Notes on Recent Reading 40 (Saunders, Adichie, Radhakrishnan)

Lincoln in the Bardo (Saunders)

     For all its idiosyncratic form, the novel seems deeply conventional in theme, including a happy ending with Willie and the crew of deads making the right choice at last and the president turning his mind away from his consuming grief. In a lesser way, the racial theme struck me as quite reductive as well as anachronistically modern. Apart from that dissonance the multiple voices of the spirits seemed a wasteful and intrusive device as they at times served only to narrate and seemed often interchangeable, finishing each other’s phrases. Even worse was the mingling of genuine and newly composed historical sources. I suppose critics have sorted them out, but I cannot see the point of the exercise.
     It was entertaining to hear the various voices on those exchanges in which they were differentiated, and Saunders is certainly capable of some well-turned poetic phrases, but the attention the book has attracted strikes me as misplaced. It is basically a book with a gimmick.


Americanah (Adichie)

     Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie’s third novel, is a substantial (five hundred pages) and accomplished narrative. Having established the relationship between Ifemelu and Obinze during the opening expository chapters, the romance is then held in suspense for much of the story while Ifemelu experiences an American immigrant’s odyssey. The ending is abrupt, and the reader suspects that Ifemelu’s impulsiveness will surely lead to further complications. The book could be an effective soap opera, in fact, moving from one unsatisfactory love relationship to another.
     Love is not the focus, however. The book has in fact the same center as the protagonist’s blog, that is, the life of Nigerians in the USA or, even more precisely, the reactions of white Americans to Nigerians. Though Africans are not spared Adichie’s satiric thrusts, the book is first of all a non-American black person’s experience of race in the U.S.A. While the Africans, like the main character, are struggling, seeking material security, many of the white Americans she encounters are affluent liberals. The fierce racism of working-class Americans finds as little a place in Adichie’s world as the attitudes of traditional and poor Nigerians.
     One need not agree to think it salutary to hear the opinion of the supercilious Senegalese who maintains that he would never eat either McDonald’s or a cookie. Whether true or not, it is stimulating to be told that Africans do not appreciate the charm of old buildings but prefer everything new because they know that the future is theirs while Europeans and American fancy historic preservation because they know their best days are past. Hmm.

The value of such exposure emerges when I cannot consider strictures in these comments (the book is undisciplined, loose and overlong, overdetermined, with multiple exempla of every thematic point) without wondering if I, the white person, were being condescending, committing what is today called microaggression. On the other hand, were I to praise her to the skies, I would be like the comfortable though slightly ridiculous suburbanites who think all dark and poor people are beautiful. In this way identity politics, once a necessary and liberating force, can disable criticism. (Indeed it has nearly done so in many influential places.)
     The author has won the Booker prize, a MacArthur Grant, and virtually every other prestigious award. Like every other African writer seeking an international reputation, she relies on white approval, and, like many other readers of English, I find a particularly rewarding sort of DuBoisian double consciousness in such writers as her, Salman Rushdie, and Kazuo Ishiguro.
     I suppose these musings indicate that the narrative has proven its worth, and the fact that it is an engaging story makes it a readerly pleasure as well.


Indian Philosophy (Radhakrishnan)

     For the non-specialist this grand two-volume set is surely still the best account of the ancient and sophisticated Indian philosophical tradition which flourished alongside equally vigorous mythological and devotional writing. The author was the first Indian professor at Oxford and knows how to address a sympathetic European readership. He is adept, for instance, at providing European parallels for South Asian developments. His study like all broad surveys is stronger in some areas than others, and he has his own biases – for instance, his preference for a Vedantic Advaitism -- but these volumes fill an essential role for Westerners of all opinions and doubtless for a good many Indians as well. If nothing else Radhakrishnan has provided a useful reference work that includes all major and many minor thinkers with a good index to boot.