June Book of the Month: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s third novel, Americanah, has been endlessly praised since its publication in 2013. The book won the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction, was shortlisted for the 2014 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, and chosen as one of the 10 Best Books of 2013 by the New York Times Book Review.

These countless accolades were the reason Americanah sat on my bedside table for months before I finally picked it up. It can sometimes be daunting to read a book so well received and so tirelessly raved about; there is a certain pressure to enjoy it as much as everyone else has, and a fear that if your opinion deviates from general consensus, you either have bad taste or are just plain wrong.

Luckily, I can honestly say that Americanah is one of the best books I have ever read. Although the novel is centered around the lives of two young lovers, it is significantly different to our last book of the month (Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles). Covering issues of race, gender, depression, relationships, family, culture, politics, and geographical and emotional displacement, Adichie tackles sensitive topics with sangfroid. The story of Ifemelu’s see-saw experience in America evokes both laughter and tears, and emotions were equally torn with descriptions of Obinze’s struggles in Nigeria and London. Adichie takes the reader on a journey of passion and dedication, effectively portraying the complexities of life and the stark economic, social and cultural contrasts between three different continents.

DISCLAIMER: SPOILERS BELOW.

Adichie demonstrates the vast expanse of emotions felt by Ifemelu as she experiences the pain of having to learn who she is in a place where she is constantly made to feel an outsider. Her migration to America from Nigeria fills readers with hopeful anticipation for this intelligent and dedicated girl on the cusp of vocational success. Naturally, this does not happen with ease. However, rather than simply following the tediously predictive success story of a small fish in a big pond, Adichie draws out Ifemelu’s painful battles against prejudice. She actively engages with situations that, at a first glance, seem irrelevant or inconsequential. But it is these humane interactions with hairdressers, commuters, and strangers, that make the story so magnificent. In an all-too familiar for many, yet horrifically accurate representation, Ifemelu is faced time and time again with small-minded, white privileged bias, sexism, and chauvinistic racism. Adichie’s skill is clearly shown through these representations of brief interactions that illustrate a systemically blind cultural and racial ignorance on behalf of the majority of new people she meets. Irony is rife through varying portrayals of these individuals - for example, those who pride themselves on their ‘awareness’, despite being wholly unaware that their arrogance and self-satisfaction. Only on the fourth page Ifemelu describes an interaction with ‘a dreadlocked white man’ sitting next to her on a train who said that ‘race is totally overhyped these days, black people need to get over themselves, it’s all about class now’. Ifemelu used this as the basis of an article she wrote for her lifestyle blog entitled ‘Not All Dreadlocked White American Guys are Down’. Adichie’s nuanced yet effectively transgressive portrayal of human personalities is faultless.

As well as being an important novel in demonstrating institutionalised racism, sexism, and other significant ‘isms’, Adichie is also entirely erudite in representing that which is universally experienced, such as issues surrounding growing up, sexuality, jobs, and most significantly, love and loss. Her portrayal of Ifemelu and Obinze’s gradually divergent lives creates conflicting loyalties for readers; should we feel happy when Ifemelu meets any of her new romantic interests in the course of the story? Should we feel jealous on behalf of Obinze? Similarly, when Obinze gets married and has a child, how can we be anything but disdainful towards his new wife? How can she ever compare to the fairytale love Obinze lost? Adichie carefully constructs a world where loyalties are split and hope seems irrelevant in the face of reality, yet simultaneously a world where readers cannot help but hold onto a past that even the characters themselves seem to eschew.

What struck me most about Adichie’s writing is her ability to find the words to describe those indistinguishable emotions that often appear without rhyme or reason, nameless sentiments that can be fleeting or lingering, and regularly leave the inflicted person speechless. To provide a single example amidst hundreds, and in keeping with the theme of displacement tangible throughout the novel, in Chapter 5 Ifemelu describes how she feels at times embarrassed about her own lifestyle in comparison to her boyfriend Obinze’s. The seemingly inconsequential realisation that ‘she didn’t know what it meant to “be on your mother’s passport”’, provides a trigger for an onslaught of self-doubt and irrational fear. ‘She remembered the surprise on Obinze’s face, a surprise he had quickly shielded, when he asked, “What’s your phone number?” and she replied, ‘We don’t have a phone’ (66). She thinks about how he fits in perfectly ‘among people who had gone abroad’, and she feels as though she does not. As her thoughts spiral, so do her emotions. Her description perfectly represents the rapid flood of emotions felt when a singular thoughts creates waves of illogical and catastrophic thinking: ‘Whenever she felt this way, panic would slice into her at the slightest thing, and mundane events would become arbiters of doom. This time, Ginika was the trigger; she was standing near the staircase, her backpack on her shoulder, her face gold-streaked in the sunlight, and suddenly Ifemelu thought how much Ginika and Obinze had in common….. She imagined Obinze realizing how better suited Ginika was for him, and then this joy, this fragile, glimmering thing between them, would disappear’ (67). This irrational, yet understandable and immensely common, experience is described with true accuracy and sentiment.

In her novel, Adichie perfectly captures the complexities of the human mind; this is only one in a million examples of the pervasive and comprehensive way in which the author weaves her unmitigated understanding of human emotions and experiences. Americanah leaves the reader with hope, after a whirlwind journey that covers a whole host of important social, cultural and political topics. I cannot recommend this book enough.