Sunday 27 January 2019

An Orchestra of Minorities


“Oh God! Nonso, they are! It is like a coordinated song, the kind they sing during burial ceremonies. Like a choir. And what they are singing is a song of sorrow. Just listen, Nonso.” She stood silent for a moment, then she stepped back a bit and snapped her fingers. “It is true what your father said. It is an orchestra of minorities.”

An Orchestra of Minorities is a remarkable book: in the tradition of Things Fall Apart, it tells a Nigerian's story in a blend of Igbo and Western European techniques/language/mythologies, and by setting the characters in this hybrid-world of conflicting influences, it illustrates the modern day struggle of post-colonial Nigeria. This is a challenging read, long and ponderous, but I wouldn't be surprised to see author Chigozie Obioma among the Man Booker nominees, once again, with this title.
He hadn't considered that he had been broken by the world. The birds were the hearth on which his heart had been burned, and – at the same time – they were the ashes that gathered after the wood was burnt. He loved them, even if they were varied while he was one and simple. Yet, like everyone who loves, he wished that it be requited. And because he could not tell even if his singular gosling once loved him or not, in time his love became a deformed thing – a thing neither he nor I, his chi, could understand.
As the book opens, a “chi” – a kind of guardian spirit assigned to a mortal in Igbo belief – has rushed to the spirit world to plead the case of his “host” before the creator god, Chukwu: this host has apparently committed a crime that might prevent him from being reborn again, and the chi is asking for Chukwu's intercession with Ala, the goddess who controls reincarnation. In order for Chukwu to fully understand the host's recent actions, his chi relates all of the major events of the man's life, and in this way, the narrative reads like transcribed oral storytelling. This conceit makes for an interesting semi-omniscient narrator: the chi can report on all of his host's thoughts and actions – even explain the times that it intervened to influence the host for his own good – but being a nonhuman entity, it can't always understand human motivation. (Yet having been paired with many hosts over the centuries, the chi often relates this human's actions to those taken by others it has inhabited throughout Nigerian history.) The chi even leaves his host's body sometimes in order to see what's going on in the spirit world, and the overall effect is an engaging overview of both modern Igbo life and traditional cosmology. 

As for this host: Chinonso “Nonso” Solomon Olisa was a young and semi-educated rural poultry farmer (the opening quote is about the mourning song chickens engage in when a hawk makes off with a chick) when he met Ndali Umuahia: the university educated daughter of a rich and powerful urban chief. When the two fell in love and Ndali's family rejected Nonso as beneath their daughter, he was willing to give up everything he had to move to North Cyprus and get a university degree to prove himself worthy. (Apparently, Obioma attended university in North Cyprus and this section is based on his and other Nigerians' experiences there.) Things don't go according to plan, as things never seem to have worked out for the powerless Nonso, and pressures build up in him that lead to the actions that his chi eventually tries to justify. 
All who have been chained and beaten, whose lands have been plundered, whose civilizations have been destroyed, who have been silenced, beaten, raped, plundered, shamed, and killed. With all these people, he'd come to share a common fate. They were the minorities of this world whose recourse was to join the universal orchestra in which all there is to do is cry and wail.
I tried to be careful with the plot synopsis there, but this book is about so much more than the plot. Obioma paints a detailed picture of the class structure of this Nigerian community – the haves and the have-nots and the pressures to acquire the things that the White Men have convinced the sons of the old fathers that they must have (pressures that have led to yahoo boys and their Nigerian Prince-type schemes; pressures that make a foreign education more desirable than a relatively prosperous traditional livelihood). The upper classes have set aside the local gods in order to follow “Jisos Kraist”, and when Nonso goes to Cyprus, he experiences racism for the first time (from locals asking to touch his hair to people yelling the Turkish for “slave” at him from passing cars.) And through it all, Obioma uses language to situate characters into their classes: Ndali prefers to speak her British-accented English, and while Nonso can converse in that tongue, when he has something important to say, he switches to Igbo. There are many instances of untranslated Igbo, and it can be frustrating the number of times Nonso can't come up with the words to reply in fraught situations:
“You have,” she said. “I gbu o le onwe gi.” 
Surprised by her switch to Igbo, he did not speak.
Obioma employs a sophisticated English vocabulary (“noctambulist”, “oneiric forms”, “colloids of wall paint”, “a caesura of despondency”) and some from a class lower than Nonso speak in challenging pidgin:
Oh, boy, you no sabi wetin you dey talk...Nothing wey person eye no go see these days oh. Im see nyash wey tripam – na im be say im love me.
It seems to be particularly revelatory that while in Cyprus, Nonso had to continually use the phrase “no Turkish” with the locals (and privately complain that they didn't understand his English): power is entangled with mutual understanding, and the mix of English and Igbo in Nonso's village keeps the classes separated; just one lingering effect of British colonisation. In addition to all these languages, the chi often quotes Igbo proverbs to Chukwu, while addressing the god by his many names:
Ijango-Ijango, the ndiichie say that if a wall does not bear a hole in it, lizards cannot enter a house...Egbunu, the old fathers say that a mouse cannot run into an empty mousetrap in broad daylight unless it has been drawn to the trap by something it cannot refuse...Agbaradike, the great fathers in their discreet wisdom say that seeds sown in secret always yield the most vibrant fruit.
The inventive structure, cultural details, and a relatable struggle for connection and dignity make this exactly the kind of book that wins literary awards; and Obioma deserves to be recognised for this work. But it's not a perfect read for my tastes: just a bit too long, female characters only serve as obstacles or prizes for the male lead, and everything about the wool-white gosling felt too deliberate to me. Still a worthwhile read that marks a worthy followup to Obioma's debut The Fishermen (which I preferred).

Man Booker Longlist 2019:




Eventually won by The Testaments and Girl, Woman, Other in a tie, my favourites on the list were Lanny, Night Boat to Tangier, and An Orchestra of Minorities. I fear the Man Booker has become too political for me - favouring identity politics over excellent storytelling - and I don't know how much longer I'll think it a badge of honour to keep reading the longlists.
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