Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Fourth Estate, 2013, 311 p, (plus various addenda; author profile, an essay about the author’s return to Nigeria, about the book etc.) First published 2004.

Tolstoy famously had it that happy families were all alike but unhappy ones were unhappy in different ways. This does not seem to be the case for those unhappy families dominated by a religious fanatic, which – from my experience of literature – are very similar  The first sentence of Purple Hibiscus (which also incorporates a reference to Chinua Achebe’s first novel) makes it clear that our narrator Kambili’s father, Eugene, is prone to sudden outbursts of violence and the first two pages that he is a strict Catholic, performative in his observances, contemptuous of his Igbo background, intolerant of those who would not have things done “properly.” This intolerance extends to his own father, known to Kambili and her brother Jaja as Papa Nnukwu, but whom they are only allowed to visit for fifteen minutes at a time. Nnukwu himself insists he is not a pagan, that he is merely a traditionalist.

Any transgression of Eugene’s strict rules – or of those he believes his church ordains – suffers harsh punishment. Even Kambili coming second in her class at the end of one term is met with chastisement crossing the border of abuse, during which Eugene tells Kambili he didn’t spend all his time making good in order that his children be useless creatures. Her mother, Beatrice, puts up with all this – and more – more or less uncomplainingly, seeking only to comfort her children as best she can.

Yet Eugene is charitable, dispensing “crisp naira notes” to beggars, a benefactor to worthy causes, financial backer of The Standard, an anti-government newspaper and a steadfast supporter of its editor, Ade Coker. All this generosity is enabled because Eugene is a very successful self-made business man.

Eugene’s strict control of his children’s lives is in contrast to the much freer attitude of his sister Ifeoma, to whose house in Nsukka, Jaja and Kambili are allowed to go for a few weeks. The easy-going atmosphere in her Aunty Ifeoma’s house, the openness of her cousins, at first confuses Kambili – to the point of being tongue-tied.

In Nsukka she again comes across Father Amadi who had once stood in at their usual church and given a sermon of which Eugene had profoundly disapproved due to his use of Igbo speech and songs, a stark contrast to the white Father Benedict. The fifteen-year-old Kambili develops an attraction for Father Amadi, an attraction which may be mutual but on which of course Father Amadi, though he befriends her, cannot act.

In the background tolls the political situation where the authoritarian government acts to suppress opposition which leads to the closing down of The Standard.

Adichie’s portrayal of a young girl growing into adulthood and awareness of self in the midst of a multitude of challenges is affecting and believable. That the centre of her life cannot hold, that something has to give is the crux of the novel. The agent of change is, perhaps, not quite the character we might have thought.

 

Pedant’s corner:- Written in USian; “the eighteen-yard box” (known in footballing countries as ‘the penalty box’.)

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