Review of “Americanah” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
4 Stars. Spoilers ahead.
I finished reading Americanah on a rainy morning, just before dawn. The world outside was still blue and shadowed, and the shape of buildings slowly emerged from the dark, brick by brick, pane by pane, as the sky lightened. The sound of toads and birds rose up from the twilight silence, their throats defrosted and open with warbling calls upon waking.
To be honest, I already knew what I was going to rate this book around the halfway mark. I had high expectations when I picked up this novel, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie delivers on everything the back blurb promises — a star-crossed romance focused on race and identity and love. There’s a refreshing frankness to her prose that I have found to be my favorite part of contemporary literature, and Adichie does well to hone in on her elegant, clean writing in a way that does not still provides exceptional depth and insight. A few of my favorite lines are:
“There was a moment, a caving of the blue sky, an inertia of stillness…”
“This was truly her; this was the voice with which she would speak if she were woken up from a deep sleep during an earthquake”
“…Kimberly’s repeated apologies were tinged with self-indulgence, as though she believed that she could, with apologies, smooth all the scalloped surfaces of the world.”
Adichie intersperses critical insight between the lines of prose, and these observations are the core of the novel. The book is split into 6 parts, and we follow Ifemelu and Obinze from their instant attraction and young love to the turmoils they both encounter as immigrants in foreign countries.
Let’s get my main point of contention over with: what kept this book from being 5 stars for me was that there is a notable shift in the narrative style nearly exactly at the book’s midpoint. That is not to say that the observations themselves are not as poignant in the latter half, but more so concerning how the story structure takes a less narratively driven turn. Following Obinze’s brief voice in the narrative, the book slows down and loses momentum since Ifemelu becomes much more of an observer than anything else, with most of her life decisions revolving around the men that enter her life. While I can see why her focus changes in the story, this shift just made me much more conscious of authorial intent. I felt less like Ifemelu was her own character in these parts, and more that she was a vessel, a tool, for Adichie’s voice, which lent the book a didactic tone at times. Because of this, I found the first half of Americanah to be much stronger than the second. While this slightly removed perspective may just be due to how, even though she is African, Ifemelu is not Black in the same manner as African-Americans, I still found the growing number of blog posts to be a story shorthand, and I would have much rather have seen that space being put to use to tie in the second half of the book with the first. There’s even a tongue-in-cheek interaction in the latter half, during Shan’s salon session, when she says,
“Ifemelu can write a blog about race because she’s African. She’s writing from the outside. She doesn’t really feel the stuff she’s writing about. It’s all quaint and curious to her. She can write it and get all these accolades and get invited to give talks. If she were African American, she’d just be labeled angry and shunned.”
This self-awareness, while clever, definitely pulled me out of the story and left me feeling as though I was watching a stilted interaction rather than a story. Of course, that isn’t to say the sentiment here is in any way incorrect or unimportant—the theme of anger when it comes to addressing racism is especially paramount to this conversation, not to mention the way Shan is able to get that across yet still invalidate Ifemelu’s experience in the country. If anything, I just think there could have been a more effective way to have embedded this scene, even just as it is, within the over-arching story. Keep in mind that this criticism is one solely based on the storytelling aspect. While it is my main gripe with the book, I would still argue that it does not waver in how the content itself is handled.
NOW, for the amazing parts. The book as a whole serves as an incredibly well written catalog of micro-aggressions towards Africans and African-Americans, and Adichie wields these examples with elegance — each one unique and meaningful in their own way. The theme of anger, white-guilt, and truth ebb in and out of every interaction, both well-meaning and malicious. Here is where Ifemelu’s perspective as an “outsider” is strongest, since she experiences the anti-blackness and racism prevalent in America (natural hair being unprofessional, the immediate assumptions people make about her, how both Uju and Dike struggled in their work/school lives). At the same time, she is also removed from Black Americans, noting the differences in cultural beliefs, most easily seen in the scenes with Blaine when she thinks about his activism and doesn’t wholly understand why there are so many standards in place when it comes to political correctness. The way hierarchies work around race is different for her, so she has this nuanced perspective on how she does not relate to African Americans but also must go through the same micro-aggressions due to her skin color. She’s frustrated and angry and hurt, but also, for the many of the scenes, confused. And I really like how Adichie shows this difference using the two American boyfriends—how on many levels, Ifemelu could not relate to Curt, but on other’s, she could not relate to Blaine. Moreover, the way that Curt and Kimberly were hyper-vigilant in their attempts to be anti-racist still rubbed Ifemelu the wrong way. I found these manifestations of white-guilt turned into white savior complexes to be especially interesting in how they were both helpful on the surface level, but still harmful in terms of maintaining a sense of othering. The references to charity work and the wealthy’s obsession with people in poverty also fed into this theme, and I found myself stunned by how Adichie managed to incorporate so many levels in such short interactions. For example, many of these white guilt moments were closely tied in with the “acceptable” way to show anger towards racism, pointing towards the glorification of white saviors while still condemning Black Americans to silence. The situations are different, ever changing, and yet they are rooted in so many of the same elements and prejudices. Thus, the way the author manages to show the multiple facets as to how these micro-aggressions can occur separately and at the same time, is almost like shining light through a prism. The shadows that emerge keep changing, but they are shadows still.
Finally, I want to touch on identity and the romance itself. Adichie does an incredible job at putting words to the immigrant experience, and she does so for both American and Britain. Though Obinze’s stint in Britain is much shorter, the amount she manages to convey of his fear and anxiety throughout his undocumented immigrant journey is still powerful. There are so many cultural elements at play here that make the characters want to stay true to themselves—be it by maintaining their motherland culture or how they perceive fellow African immigrants—and at the same time, they are changed by the countries they visit. Ifemelu’s reaction to Lagos after America shows the ways that she sees many of the interactions and buildings to be tacky and lackluster, while Obinze is clearly disappointed with the traditions towards family Kosi follows (though the latter may just be intrinsic to who Obinze is). Moreover, the way that Obinze’s mother complained of the state of conferences in the academic field, or Ifemelu constantly recalling her mother’s fanaticism with religion, showcase that there is this generational gap that exists as well. Obinze’s mother mentions the luxury of truth telling, but this loose trust in honesty is one that leaves a gap in Curt and Ifemelu’s relationship as well. I found this way of intermingling so many identities at different levels to be masterfully done, and through it, Adichie is able to examine how the same themes can emerge in several different contexts. On the romance itself, I felt like there was a bit to be desired between the romance of the two main characters. Again, I think this ties into my main criticism, since the distance and loneliness of their separation is much more deeply felt in the first half. The way that the second half only includes the slightest insight into Obinze’s life + focuses more so on Ifemelu’s different boyfriend escapades, makes it so that their reunion, while sweet, is not as emotionally impactful as I would have liked it to be. That isn’t to say that I was not rooting for this couple the whole time! Adichie does great work at showing how these two characters are truly star-crossed, the way their lives fit together as perfectly as the lines of their bodies. It still gives a satisfying conclusion (one that I actually particularly like for how they handled such a decision), but I think a little more focus on the romance’s emotional aspects would have been nice.
In all, Adichie does an incredible job at weaving in characters, themes, and identities to create a sprawling story across seas. Ifemelu’s argument that as a blogger, she wants to observe rather than to educate is what I found to be at the core of the novel’s approach. This book will not give you answers; it won’t tell you the solutions to micro-aggressions or even how to go about being a great ally or activist (even our educated Yale boy Blaine is seen through Ifemelu’s eyes as patronizing more often than not). And yet, reading this book through the eyes of an African woman and man, can lend us here in the states more clarity towards the biases and inherent privilege we engage in, such as even well meaning acts of assistance or charity. It gives the book a sense that there is no one answer. In depicting these scenarios for what they are, through characters who experience racial prejudice but are in many ways historically distant from the situation, Adichie doesn’t need to argue a specific point—she shows us that we need to find these conclusions for ourselves. While I do agree that the book, particularly the second half, becomes preachy without plot (and, admittedly, boring and drawn out towards the end), I believe Adichie’s talent in cultivating a story of this scale and nuance to be commendable. To conclude, I am wowed and intimidated by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s characters, her writing prowess, and the scope of her stories.
