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A review by aegagrus
The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born by Ayi Kwei Armah
5.0
I often struggle to connect with material considered satirical. While The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born is satirical, it is also distinctively earnest and introspective and subtle. Its primary mission feels almost psychoanalytic; simultaneously diagnosing, lampooning, and lamenting the lingering aftereffects of war and colonization on the human body and on the body politic. Corruption in post-colonial states is a common theme. The psychological treatment it receives here is an uncommon achievement.
Our unnamed protagonist is a fascinating creation. In some ways he is an extremely passive character. In some ways, he is extremely headstrong. Small and impulsive acts of resistance create delicious tension, set against the melancholy backdrop of a more general acquiescence. Importantly, Armah takes full advantage of both sides of his protagonist. The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born is an arresting satire because it is so two-faced; because it satirizes idealism as much as it satirizes defeatism.
Armah's prose, in and of itself, is extraordinary. His descriptions are often elliptical but also precise and intensely evocative. His writing is beautiful but also revolting, elegiac but also visceral and even carnal. I am generally not drawn to the literary grotesque, but the putrid, noirish atmosphere he creates is endlessly captivating.
It has been suggested that The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born does post-colonial Ghana a disservice, dwelling upon corruption and malfunction to the exclusion of a more complete picture. To me, Armah isn't attempting a complete picture. There is more than a little Kafka in the way Armah handles bureaucratic worlds, and like Kafka he is working from a palette bearing an only indirect relation to the world we know. Unlike Kafka, though, Armah is genuinely hopeful. His choice of title is deeply meaningful and not fully sarcastic. The hopeful undercurrent is essential; it is, in the final analysis, what distinguishes this book.
Our unnamed protagonist is a fascinating creation. In some ways he is an extremely passive character. In some ways, he is extremely headstrong. Small and impulsive acts of resistance create delicious tension, set against the melancholy backdrop of a more general acquiescence. Importantly, Armah takes full advantage of both sides of his protagonist. The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born is an arresting satire because it is so two-faced; because it satirizes idealism as much as it satirizes defeatism.
Armah's prose, in and of itself, is extraordinary. His descriptions are often elliptical but also precise and intensely evocative. His writing is beautiful but also revolting, elegiac but also visceral and even carnal. I am generally not drawn to the literary grotesque, but the putrid, noirish atmosphere he creates is endlessly captivating.
It has been suggested that The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born does post-colonial Ghana a disservice, dwelling upon corruption and malfunction to the exclusion of a more complete picture. To me, Armah isn't attempting a complete picture. There is more than a little Kafka in the way Armah handles bureaucratic worlds, and like Kafka he is working from a palette bearing an only indirect relation to the world we know. Unlike Kafka, though, Armah is genuinely hopeful. His choice of title is deeply meaningful and not fully sarcastic. The hopeful undercurrent is essential; it is, in the final analysis, what distinguishes this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Excrement
Moderate: Suicide