Eighth Post!

[hoisinsauce]

It's one thing if mankind is hunted to extinction by ChatGPT, but I really do object to being executed by Bing.

(https://secretfanspace.dreamwidth.org/2511.html?thread=3169743#cmt3169743 )

Welcome back! Fandom chat, misc creativity, internet weirdness, books, films, anything! Tell meme about it so we can get to the next post title!

(start a comment thread by replying to this post)

Comments

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

A few chapters in. I'm not convinced by the portrayal of dv. I can't explain why, it just doesn't ring true to me, despite nothing seeming inaccurate in the details. It just somehow feels more like a writing exercise than something drawn from experience, and I find the feeling is missing. I AM, however, enjoying the descriptions of food, and description more generally, for that matter. I'm curious about where the plot will go. I'm not sure if it's because I've seen it listed somewhere, or if it's just because there is a plant in the title, but for whatever reason I've assumed this is a book about a lesbian character. Will it be?

(i feel like i write the dumbest commentary on books i swear)

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe my issue is that the narrator seems way too uncritical. She gets terrified at the prospect of her father's anger, but it never seems to translate to anger at her father. I just don't buy it. I'd understand not *expressing* it, but she just seems to stop at fear. She has a sibling she gets on with but she doesn't discuss the adults with him. Hrm.

On the plus side, a lot of the little sayings and things are obviously drawn from life, and they make me laugh. I get the impression she's taken stuff she remembers from childhood but transplanted it into a family with a very different atmosphere, so the realism *does* come through when she's getting a Four Yorkshiremen speech off her dad, or being told that other girls have just as many heads as she has so she has no excuse to do worse than them at school. :)

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

And tbf, I think she's set herself a really difficult set of circumstances to write about. The narrator belongs to a very rich and religious family, with all the weird that goes with that. I like that the author attempted to draw it from imagination, even if it doesn't quite work for me so far.

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think it's about a lesbian character, but the purple and the flower in the title definitely make me want to think that, too.

(it's okay your dumb commentary inspires me to post my own dumber book commentary and i figure someone here will get a kick out of our dumb-off)

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

Am about 1/3 through. Am a total philistine, honestly; so far my main takeaway is that this book makes me hungry. They have so much good rice. The chicken sounds amazing. I want stew.

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

There's a lot of commentary on hypocrisy, abuse, politics, inequality, the legacy of colonialism, etc, if you're after something weightier. But I am a gluttonous beachball and my mind's on the rice.

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

DD.

I really liked the descriptions of food in Half of a Yellow Sun, too. There's plot importance since it defines a lot of Ugwu's characterization when he's introduced and contrasts the food shortages and starvation during the war, but I still couldn't stop thinking about how good jollof rice sounded.

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

I have noticed that the cover of my copy seems to be the material from the narrator's mother's sequinned church outfit. I am worried that this does not bode well for the narrator's mother. :/

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

There have been many details about the effects of colonisation, but so far the one that has made me saddest is the narrator casually mentioning that she pictures God as white. It feels too depressing to have not been taken from the author's life.

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

(a lot of biblical (and... Bible-adjacent?) references are probably going over my head with this book. I just caught one; the narrator has just mentioned listening to the sound, not the sense, of a priest's words (he has a nice voice), so I think there's another layer to the compliment, in that she's comparing him to Milton. (At least, I think that's a reference to a preface of Paradise Lost (iirc I saw a vid of Philip Pullman claiming his teacher told him to read it "first for the sound, then again for the sense"-- but I believe the phrase itself comes from a popular preface , because one came up when I searched it, in my attempt to trace the origin of the quote :p).)

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

Aha further searching suggests it's an Eliot quote.

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

(like, if I were in her position, I wouldn't make that up as a detail, because it's too neat and I'd worry it was ott. But if I were in her position *and* I had actually done that as a kid, you can bet I'd put it in. Why not use it when it's such a perfect illustration? So that makes me think it's an autobiographical detail.)

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

Now the narrator is staying with her poorer cousins. This feels more drawn-from-life. Maybe I'm just saying that because I know Adichie has academic parents, but the family's discussions feel very realistic to me. Laughed at the bit where the kids are discussing apparitions of the virgin mary that have apparently been occuring nearby:

"Besides, it's about time Our Lady came to Africa. Don't you wonder how come she always appears in Europe? She was from the Middle East, after all."

"What is she now, the Political Virgin?" Obiora asked


Also when Kambili offered to help peel the yam for the family meal, I thought "she's brave!!! In her social position does she even know how to peel properly?" and oooof the second-hand shame that followed. Don't mind me, just reliving That Time Teen Me Didn't Know How To Safely or Efficiently Peel A Potato.

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

(tangent: ended up on:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cio4WwRMaGu/

One comment: "na this type of man go want make his wife dey use broom to make ewedu instead of blender"

Though I have the same sorts of superstitions about which implements are used for cooking, so idk that I can laugh at him too much (except for the bit where he wants someone else to do it his way). I do secretly believe that veg tastes better if sliced with a knife than if sliced in food processor. I think food tastes better if handled more in general. Maybe I just like the taste of handsweat, mmmm.)

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

Something I find v recognisable with the Nigerian authors I've read so far is the political awareness of their characters. Everyone always has one eye scanning the horizon, working out the political landscape, how far they can go, which people they can annoy (and how much) without being tortured or disappeared. It's how I was raised to think (I was taught to be wary, even if luckily I haven't needed it much) so it feels oddly familiar.

And although I don't think Adichie's depiction of dv quite works for me, I think she's clever to draw the parallel of the tyrant of the family and the tyrant of the country. (I find I'm always projecting domestic dynamics out to political movements, and vice versa, to learn more about them. So this fits well with that) There's a lot to prise apart in the metaphor, and I think a reread would reveal interesting details. I also like that she's tried to avoid cliché, by pitting the head of state *against* the tyrannical father. A YA author would have just made the father the same character as the head of state. :P (And I also like that detail because it matches something I've seen around, that sometimes those who adhere hardest to some admirable principles in the public sphere are the worst damn people up close, and that doesn't mean their principles are an act!)

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

Also I do really like the way the women are depicted stealthily working together to protect each other and the kids.

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

The narrator has a biiiiig crush on a preacher. This is distracting for me, because it makes Son of a Preacher Man play in my head whenever his name is on the page. Even though that's not even accurate because this is the preacher man himself, not any son. My brain doesn't care.

Anyway am deeply amused by the image of the narrator doodling his name over and over on her notebook. XD

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

Okay at risk of sounding like a cavewoman

In this book, going to the loo is used for dramatic effect, to deliver plot and for descriptive context. (eg: difference between rich and poor ppl's loos; a character needing loo when scared; overhearing someone crying in the loo). So I was thinking "hm, people go to the loo quite a lot in this book, but it does always have purpose... now, what was that terrible book where people went to the loo all the time for no reason???" and I remembered it was that mark oshiro desert thing. So now I'm wondering if he had everyone go to the loo all the time because people go to the loo in Purple Hibiscus and he thought that that was What You Did in critically-acclaimed books.

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

Kambili finds an earthworm in the bathtub, and puts it in the loo. I thought, "oh, come on, leave it in the bath, it's happier there and it's not harming you!". A few chapters later, Kambili's feeling better in herself, and this time she leaves the worms in the bathtub. Ahahahaha I'm so happy, and like Adichie even better because apparently we are of like mind. :P

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

(On this subject, just wanna note difference between the use of Igbo in this novel, and LaS PoEmAs.

Here, the Igbo adds to the novel. It feels natural, it gives you the sound of the language, it doesn't obscure or repeat information and is used to differentiate different settings. It's also used to say things that can't be said any other way, like songs.

Mark's estrellas are there for no reason and they make everything worse.)

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

Just reached pg 290. Ha, I knew it. :) Not sure what that says about me.

I find aspects of the book tip too far into melodrama, but I don't mind. Still can't get over the fact she was only 26 when she wrote it.

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

Finished! I didn't cry, but did tear up a few times. And got annoyed all over again at people who don't know how lucky they are and are doing everything they can to ruin their luck and bring down everyone else with them.

(I am also feeling more annoyance at all the people who read this and thought it was a nonfiction autobiographical work. Come on, people, this is practically a gothic novel!)

Ifeoma's arc is the one that hit me hardest; this is one of those stories where you can see where everyone is headed, but you still hope there are more options. Jaja's remark that Ade Coker's daughter would never heal also hit hard; I read it as him talking as much about himself and Kambili, and a comment on Nigeria itself. I kind of wish I'd read this book more slowly, because Adichie says so many things at the same time, and I definitely could have taken more time to sort through the layers. But then you miss something else if you read that way, and you can do that on a reread.

Also cackled with laughter at the fact that everyone outside the family just assumed Eugene had been assassinated, no questions asked. I wonder if whoever had been potentially tasked with that job was left scratching their head.

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

Also was so nice to read this after boring pomo blah. An actual book by an actual person about actual people!

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

As is customary, I visited goodreads after finishing to see if anyone was saying anything interesting. Behold, an idiot:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3372414352

Re: Books - Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

[(Anonymous)]

I did have some fun reading the 1 star reviews, though. They all go something like this:

"I had to read this for GCSE English. It was boring and I didn't like the dad. The blurb said there was a coup but there was no fighting in the book. The author is a TERF."