know the characters. They aren't fleshed out.
There is an oldest son (Paul). Middle daughter (Bibi) and youngest (Ajie). Ajie carries the guilt after Paul goes to a friends house and never comes back.
You don't get a feel for how the country was at that time. Which, is disappointing.
I got into it during the first few pages and just kind of coasted until the last? Three quarters or so. I almost gave up.
A family study is nice. But there could Have been so much more.
I'm being generous.
You don't get to know the characters. They aren't fleshed out.
There is an oldest son (Paul). Middle daughter (Bibi) and youngest (Ajie). Ajie carries the guilt after Paul goes to a friends house and never comes back.
You don't get a feel for how the country was at that time. Which, is disappointing.
I got into it during the first few pages and just kind of coasted until the last? Three quarters or so. I almost gave up.
A family study is nice. But there could Have been so much more.
balletbookworm's review against another edition
4.0
Closer to a 3.75 star rating. I really liked the book's construction and how the reader kept getting bits and pieces of how the Utu family is connected or not connected to the political upheaval in Nigeria in the 1990s and whether Paul's disappearance is connected to those events. I wished, though, that Ile also included one or two chapters set between Ajie being brought home from school by his mother and the final epilogue-like three sections. I would have liked to see how Ajie and Bibi were impacted by the loss of their older brother as they finished school and went to college rather than see an end product at the end of the book.
As I was reading, I was reminded of Stewart O'Nan's [b:Songs for the Missing|3247408|Songs for the Missing|Stewart O'Nan|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347318899s/3247408.jpg|3282191] in subject. The settings are quite different, obviously, but the way the "missing" child is presented within the family's life and how the families are both disrupted was similar.
As I was reading, I was reminded of Stewart O'Nan's [b:Songs for the Missing|3247408|Songs for the Missing|Stewart O'Nan|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347318899s/3247408.jpg|3282191] in subject. The settings are quite different, obviously, but the way the "missing" child is presented within the family's life and how the families are both disrupted was similar.
miszjeanie's review against another edition
5.0
What a stunning piece of work. It is not often that a fictional family breaks open your heart and awakens so much nostalgia. This book is an impressive debut. Lyrical, masterful and oh, so tender.
mpal's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
mokey81's review against another edition
2.0
I am willing to believe that it may have been cultural differences in story-telling that led to me not enjoying this book, but overall, it was rather boring. The blurb made it sound like a missing person's story, and how that event affected the family left behind.
But that is not at all what it was. The boy goes missing, but the bulk of the book is just about the every day life of the family before the boy went missing. I suppose I got a small look at how chaotic things were in the country, how corrupt the government was, but overall, the story did not move and the characters did not develop.
There was a rather noticeable lack of emotion through most of the book; the exception being when the family realizes their eldest son is missing. But the rest of the book exists sans emotion.
I had higher hopes for this book, but they didn't pan out. I almost wish I had put it down, but it was a gift and I felt I should finish it.
But that is not at all what it was. The boy goes missing, but the bulk of the book is just about the every day life of the family before the boy went missing. I suppose I got a small look at how chaotic things were in the country, how corrupt the government was, but overall, the story did not move and the characters did not develop.
There was a rather noticeable lack of emotion through most of the book; the exception being when the family realizes their eldest son is missing. But the rest of the book exists sans emotion.
I had higher hopes for this book, but they didn't pan out. I almost wish I had put it down, but it was a gift and I felt I should finish it.
anetq's review against another edition
2.0
The thing about this book is; I'm bored. The bickering of the younger siblings, the going off to school, getting picked up at school, eating with the family, a summer in the country... Nothing is happening, and frankly I don't really care about the characters. Besides the book being bookended by the disappearance of the older brother, and the explanation (20 pages before the end) it's all just glimpses of (rather boring) everyday stuff. Maybe one is supposed to feel something significant about boys growing up from this, I don't know. And the vague history lesson of Nigeria and the fighting the oil companies after the Biafra war, well it still doesn't make up for this story having no plot what so ever... Maybe if that had been the focus of the story, it'd have been interesting? It does get 2 stars for decent writing.
zyzah's review against another edition
3.0
Although I found the story a little slow, I loved it for its interesting plot. Childhood, Family, Siblings, Political violence, .... and how a single calamity can break everything right in our faces.
I kept loosing the sense of time in the book, I didn't know the time at a point, I was trying to place every scene to a time, which happened first? I felt like the story wasn't well arranged đ˘đ˘.
"And After Many Days" has a very interesting plot, and you sure will connect with more than half of the things that happened in the book.
I kept loosing the sense of time in the book, I didn't know the time at a point, I was trying to place every scene to a time, which happened first? I felt like the story wasn't well arranged đ˘đ˘.
"And After Many Days" has a very interesting plot, and you sure will connect with more than half of the things that happened in the book.
bookly_reads's review against another edition
5.0
Paul turned away from the window and said he needed to go out at once to the next compound to see his friend.
I donât like books with clunky first sentences. I donât like contemporary realistic books about disappearances and grieving families. Because of this, I donât know why I picked up And After Many Days.
But by page 6 I knew I was in it until the end.
Yes: Paul, the oldest and most-beloved of three siblings, leaves his Nigerian home one day and doesnât come back. Cue the sobbing; cue the screaming; cue the hyperbolic prose in face of a heart-slashing tragedy.
Or letâs try this:
â[The Utu family] sat in the parlor until long after midnight. Twice the lights went out, but no one moved[.] ⌠The silence was so sudden and pure, it seemed as if the clock on the parlor wall had come to life, the slender second hand scraping its halting way around like a cripple.â
When I read this whole paragraph â several sentences longer than the excerpt above â my throat tightened and my stomach flipped. Jowhor Ile never writes âgrief,â âsadness,â or âworry.â He doesnât depict the individual reactions of mother, father, sister, brother. Theyâre a family waiting up for the son who should have come home hours ago; their hope and fear is too intermingled and too delicate to verbalize. They all sit in silence and, in depicting that silence, Ile makes every emotion felt without describing one.
And then the tension wavers and releases. We go back in time, learning about the wealthy Utu family and their community. Ma is well-educated, ambitious, fiercely loving and strict. The father is equally intelligent, a respected and moralistic local judge. There is Bibi, the ferocious and adorable little sister; Ajie, our often-narrator so overshadowed by his brother; Paul, a lead student and named after the apostle.
I was touched by the flashbacks of Bibi, Ajie, and Paul as children because it brought back my own past â I had forgotten how intense every small interaction seems to a child, and how quickly playdates devolve into fisticuffs and screaming.
Ajieâs days are full of swimming in the local swamp and mirroring his brother, but as he grows up his community changes: The government decides to put oil pipes down in their village. Here Ile links environmental ruin with a communityâs unraveling. To the corrupt government, neither land nor the citizens on the land may be permitted to block the path to profit. The old ways of communal values and collective discourse turn into government-fueled anarchy and carnal.
There is the old, there is the new. Both cannot survive.
Draw yourself a straight line, walk backward on it to erase your footsteps, and you will trip and crack your skull. Straddle the two sides of a stream and you will unhinge your hips. Be unstable as water and you will not excel.
Ile deals with violence frankly and honestly but gently. Rather than saying that women are raped, for example, he says they are âtaken by force.â This does not distort the meaning; it does not soften the blow. But it refuses to dramatize or tantalize. When students are beaten by the police, Ile says so. He focuses not on the blood and gore but on the pain of it, the pain of beaten bones and heartbroken parents. He never cheaply titillates the reader. The story is rich for it.
So what exactly happens to Paul? If you read the book, you will find out. Ile gives closure. While reading I was afraid the book would have an ambivalent ending: Oo0o0o0oh, this is literary fiction, so you donât get a spelled-out ending. Ile tries no such trick; he treats the Utu family and the reader with respect. The words resonate. (SPOILER AHEAD SPOILER AHEAD SPOILER AHEAD) Ile offers us one of the best funeral scenes Iâve read, the prose simultaneously as understated and full of feeling as it was on page 6.
The dead will not be consoled; neither will those who live in the skin of their dead.
And After Many Days explores how years of love, education, and bonding cannot undo the consequences of a split-second act of violence. Years of life cannot cancel out death.
Several minutes after finishing this book, I went on Goodreads and rated it. I turned on my phone and received a message. A friend of many years â in his twenties â died a few hours ago. His memorial service is on Sunday.
I donât like books with clunky first sentences. I donât like contemporary realistic books about disappearances and grieving families. Because of this, I donât know why I picked up And After Many Days.
But by page 6 I knew I was in it until the end.
Yes: Paul, the oldest and most-beloved of three siblings, leaves his Nigerian home one day and doesnât come back. Cue the sobbing; cue the screaming; cue the hyperbolic prose in face of a heart-slashing tragedy.
Or letâs try this:
â[The Utu family] sat in the parlor until long after midnight. Twice the lights went out, but no one moved[.] ⌠The silence was so sudden and pure, it seemed as if the clock on the parlor wall had come to life, the slender second hand scraping its halting way around like a cripple.â
When I read this whole paragraph â several sentences longer than the excerpt above â my throat tightened and my stomach flipped. Jowhor Ile never writes âgrief,â âsadness,â or âworry.â He doesnât depict the individual reactions of mother, father, sister, brother. Theyâre a family waiting up for the son who should have come home hours ago; their hope and fear is too intermingled and too delicate to verbalize. They all sit in silence and, in depicting that silence, Ile makes every emotion felt without describing one.
And then the tension wavers and releases. We go back in time, learning about the wealthy Utu family and their community. Ma is well-educated, ambitious, fiercely loving and strict. The father is equally intelligent, a respected and moralistic local judge. There is Bibi, the ferocious and adorable little sister; Ajie, our often-narrator so overshadowed by his brother; Paul, a lead student and named after the apostle.
I was touched by the flashbacks of Bibi, Ajie, and Paul as children because it brought back my own past â I had forgotten how intense every small interaction seems to a child, and how quickly playdates devolve into fisticuffs and screaming.
Ajieâs days are full of swimming in the local swamp and mirroring his brother, but as he grows up his community changes: The government decides to put oil pipes down in their village. Here Ile links environmental ruin with a communityâs unraveling. To the corrupt government, neither land nor the citizens on the land may be permitted to block the path to profit. The old ways of communal values and collective discourse turn into government-fueled anarchy and carnal.
There is the old, there is the new. Both cannot survive.
Draw yourself a straight line, walk backward on it to erase your footsteps, and you will trip and crack your skull. Straddle the two sides of a stream and you will unhinge your hips. Be unstable as water and you will not excel.
Ile deals with violence frankly and honestly but gently. Rather than saying that women are raped, for example, he says they are âtaken by force.â This does not distort the meaning; it does not soften the blow. But it refuses to dramatize or tantalize. When students are beaten by the police, Ile says so. He focuses not on the blood and gore but on the pain of it, the pain of beaten bones and heartbroken parents. He never cheaply titillates the reader. The story is rich for it.
So what exactly happens to Paul? If you read the book, you will find out. Ile gives closure. While reading I was afraid the book would have an ambivalent ending: Oo0o0o0oh, this is literary fiction, so you donât get a spelled-out ending. Ile tries no such trick; he treats the Utu family and the reader with respect. The words resonate. (SPOILER AHEAD SPOILER AHEAD SPOILER AHEAD) Ile offers us one of the best funeral scenes Iâve read, the prose simultaneously as understated and full of feeling as it was on page 6.
The dead will not be consoled; neither will those who live in the skin of their dead.
And After Many Days explores how years of love, education, and bonding cannot undo the consequences of a split-second act of violence. Years of life cannot cancel out death.
Several minutes after finishing this book, I went on Goodreads and rated it. I turned on my phone and received a message. A friend of many years â in his twenties â died a few hours ago. His memorial service is on Sunday.