While the big brother participants are apprehensive about who’s going to leave the house next, yours truly just finished reading the book with the above titled written by Chimamanda Adichie whose first name I only just got to know how to pronounce. I really couldn’t make up my mind if it is an Igbo or English name or if it is a mixture of English and Igbo until a colleague of mine pronounced it with the proper Igbo inflection.
I was still a child when I got introduced to the Hibiscus flower which is red in colour, I used to cut it from my neighbour’s garden and put it in my hair. If you wrote WAEC in ‘99/2000, we drew it in our Biology practical exam so I was taken off guard when I heard “purple hibiscus” but Chimamanda has justified it or has she?
The book made quite an amazing impression on me - it is one of those books that you don’t want to put down – it kept me awake at night even when I had work the following day.
I really am at a loss on where to start.
What is a family? To me, a family is more than just a dad, a mum and kids which is where I think “papa” or Uncle Eugene lost it. Yes he was religious, he gave to the poor, he was charitable and kind to all and sundry but his family. The church recognized him and women would willingly throw themselves or their daughters at him according to his wife Beatrice. His kids grew up in an atmosphere of total fear, they had no opinion, and everything for them had to be approved by their dad, which really isn’t a bad thing. Where it is bad is where kids are not allowed to be kids, where every mistake they make is a sin and should be confessed at the feet of a priest, I mean even his wife was dead scared of him and if she “misbehaved”, he punished her by beating her or doing atrocious things to her. Even the kids were not left out. Imagine where your dad pours hot water on you just because you have a picture of or you were in the same room with your “heathen” grandfather! Or where he disfigures your finger because you came 2nd position in class! I mean, who stays in that kind of marriage? An Igbo woman.
The man is more catholic than the Catholic Church, to the extent that singing igbo songs or hymns at mass is not acceptable to him, he does not care for his aged father because according to him, he is a heathen just because he does not believe in the catholic faith. With all that, his father still includes him in his prayers. His sister, aunt Ifeoma is also a catholic but is the direct opposite of him. she is a widow, and has to cater for three kids on her own. As a university lecturer, this is not an easy feat but her family is built on the foundation of love, laughter and discipline. Funny enough, I could relate to aunt Ifeoma’s family because we also used to fetch water outside as kids, I used to share some pieces of meat with my brothers whaenever we ate garri…we never got a piece to ourselves except on Sundays. Then my family was and still is where we are always ourselves, free to talk, laugh and be kids. We knew we were not supposed to fail at school but even when we did not perform as good as we ought to, we were not seriously beaten or made fun of, instead my mum would shout a little but whoever had poor results that term had to put in more study time over the holidays.
Aunt Ifeoma manages to convince Eugene to let his kids come and spend some time in Nsukka with her and while the environment and behavior was strange, it was full of love and naturally Jaja and Kambili preferred their aunt’s home to theirs.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was when Eugene beat his wife yet again to the extenet that he broke their centre table on her stomach, causing her to have a miscarriage for the third or fourth time. After she recovered from this incident, she lost it. She started feeding him poison in his tea until he eventually slumped and died. An autopsy was performed and when the police came, Jaja claimed he killed his dad.
While I do not believe in murder, I must say that Eugene had it coming; I did not like the way it ended either and while murder is not a good idea, i do know that there is more to life than shades of black and white. I have a problem with their Parish Priest, Fr. Benedict though. As a spiritual director, he could not have claimed not to have seen the physical and emotional assault the family was going through, he heard their confession and unless Eugene did not confess everything he did (if he even saw it as wrong) the priest did nothing about it. When he beat his daughter so hard that she lost consciousness and was rushed to the catholic hospital, he could have done something but no he did not. Maybe he was blinded by the generous donations he made to the church.
Yet we wonder why we have so many psychopaths in the society! If I come from a dysfunctional family, how am I supposed to behave in public? If I can’t laugh at home, where could I possibly laugh? If my dad’s way of discipline is scarring me and then using tears with the words “anything I do, I do out of love” to blackmail me emotionally as a child, what will I teach my kids? For how long will we continue to use religion as a perfect cover for our heinous crimes? He called his own father a heathen and “hands offed” him but in what way did he try to win his father over by showing love to him? if you call yourself a Christian and your ways are evil, how do you intend to win souls?
Did I mention the attraction between Kambili and Father Amadi? Yes! Priests have feelings too, after all, they are also human like you and i.
These and more are the questions that arose in me when I read “Purple Hibiscus”.
Chimamanda Adichie came into lime light with this book even though she had written short stories in the past. Her style of writing took me back to the days of Chinua Achebe, Cyprian Ekwensi, Flora Nwapa and the like where children used to seat at the feet of the elders and listen to “akuko ifo” otherwise known as folktales. She is also the author of “Half of a yellow sun” and guess what! She is young and an inspiration to many people out there. I get bored easily but this book held my interest from start to finish and I did not want it to end. I am so proud of her.
(Yawns) I’m tired of typing…why don’t you go get or borrow a copy of “Purple Hibiscus” if you haven’t and get the whole story? As for me, I’m off to ook for my next Chimamanda book. See you later.
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