Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

 

Okay, time for a bit of a history lesson.  I knew nothing about Nigerian history before reading this wonderful novel, but here is what I learned:  Nigeria was ruled by the British until the late 1960s.  During this time of colonial rule the Igbo people were perceived as doing better than the other tribes.  After the British left, there were mass uprisings/ethnic cleansing against the Igbo people, especially by the Hausa tribe.  This led to them breaking away and forming their own state, Biafra.  The flag of Biafra was half of a yellow sun.  The Nigerian forces deliberately used starvation as a tactic against Biafra and eventually it fell.  Both sides recruited child soldiers.

I learned all of this without realising I was learning it by reading Adichie's novel.  It's narrated by three distinct people: Olanna, the daughter of an Igbo chief; Richard, an Englishman who has fallen in love with Nigeria and later Biafra; and Ugwu, a houseboy for an Igbo professor.  All of their lives overlap and they are thrown together as the war descends.

I can't describe just how much I enjoyed reading this book.  It was a real epic and dealt with some harrowing topics - rape, genocide and child soldiers - and the central characters were just so vivid that everything had more impact.  What I thought was really powerful was how Adichie had them becoming less and less concerned with their previous problems as the war overtook them.  Olanna hadn't spoken to her sister in years but when she witnesses war, all of that fades away.  It seemed to me like a realistic portrayal of war, although thankfully I have never experienced it.  The whole book had lots of emotional impact, to the point where certain scenes were hard to read.

The structure of the novel broke up the harrowing parts from the pre-war parts well, and it was all anchored by extracts from a book about the conflict that one of the characters was writing.  Although Adichie is Nigerian, it never felt like she was trying to preach or convert, simply telling a story about what happened to millions of Biafrans during that time.  The writing style was simple, but very powerful.  The pace moved from slow in the sections about the time before the war, to almost frantic as events escalated.

Can't recommend this one enough.

Score: 5 out of 5.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

I've had this book a while; I got it in a set of books short-listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction.  I avoided it for a bit as it had won the Man Booker Prize and I've yet to have a great reading experience with a Booker book - I usually find them hard going.  But, as I do love historical fiction and I'm on a week's holiday from work, I finally decided to give this one a shot.

Synopsis: The story of Henry VIII's divorce in order to marry Anne Boleyn is the back-drop to the life story of Thomas Cromwell, a commoner who managed to persuade and manipulate his way into becoming one of the most powerful men in England.

Score: 3 out of 5

This book had many strengths, the major one being Mantel's ability to make this much written about period of English history somehow seem fresh and modern.  It didn't seem like a Phillipa Gregory style period romance, or even a period book at all - the characters all jumped off the page and events seemed immediate and compelling, even though everyone knows how it was going to turn out.

The character of Cromwell was a masterpiece, he was so complex and I loved how Mantel showed the distinction between what he was thinking and what he was saying as he slowly manipulated people and got his revenge.  Although there was plenty of historical happenings and legal proceedings, these were interspersed with personal events from Cromwell's life, which gave the book a balance and broke things up a bit.

But there were definitely things I didn't like so much about the book.  It was a hard slog - whilst I didn't have trouble keeping track of who was talking as others seemed to (the 'he' pronoun causing difficulties), it's the kind of book you have to concentrate on and be fully awake to read.  I know a fair amount about this period of history but sometimes it was hard to follow all of the minor characters and the legal proceedings.

And one of the book's strengths was also it's biggest weakness - writing as Cromwell gave the book immediacy and something fresh, but it also meant there was no room for the back story of other characters.  People going into a meeting don't spend twenty minutes reviewing the life stories of all the participants in their head beforehand, and if Mantel did so the book would have seemed a bit stuffy.  Consequently, not at lot was explained and Mantel was relying on you knowing your history.  I knew a bit about Cranmer and More, but not enough.

Now that I've finished it, I'm glad I read it, but it was hard going at times.  It's like spring cleaning your house - you may find it boring at times and tough, but you love having everything sparkly clean once it's all done.  There's a sequel on the way, not sure if I will pick it up or not.