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sabrinalikestoread 's review for:
An Orchestra of Minorities
by Chigozie Obioma
"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.