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A review by sdc
The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born by Ayi Kwei Armah
4.0
The stink of corruption. Ayi Kwei Armah uses shit as a metaphor cleverly and completely.
I'm on an African lit binge and TBANYB is sure to be one of the most memorable I'll read. It's one of the major post-independence books, set in Ghana in the 1960s. Since I read it after [b:Things Fall Apart|37781|Things Fall Apart|Chinua Achebe|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1352082529s/37781.jpg|825843], I couldn't resist but comparing the two, though about the only thing they have in common is an African setting and an omniscient narrator. I prefer Armah's prose to Achebe's. Part of this owes to the more modern setting of TBANYB, but it is mostly to Armah's decision to symbolize corruption with shit. Yes, it smells, but once it gets on you, it doesn't come off. And it's everywhere. The nameless protagonist would blanch at the notion that we all must play the corruption game, but perhaps by the end of the book, he's changed his mind.
TBANYB sags a bit in the middle, rudderless before the unforgettable climax. Corruption, like most things that happen every day, eventually becomes mundane and Armah is wise to not belabor that point.
My other critique is in regards to the narrator and point of view. There were times when the narrator seemed to take the main character's point of view and in a couple of key scenes--which I won't reveal--that matters, but perhaps that was Armah's intention.
A final point as to the book's relevance to the present. I've not been to Ghana (note: I visited in December 2018) so I can't speak to whether it still rings true nearly fifty years after publication, but it's the theme of corruption will never be far from the headlines.
I'm on an African lit binge and TBANYB is sure to be one of the most memorable I'll read. It's one of the major post-independence books, set in Ghana in the 1960s. Since I read it after [b:Things Fall Apart|37781|Things Fall Apart|Chinua Achebe|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1352082529s/37781.jpg|825843], I couldn't resist but comparing the two, though about the only thing they have in common is an African setting and an omniscient narrator. I prefer Armah's prose to Achebe's. Part of this owes to the more modern setting of TBANYB, but it is mostly to Armah's decision to symbolize corruption with shit. Yes, it smells, but once it gets on you, it doesn't come off. And it's everywhere. The nameless protagonist would blanch at the notion that we all must play the corruption game, but perhaps by the end of the book, he's changed his mind.
TBANYB sags a bit in the middle, rudderless before the unforgettable climax. Corruption, like most things that happen every day, eventually becomes mundane and Armah is wise to not belabor that point.
My other critique is in regards to the narrator and point of view. There were times when the narrator seemed to take the main character's point of view and in a couple of key scenes--which I won't reveal--that matters, but perhaps that was Armah's intention.
A final point as to the book's relevance to the present. I've not been to Ghana (note: I visited in December 2018) so I can't speak to whether it still rings true nearly fifty years after publication, but it's the theme of corruption will never be far from the headlines.