I just finished reading Abani's latest work, "The Virgin of Flames". This book is a lot different from his previous works, although it is embedded with many of his familiar themes of religion, haunting, identity, and overt sexuality. It takes place in Los Angeles, where I live, and revolves around a young adult visual artist named Black who is struggling to find his identity in a city that seems to be a land of transplants, maintaining no true identity of its own. Black is lost. His father is Igbo from Nigeria, and his mother is Salvadoran. He struggles with his mixed-race and mixed-culture background. He also struggles with abandonment and devlopmental issues because his father left to fight and died in the civil war in Nigeria, and his mother died of cancer after abusing him for a long time. All he has left of them are skewed and haunting memories. His father was an alcoholic scientist who claimed to believe in nothing but reason, and on the other side of the spectrum his mother was a deeply religious Catholic who imposed guilt-ridden rituals on Black throughout his childhood. Black's friend Iggy tells him he is haunted by the ghost of his mother, and that he can never find himself if he does not address this ghost and thus cause it to go away.
These are not the only issues complicating Black's sense of self. When he was younger, he was forced to wear dresses until he was six years old. A letter from his father explains this by saying that there is a curse on their family that calls for all males under the age of seven to die, so they have to hide the males by disguising them as females. After all this, Black grew to enjoy dressing as a woman, although he hides this fact from most people. He even steals women's clothing to dress up in private. During his childhood Black experiences confusing sexual experiences, such as the rape by a male gangster, the sprinkling of votive wax on his penis by his mother as a means of "penance", the watching of his dying mother masturbating in front of him. Now in his adulthood Black is obsessed with a transsexual stripper he calls Sweet Girl, and eventually he starts a sort of relationship with her. Black suffers greatly at his confusion over his sexual identity. Is he gay? A cross-dresser? A straight guy who dresses up solely to inspire his art? He also feels confusion over his race, culture, and religion? Is he black? Igbo? Catholic? Atheist? Salvadoran? It seems his only true source of solace is in his art, mostly murals that he creates on sides of walls in East Los Angeles or inside of builidings.
This book was a lot more narrative-based than Abani's last two novellas that I read, and less poetic. It reminded me much more of "Graceland", especially with the whole theme of dressing up to assume other identities, a form of "masking". I was both drawn to and away from this book simulatenously, if that contradiction makes any sense. Its strangeness intrigued me, as it is unlike any book I ever read, and it was hard to put down. At times, it even made me slightly uncomfortable, which is hard to do. I think this has something to do with the rawness and truth at the heart of Abani's novel. He is not afraid to be graphic and upfront, and I think I could see myself in Black at many moments. I guess I have always struggled with my sense of being, and coming to terms with my strange childhood. Many times I have felt "lesser than", and unable to escape the ghosts of my parents and my past. Although my struggle with identity is not the same as Black's, I definetely relate to his lack of internal peace, and his way of turning to art as means of expression and a sort of self-therapy. We all have our ghosts, and maybe that is why this book is at times very haunting.
Speaking of ghosts, and angels, and demons, that is a huge running theme in this novel. Not only is Black haunted by his mother's ghost, but he is also haunted by the Virgin Mary, who he becomes obsessed with, and the angel Gabriel, who constantly follows him around in different forms. He is both haunted and comforted by the Los Angeles River, which he seems to never be able to leave behind. I really enjoyed this focus on both real and imagined ghosts. Following from that, as you can probably tell from the title, there is a huge emphasis on religion, especially Catholicism, and the Virgin Mary. There is a sort of recurrent "good girl" (Virgin)/"bad girl" (Sweet Girl) dichotomy throughout the book. There is a lot on guilt, and ritual, and belief. Very interesting for my Jew-ness.
Funny enough, I am left thinking of this novel. I can't escape the chills it gave me for some reason. At times I wanted to stop reading, but I couldn't stop. I was searching for an end, for Black's internal peace, just like he was. Of course there can be no peace. Maybe I was truly searching for my own peace. Maybe I am still searching. Maybe this book reminded me of that. It is a strange, "fun-house" type ride throughout this book, and I highly recommend it for all the haunted souls out there. Be prepared to be uncomfortable, as you may just see yourself reflected on a way you never have before.
I will leave you with one part that left me thinking. Black is conversing with his friend Iggy, and she starts off:
""Look, let's not talk about it anymore. Origins aren't important, what happened, who did what to whom,, that whole postmortem crap. Matter of fact, even the change away from it isn't important. What's important is committing to the new life, whatever it is. Some things you just put in the ground and leave alone.'
The phrase about origins not being important echoed in his brain like a Ping-Pong ball richocheting off the insides of his skull. The fact of the matter was that he was obsessed with origins , and he believed that in his case, origins held the key to self-discovery. It seemed, though, that those with a clear sense of the past, of identity, were always so eager to bury it and move on , to reinvent themselves. What a luxury, he thought, what a thing, to choose your own obsession, to choose your own suffering. Him, he was trying to reinvent an origin to bury so he could finally come into this thing he wanted to be, and he knew that if he didn't find it soon, it would destroy him, burn him up."
I hope all of you check out Abani's novels and novellas. He also has poetry I would love to read, but it wasn't in the bookstore I am using for this project, though I'm sure i'll get my hands on it somehow. Seriously, he is one of my new favorite authors, and I would never have known about him without this project. I found out that he is now a professor at UC Riverside, so I am going to try to contact him to see if I can possinly meet him. I'll let you know how that goes.
And now, I think this is the last Abani book in the bookstore, so sadly, and happily, on to the next author. I'm not sure who that is yet, but I shall report back soon once I stop by there. Until then--
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Identity, Isolation, and the Igbo
So, I have not posted in awhile, mainly because my internet has been in and out. However, I have read two books during that time! Both are books by Chris Abani, and I have to say, I think I found one of my new favorite books, and it is rare for me to label a book a favorite.
First up was "Becoming Abigail". I was truly surprised at how different the style of writing was in this novella as compared to "Graceland". There is much less pure narrative going on, and a lot more poetry. Which is to say, I loved it, because I love poetic language. Yet many of the themes Abani touched on in "Graceland" are still present in this work--loss of a mother figure, conflicts with father, isolation, culture clashes, sexuality, temporal jumps back and forth. This particular novella focuses heavily on identity and the body. It centers around Abigail, an Igbo girl from Nigeria whose mother (also named Abigail) dies after giving birth to her. She always feels a bit of resentment from her father as if she killed his wife and her mother, and the fact that she appears almost physically identical to the Abigail of her namesake further complicates her issues of identity. In this story her cousin takes her to live in England, apparently as a kind gesture to "save" her, but in reality he sells her into prostitution and sexual slavery. Along the way she falls in love with her white married social worker, and they have a brief affair before being found out. Abigail often burns her own skin and this self-mutilation serves as a means to escape her body, but also as a way to demarcate physical differences between her and the mother whose ghost she struggles to break free from--and so simultaneously it is a means to accept her own body for what it is and make it palpable. There is also a lot in this story about memory, and how much is truth, and how much is made up. Do we ever have purely "true" memories? Along those lines, do authors have the responsibility to tell "truth" in memoir? Is this even possible?
I think the only way to give justice to this beautiful novella is to quote some of my favorite parts and let you see for yourself.
"Sometimes there is no way to leave something behind. Something over. We know this. We know this. We know this. This is the prevalence of ritual. To remember something that cannot be forgotten. Yet not left over. She knew this. As she smoked. She knew this. This. This. This. And what now?"
"Why did these people know nothing of this? Of the complexities of life and how you can never recapture the way a particular shaft of light, falling through a tree, patterned the floor in a shower of shadows. You just opened your heart because you knew there would be another shaft of light, another tree, and another rain of shadows. Each particular. Not the same as yesterday's. Not as beautiful as yesterday's. Only as beautiful as today's. Even the dead knew this."
"None of the men who had taken her in her short lifetime had seen her. ...They never weighed the heft of her breast the way she did, had, from the moment of her first bump. Sitting in her room, the darkness softened by a tired moon straining through dirty windows, she had rolled her growing breast between her palms like dough being shaped for a lover's bread. This wasn't an erotic exercise, though it became that, inevitably. At first it was a curiosity, a genuine wonder at the burgeoning of a self, a self that was still Abigail, yet still her. With the tip of a wax crayon she would write 'me' over and over on the brown rise of them. And when she washed in the shower the next day, the color would bleed, but the wax left a sheen, the memory of night and her reclamation. But not the men in her life; they hadn't really stopped long enough. She was a foreign country to them. One they wanted to pass through as quickly as possible."
There is so much more beautiful prose in this novella. I love the way Abani uses metaphor, and repetition. The way he can write from the mind of an adolescent woman so convincingly. His focus on memory and the body.
I thought I had read my favorite book by him. But then I read "Song for Night", another novella, and I was truly blown away. Wow. I didn't think I was going to enjoy this one because it is a war story and I'm not really one for "action" books. Instead I found a deeply moving, introspective, poetic novella about a young boy and his comrades who serve as mine diffusers in the civil war in Nigeria. It is about the war, and the situation in the country, but it isn't--underneath it all, it's a story about adolescence, love, betrayal, haunting, memory, pain, survival. However the boy's adolescence and coming of age is of course heavily colored by the fact that he is a child soldier, and that makes for a disturbing and melancholy storyline--just the type I enjoy, ha. The story opens with a discussion on silence. The opening line is, "What you hear is not my voice". This is foreshadowing for what is to come, but I won't discuss that so as not to be a plot spoiler. I will tell you that what the boy is literally talking about is the fact that he and his unit can no longer talk--their throats were cut by the army so that they had no more voices, rendering them unable to scream if they stepped on a mine and blew up--reminiscent of a certain scene in "Slumdog Millionaire". Consequently each chapter is titled with a different aspect of sign language that the children use to communicate, such as "Memory is a Pattern Cut into an Arm" and "Truth is Forefinger to Tongue Raised Skyward". I find this beautiful, and it really speaks to the themes of communication, language, and human connection found in the novella.
Again, this book speaks best for itself, so all I shall do now is quote some excerpts for you.
"There is a lot to be said for silence, especially when it comes to you young. The interiority of the head, whih is a misnomer-misnomer being one of those words silence brings you-but there is something about the mind's interiority no less that opens up your view of the world. It is a curious place to live and makes you deep beyond your years and familiar with death. But that is what this war has done."
"The next day, as one of us was blown up by a mine, we discovered why they had silenced us: so that we wouldn't scare eachother with our death screams. Detecting a mine with your bare toes and defusing it with a jungle knife requires all your concentration, and screams are a risky distraction. What they couldn't know was that in the silence of our heads, the screams of those dying around us were louder than if they still had their voices."
"I remember a group I saw once. Children without arms or legs or both, men with only half a face, women with shrapnel-chewed scars for breats--all of them holding onto life and hope with a fire that burned feverishly in their eyes. If any light comes from this war, it will come from eyes such as those."
"This is how we sign this: forefinger poniting to the sky while the whole body gyrates. For Ijeoma and me, play is a veiled thing, our own private language within a private language, sweeter for being secret. Rock, paper, scissors: one tap on our gun's stock, two taps, three. One tap. One. One tap. Two. A loss. Two taps. One. A win. Two taps. Two. A draw. Endlessly we play, never looking at eachother but smiling into the distance, hearts racing with the aniticpation. Then a steady hand, palm flat. Silence. Still we smile as we scan for the danger, our hearts beating. One. One. Two. Two. Two. Two. Three. Three. Three."
There are so many, many more amazing, quotable parts. Like the entire novella. Seriously. This is one the most physically grotesque books I have read, especially of Abani's, full of decapitated people and cannibalism and brute rape, and yet I find this to be one of the most poetic and beautiful novellas I have come across. Haunting. Now there's some foreshadowing for you. Read it.
Next up is what I think is Abani's last book at the bookstore (last time I was there)--"The Virgin of Flames". Just glancing at this novel (it is longer than the last two) tells me that it takes place in Los Angeles and it appears very different from any of his previous works. I am excited to read about my hometown, although I'm sad to leave the poetics of the last two novellas behind. I'll report back when I have something to say. Until then--
First up was "Becoming Abigail". I was truly surprised at how different the style of writing was in this novella as compared to "Graceland". There is much less pure narrative going on, and a lot more poetry. Which is to say, I loved it, because I love poetic language. Yet many of the themes Abani touched on in "Graceland" are still present in this work--loss of a mother figure, conflicts with father, isolation, culture clashes, sexuality, temporal jumps back and forth. This particular novella focuses heavily on identity and the body. It centers around Abigail, an Igbo girl from Nigeria whose mother (also named Abigail) dies after giving birth to her. She always feels a bit of resentment from her father as if she killed his wife and her mother, and the fact that she appears almost physically identical to the Abigail of her namesake further complicates her issues of identity. In this story her cousin takes her to live in England, apparently as a kind gesture to "save" her, but in reality he sells her into prostitution and sexual slavery. Along the way she falls in love with her white married social worker, and they have a brief affair before being found out. Abigail often burns her own skin and this self-mutilation serves as a means to escape her body, but also as a way to demarcate physical differences between her and the mother whose ghost she struggles to break free from--and so simultaneously it is a means to accept her own body for what it is and make it palpable. There is also a lot in this story about memory, and how much is truth, and how much is made up. Do we ever have purely "true" memories? Along those lines, do authors have the responsibility to tell "truth" in memoir? Is this even possible?
I think the only way to give justice to this beautiful novella is to quote some of my favorite parts and let you see for yourself.
"Sometimes there is no way to leave something behind. Something over. We know this. We know this. We know this. This is the prevalence of ritual. To remember something that cannot be forgotten. Yet not left over. She knew this. As she smoked. She knew this. This. This. This. And what now?"
"Why did these people know nothing of this? Of the complexities of life and how you can never recapture the way a particular shaft of light, falling through a tree, patterned the floor in a shower of shadows. You just opened your heart because you knew there would be another shaft of light, another tree, and another rain of shadows. Each particular. Not the same as yesterday's. Not as beautiful as yesterday's. Only as beautiful as today's. Even the dead knew this."
"None of the men who had taken her in her short lifetime had seen her. ...They never weighed the heft of her breast the way she did, had, from the moment of her first bump. Sitting in her room, the darkness softened by a tired moon straining through dirty windows, she had rolled her growing breast between her palms like dough being shaped for a lover's bread. This wasn't an erotic exercise, though it became that, inevitably. At first it was a curiosity, a genuine wonder at the burgeoning of a self, a self that was still Abigail, yet still her. With the tip of a wax crayon she would write 'me' over and over on the brown rise of them. And when she washed in the shower the next day, the color would bleed, but the wax left a sheen, the memory of night and her reclamation. But not the men in her life; they hadn't really stopped long enough. She was a foreign country to them. One they wanted to pass through as quickly as possible."
There is so much more beautiful prose in this novella. I love the way Abani uses metaphor, and repetition. The way he can write from the mind of an adolescent woman so convincingly. His focus on memory and the body.
I thought I had read my favorite book by him. But then I read "Song for Night", another novella, and I was truly blown away. Wow. I didn't think I was going to enjoy this one because it is a war story and I'm not really one for "action" books. Instead I found a deeply moving, introspective, poetic novella about a young boy and his comrades who serve as mine diffusers in the civil war in Nigeria. It is about the war, and the situation in the country, but it isn't--underneath it all, it's a story about adolescence, love, betrayal, haunting, memory, pain, survival. However the boy's adolescence and coming of age is of course heavily colored by the fact that he is a child soldier, and that makes for a disturbing and melancholy storyline--just the type I enjoy, ha. The story opens with a discussion on silence. The opening line is, "What you hear is not my voice". This is foreshadowing for what is to come, but I won't discuss that so as not to be a plot spoiler. I will tell you that what the boy is literally talking about is the fact that he and his unit can no longer talk--their throats were cut by the army so that they had no more voices, rendering them unable to scream if they stepped on a mine and blew up--reminiscent of a certain scene in "Slumdog Millionaire". Consequently each chapter is titled with a different aspect of sign language that the children use to communicate, such as "Memory is a Pattern Cut into an Arm" and "Truth is Forefinger to Tongue Raised Skyward". I find this beautiful, and it really speaks to the themes of communication, language, and human connection found in the novella.
Again, this book speaks best for itself, so all I shall do now is quote some excerpts for you.
"There is a lot to be said for silence, especially when it comes to you young. The interiority of the head, whih is a misnomer-misnomer being one of those words silence brings you-but there is something about the mind's interiority no less that opens up your view of the world. It is a curious place to live and makes you deep beyond your years and familiar with death. But that is what this war has done."
"The next day, as one of us was blown up by a mine, we discovered why they had silenced us: so that we wouldn't scare eachother with our death screams. Detecting a mine with your bare toes and defusing it with a jungle knife requires all your concentration, and screams are a risky distraction. What they couldn't know was that in the silence of our heads, the screams of those dying around us were louder than if they still had their voices."
"I remember a group I saw once. Children without arms or legs or both, men with only half a face, women with shrapnel-chewed scars for breats--all of them holding onto life and hope with a fire that burned feverishly in their eyes. If any light comes from this war, it will come from eyes such as those."
"This is how we sign this: forefinger poniting to the sky while the whole body gyrates. For Ijeoma and me, play is a veiled thing, our own private language within a private language, sweeter for being secret. Rock, paper, scissors: one tap on our gun's stock, two taps, three. One tap. One. One tap. Two. A loss. Two taps. One. A win. Two taps. Two. A draw. Endlessly we play, never looking at eachother but smiling into the distance, hearts racing with the aniticpation. Then a steady hand, palm flat. Silence. Still we smile as we scan for the danger, our hearts beating. One. One. Two. Two. Two. Two. Three. Three. Three."
There are so many, many more amazing, quotable parts. Like the entire novella. Seriously. This is one the most physically grotesque books I have read, especially of Abani's, full of decapitated people and cannibalism and brute rape, and yet I find this to be one of the most poetic and beautiful novellas I have come across. Haunting. Now there's some foreshadowing for you. Read it.
Next up is what I think is Abani's last book at the bookstore (last time I was there)--"The Virgin of Flames". Just glancing at this novel (it is longer than the last two) tells me that it takes place in Los Angeles and it appears very different from any of his previous works. I am excited to read about my hometown, although I'm sad to leave the poetics of the last two novellas behind. I'll report back when I have something to say. Until then--
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Apocalypse, Now--and the Importance of Naming
I just finished Abani's "Graceland", the first book in my project. Without spoiling the ending, I will say I was surprised with the amount of graphic violence at the conclusion of the novel. Not that the novel has so far been bereft of violence--in fact, this is an underlying theme of the entire book. From the brutality of the army and its corrupt henchmen to the violence of molestation and rape, this novel spans a lot of physical and mental anguish. But the end of the novel is filled with sheer physical terror, and the way Abani describes it makes the pain Elvis and other characters suffer palpable and extremely realistic.
In fact, the end of the novel could truly be described as an Apocalypse of sorts. The corrupt government of Lagos decides to bulldoze poor communities such as the one inhabited by Elvis and his father, and the townspeople decide to fight back, so there is the violence that occurs with this. Then Elvis and his friend Redemption fail in their mission to deliver human organs cross-country as part of their work for the Colonel, a misguided "mob boss" of sorts who has high ranks in the local government. Because they abandon the mission once they realize they will be implicated in the kidnapping and murder of young children for their organs, the Colonel plots to capture and kill them, so they must go into hiding. However Elvis is captured by the Colonel's men and is beaten and tortured until he is just shy of death, only to survive and find his father dead and his town in shambles. All of this physical violence seems to burst forth upon the otherwise more slow-moving and calm narrative in order to jar the readers to attention--and in order to effect a choice that Elvis must make. The Apocalyptic conclusion leaves little room for Elvis to survive in Nigeria. He is a young man torn by the rich tradition of his Igbo heritgae in Nigeria and the democratic and capitalistic promises of life in the United States. His Aunt Felicia has already escaped to start a new life for herself. His father Sunday is not so lucky, and dies at the hands of the bulldozer. Which path will Elvis take? I will leave you to find out.
Another fascinating underlying theme of the novel is its religious parallels and references, which can be seen in the names bestowed upon the main characters. Elivs has the name of an American singer known as "the King", often accused of "stealing" the dance moves of African performers before him and claiming them as his own. This may not be religious in nature, but it is still foreboding of the main character's nature. Elvis has a friend named Redemption, and in the end this is what he helps provide for Elvis. Another main character is the King of the Beggars, often referred to only as the King. This character has obvious allusions to Christ, especially as he is deified in the end of the novel. This is written about the King: "He was spoken of with a deeply profound reverence, and the appendage 'Blessings be upon his name', usually reserved for prophets in Islam, was being used whenver his name was invoked. A group of Rastafarians even claimed he was the Emperor Selassie, Christ himself, the Lion of Judah, returned to lead them home." At the end of the novel Elvis meets a young girl named Blessing who turns out to be a caretaker for him, and a source of love--a definite blessing as her name invokes. At one point Sunday, Elvis' father, fervently talks about the importance of the name. He says, "Do you know we have a lot of deformed children begging? Because their parents know dey have no future. So at birth, before de child knows pain, dey deform it because it increases its earning power as a beggar. Do you see de love? All dey have to give de child is its deformity. All I have to give you is my name, Elvis Oke. And when I die, it will continue to help you build something for your children. Dat's why I don't want you to be a dancer. It will spoil your name." I find this diatribe on love and naming fascinating with its unique perspective. Can violence be perpetrated out of love? Can a name truly affect the outcome of one's life? This quote leaves me wondering.
There are many issues in this novel that I did not really even begin to touch on. There's the explicit sexuality, often dealing with incest and molestation. There is the huge theme of father-son relationships. There is the author's recurring inlcusion of encyclopedic information about herbs, plants, and recipes to play off of the events of the plot. There's the transformation of characters into mythical creatures and ghosts as a means of showcasing the traditional religion and heritage of the Igbo peoples in contrast to the "new" Chrsitianity and capitalism brought over from the West. I hope some of you will go out and read this novel. It will take you to a war-torn Nigeria, a land many of us know little about. It will show you a whole different lifestyle, and yet one that so many can relate to. As I said, there is so much to be discovered and pondered in this novel.
I will leave you with another of my favorite quotes from "Graceland":
"For the Igbo, tradition is fluid, growing. It is an event, like the sunset, or rain, chanigng with every occurrence. So too, the kola ritual has changed. Christian prayers have been added, and Jesus has replaced Obasi as the central deity. But its fluid aspects resist the empiricism that is the Western way, where life is supposed to be a system of codes, like the combinationsof human DNA or the Fibonacci patterns in nature. The Igbo are not reducible to a system of codes, and of meaning; this culture is always reaching for a pure lyric moment."
I like the idea of fluidity beyong conformity to a code, a sort of ineffable nature and way of life that pretty much characterizes this entire novel.
Next up, I am still reading books by Chris Abani--this time, "Becoming Abigail", a more recent work about a young girl sold into slavery in London from Nigeria, and about her escape and way of life. I will keep you posted on this novella. Until next time--
In fact, the end of the novel could truly be described as an Apocalypse of sorts. The corrupt government of Lagos decides to bulldoze poor communities such as the one inhabited by Elvis and his father, and the townspeople decide to fight back, so there is the violence that occurs with this. Then Elvis and his friend Redemption fail in their mission to deliver human organs cross-country as part of their work for the Colonel, a misguided "mob boss" of sorts who has high ranks in the local government. Because they abandon the mission once they realize they will be implicated in the kidnapping and murder of young children for their organs, the Colonel plots to capture and kill them, so they must go into hiding. However Elvis is captured by the Colonel's men and is beaten and tortured until he is just shy of death, only to survive and find his father dead and his town in shambles. All of this physical violence seems to burst forth upon the otherwise more slow-moving and calm narrative in order to jar the readers to attention--and in order to effect a choice that Elvis must make. The Apocalyptic conclusion leaves little room for Elvis to survive in Nigeria. He is a young man torn by the rich tradition of his Igbo heritgae in Nigeria and the democratic and capitalistic promises of life in the United States. His Aunt Felicia has already escaped to start a new life for herself. His father Sunday is not so lucky, and dies at the hands of the bulldozer. Which path will Elvis take? I will leave you to find out.
Another fascinating underlying theme of the novel is its religious parallels and references, which can be seen in the names bestowed upon the main characters. Elivs has the name of an American singer known as "the King", often accused of "stealing" the dance moves of African performers before him and claiming them as his own. This may not be religious in nature, but it is still foreboding of the main character's nature. Elvis has a friend named Redemption, and in the end this is what he helps provide for Elvis. Another main character is the King of the Beggars, often referred to only as the King. This character has obvious allusions to Christ, especially as he is deified in the end of the novel. This is written about the King: "He was spoken of with a deeply profound reverence, and the appendage 'Blessings be upon his name', usually reserved for prophets in Islam, was being used whenver his name was invoked. A group of Rastafarians even claimed he was the Emperor Selassie, Christ himself, the Lion of Judah, returned to lead them home." At the end of the novel Elvis meets a young girl named Blessing who turns out to be a caretaker for him, and a source of love--a definite blessing as her name invokes. At one point Sunday, Elvis' father, fervently talks about the importance of the name. He says, "Do you know we have a lot of deformed children begging? Because their parents know dey have no future. So at birth, before de child knows pain, dey deform it because it increases its earning power as a beggar. Do you see de love? All dey have to give de child is its deformity. All I have to give you is my name, Elvis Oke. And when I die, it will continue to help you build something for your children. Dat's why I don't want you to be a dancer. It will spoil your name." I find this diatribe on love and naming fascinating with its unique perspective. Can violence be perpetrated out of love? Can a name truly affect the outcome of one's life? This quote leaves me wondering.
There are many issues in this novel that I did not really even begin to touch on. There's the explicit sexuality, often dealing with incest and molestation. There is the huge theme of father-son relationships. There is the author's recurring inlcusion of encyclopedic information about herbs, plants, and recipes to play off of the events of the plot. There's the transformation of characters into mythical creatures and ghosts as a means of showcasing the traditional religion and heritage of the Igbo peoples in contrast to the "new" Chrsitianity and capitalism brought over from the West. I hope some of you will go out and read this novel. It will take you to a war-torn Nigeria, a land many of us know little about. It will show you a whole different lifestyle, and yet one that so many can relate to. As I said, there is so much to be discovered and pondered in this novel.
I will leave you with another of my favorite quotes from "Graceland":
"For the Igbo, tradition is fluid, growing. It is an event, like the sunset, or rain, chanigng with every occurrence. So too, the kola ritual has changed. Christian prayers have been added, and Jesus has replaced Obasi as the central deity. But its fluid aspects resist the empiricism that is the Western way, where life is supposed to be a system of codes, like the combinationsof human DNA or the Fibonacci patterns in nature. The Igbo are not reducible to a system of codes, and of meaning; this culture is always reaching for a pure lyric moment."
I like the idea of fluidity beyong conformity to a code, a sort of ineffable nature and way of life that pretty much characterizes this entire novel.
Next up, I am still reading books by Chris Abani--this time, "Becoming Abigail", a more recent work about a young girl sold into slavery in London from Nigeria, and about her escape and way of life. I will keep you posted on this novella. Until next time--
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Illogical Logic
So I am now about halfway through Abani's "Graceland" and I am really enjoying it. There is a lot in this book that deals with issues of US imperialism, and the imposition of Eurocentric culture in Nigeria, which I touched on earlier. But something else has been striking me as fascinating, and that is the "illogical logic" used by many of the townspeople in Abani's book. I know this is a confusing term, and a strange paradox. What I mean by "illogical logic" is that there seems to be a running theme of characters justifying actions and behaviors with a sort of skewed logic, yet they are able to make sense of the logic so that it suits them.
Let me give an example. Earlier on in the novel Elvis is on the bus when a car in front of him hits a person. Instead of stopping, however, the bus just rolls over the body. Apparently there are many of these bodies strewn about as pedestrians travel across the town of Lagos by dodging cars and trying to traverse the busy roads, often to their own fatality. Elvis turns to the man next to him and has the following conversation:
Elvis: Why can't we cross with the brdiges? Why do we gamble with our lives?"
Man: My friend, life in Lagos is a gamble, crossing or no crossing.
...
Elvis: If you cross the road without using the overhead bridges, you increase the chances of being hit with a car. Simple logic, really.
Man: So what is your point, my friend? We all have to die sometimes, you know. If it is your time, it is your time. You can be in your bed and die. If it is not your time, you can't die even if you cross de busiest road. After all, you can fall from de bridge into de road, and die. Now isn't dat double foolishness?
With this conversation, perhaps you or I might tend to agree with Elvis' viewpoint of logic. Cross at the bridge, and you have less chances of getting hurt. But the man from Lagos insists on a logic based more on a concept of fate and fatalism than we often embrace in Western cultures. At first it seemed to me like a resignation of sorts. Was this man saying people should resgin themselves to almost certain death? That there is no point in taking care of one's safety? That one should just "give in"? But looking at it from another angle, I can see that to ghim, this is a logical way of thinking. When it is your time, it is your time. And if it is your time, even if you take the "safe" bridge, you will fall to your death. This varies greatly from what we are taught in American culture, which teaches us to "defend personal freedom", and basically to look out for yourself above all else. To me it is a culture centered on the "cult of the individual", whereas here the man is setting faith in a larger picture, where each man is just one part of a greater fate-based scheme. I find this "illogical logic" very interesting, and can also see the truth in what the man is telling Elvis.
Later on, Elivs befriends a man who calls himself the King of the Beggars. Elvis seems to help out many who are less fortunate than him, and they all promise him that they will meet again. The King of Beggars ends up coming into some money, and repaying Elvis for his kind deedof providing him with food one day. One day the King of the Beggars warns Elvis that the cigarettes he is smoking will kill him. However a few minutes later he asks for a cigarette.
Elvis: I thought you didn't smoke.
King: Why? Because I say it is bad? I tink de money you give me is bad, but I take it. You see, Elvis, life is funny thing. Now give me de cigarette.
Again, there is a sort of "illogical logic" here, a paradox where someone says one thing and does another thing contrary to what they have said. Despite that this may not make sense, I can relate to this feeling of claiming to believe one thing but acting in a contrary way. Through such "logic", Abani makes us feel for his characters, and makes their world relatable despite the fact that we may live worlds away, and may never have experienced the Lagos of Elvis' world.
This concept of "illogical logic" reminds me of when I was used to teach in South Central Los Angeles. I taught in a very economically poor area, and yet many of my students would come to school dressed in designer clothing or with the latest cell phones or other technology. Yet their parents often did not have enough money to properly feed them or house them. One may think that such use of money is crazy or completely illogical, yet if you put yourself in their place, you may see it from a different view. In a place where you do not have money and the idea of long term saving seems completely irrelevant, what are you going to spend money on? The culture of now. You live in the present. Maybe you never think you will have a house, or a fancy car. But you can buy the "little things" now. You can have a status symbol. And as strange as that may seem to some, it is another type of "illogical logic" that I can somewhat relate to.
On another note, there are a lot of colloquial sayings in the book that the characters throw back and forth between themselves. A few of my favorites:
Be careful. When a car hits a dog, its puppy is never far behind.
It is better we are all blind, because in de land of de blind, de one-eyed man is mad.
Only a dead man tells everything, only a fool asks.
And I will leave you with one of my favorite conversations between Elvis and his powerful yet dangerous friend Redemption.
Redemption: Dis is why I like Lagos.
Elivs: Why?
Redemption: Because though dey hate us, de rich still have to look at us. Try as dey might, we don't go away.
Until next time...
Let me give an example. Earlier on in the novel Elvis is on the bus when a car in front of him hits a person. Instead of stopping, however, the bus just rolls over the body. Apparently there are many of these bodies strewn about as pedestrians travel across the town of Lagos by dodging cars and trying to traverse the busy roads, often to their own fatality. Elvis turns to the man next to him and has the following conversation:
Elvis: Why can't we cross with the brdiges? Why do we gamble with our lives?"
Man: My friend, life in Lagos is a gamble, crossing or no crossing.
...
Elvis: If you cross the road without using the overhead bridges, you increase the chances of being hit with a car. Simple logic, really.
Man: So what is your point, my friend? We all have to die sometimes, you know. If it is your time, it is your time. You can be in your bed and die. If it is not your time, you can't die even if you cross de busiest road. After all, you can fall from de bridge into de road, and die. Now isn't dat double foolishness?
With this conversation, perhaps you or I might tend to agree with Elvis' viewpoint of logic. Cross at the bridge, and you have less chances of getting hurt. But the man from Lagos insists on a logic based more on a concept of fate and fatalism than we often embrace in Western cultures. At first it seemed to me like a resignation of sorts. Was this man saying people should resgin themselves to almost certain death? That there is no point in taking care of one's safety? That one should just "give in"? But looking at it from another angle, I can see that to ghim, this is a logical way of thinking. When it is your time, it is your time. And if it is your time, even if you take the "safe" bridge, you will fall to your death. This varies greatly from what we are taught in American culture, which teaches us to "defend personal freedom", and basically to look out for yourself above all else. To me it is a culture centered on the "cult of the individual", whereas here the man is setting faith in a larger picture, where each man is just one part of a greater fate-based scheme. I find this "illogical logic" very interesting, and can also see the truth in what the man is telling Elvis.
Later on, Elivs befriends a man who calls himself the King of the Beggars. Elvis seems to help out many who are less fortunate than him, and they all promise him that they will meet again. The King of Beggars ends up coming into some money, and repaying Elvis for his kind deedof providing him with food one day. One day the King of the Beggars warns Elvis that the cigarettes he is smoking will kill him. However a few minutes later he asks for a cigarette.
Elvis: I thought you didn't smoke.
King: Why? Because I say it is bad? I tink de money you give me is bad, but I take it. You see, Elvis, life is funny thing. Now give me de cigarette.
Again, there is a sort of "illogical logic" here, a paradox where someone says one thing and does another thing contrary to what they have said. Despite that this may not make sense, I can relate to this feeling of claiming to believe one thing but acting in a contrary way. Through such "logic", Abani makes us feel for his characters, and makes their world relatable despite the fact that we may live worlds away, and may never have experienced the Lagos of Elvis' world.
This concept of "illogical logic" reminds me of when I was used to teach in South Central Los Angeles. I taught in a very economically poor area, and yet many of my students would come to school dressed in designer clothing or with the latest cell phones or other technology. Yet their parents often did not have enough money to properly feed them or house them. One may think that such use of money is crazy or completely illogical, yet if you put yourself in their place, you may see it from a different view. In a place where you do not have money and the idea of long term saving seems completely irrelevant, what are you going to spend money on? The culture of now. You live in the present. Maybe you never think you will have a house, or a fancy car. But you can buy the "little things" now. You can have a status symbol. And as strange as that may seem to some, it is another type of "illogical logic" that I can somewhat relate to.
On another note, there are a lot of colloquial sayings in the book that the characters throw back and forth between themselves. A few of my favorites:
Be careful. When a car hits a dog, its puppy is never far behind.
It is better we are all blind, because in de land of de blind, de one-eyed man is mad.
Only a dead man tells everything, only a fool asks.
And I will leave you with one of my favorite conversations between Elvis and his powerful yet dangerous friend Redemption.
Redemption: Dis is why I like Lagos.
Elivs: Why?
Redemption: Because though dey hate us, de rich still have to look at us. Try as dey might, we don't go away.
Until next time...
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Whiteface, and the Veil--Impositions or Adaptations?
So far I am truly enjoying "Graceland" by Chris Abani. The plot jumps back and forth in time between 1983 in the slumtown of Lagos and the late 1970s in Afikpo, a wealthier region of Nigeria. Back in Afikpo Elvis, the main character, still had his mom, who hadn't yet died of breast cancer, and his grandmother, who he both feared and loved dearly. His father drank, but still managed life as a functional drunk, even holding a job as superintendent of the school district. However after his mother dies, his family is unable to cope, and his father's drinking becomes out of control. He loses elections for office and moves himself and Elvis to Lagos, where the young boy must adjust to life in the slums. It is there that he decides he wants to dance for tourists to make money, dressing up as Elvis, and dancing.
I never realized when I started the book how it could have so many similarities to the nonfiction book I just finished, "Reading Lolita in Tehran". After all, Nafisi's book takes place in Iran, and Abani's book all the way in Nigeria. However both places are suffering from wars that revolve largely around religion. In Iran, Khomeini establishes Islamic rule, much to the exclusion of other religious minorities and secular constituents, and in Nigeria battles rage between Christians and Muslims. Of course wars have long been religion-based, from the Crusades all the way up until present day, so this similarity does not come as shocking to me.
What did surprise me, however, was the obsession with the West that occurs with the characters in both books. In "Reading Lolita in Tehran", Nafisi discusses this strange phenomenom at length. Her students seem to either blindly reject the West and its "imperialist" and "decadent" culture, or to fantasize about it without considering its shortcomings. Nafisi ponders that both oversimplicfications can be dangerous. At one point, her students put Fitzgerald's "Gatsby" on trial. The prosecutor, a Mr. Nyazi, states, "Our revolution is opposed to the materialism preached by Dr. Fitzgerald. We do not need Western materialisms , or American goods. If anything, we could use their technical know-how, but we MUST reject their morals." Even here there is an ambivalence, a nod to the West's technical know-how, but a rejection of its morals. This trial went on for some time in one of Nafisi's college classes, and this fact alone shows how the youth struggled with this existence, this notion, of the 'Other"-the West. They listened to Michael Jackson, they read Jane Austen--but here they were, in the Islamic Republic, in a very different environment. They could either deify or reject this "Other"-what other choices did they have? They could dream of living this "American lifestyle", or they could spit on it. This either/or mentality seems prevalent in Nafisi's Tehran. You are either Muslim, or secular. You are either pro-Revolution , or anti-change. You either wear the veil, or you are a whore. These are the choices--but when you look deeper, there are choices in-between the exteremes. You can wear the veil, but wear it askew. You can wear red nail polish under your gloves. You can find fault with Gatsby, but also symphasize with him. You can love Iran, and feel that you belong there, but you can also choose to leave--to Canada, like the young Iranian woman Mitra and her husband, to America, like Nafisi and her husband--to the West. Or you can admire the West and still admire Iran--and stay there, like Nafisi's friend "the magician". This either/or is much more complex under the surface of propoganda speak.
In Abani's "Graceland", the locals also obsess over the West. They drink Coca-Cola, they read Entertainment magazine, and they dream of leaving to America. Abani writes, "Elvis mused over his mixed feelings. His fascination with movies and elvis Presley aside, he wasn't really sure he liked America. Now that the people he cared about were going there, he felt more ambivalent than ever." His friend Redemption deifies all things Western, and divulges his plans to go there with an American visa he has obtained. Yet Elvis occupies this middle ground, this in-between the either/or. He grumbles about Lagos, remarking about how crazy it is that so many people die by crossing the streets at the wrong section, and that the government leaves the bodies to rot because the family cannot afford the fine the government charges to pick up the body. Yet Nigeria is his home, the land of the Kola nut, the land of his mother, and his grandmother.
I am also interested in the idea of external imposition, or adaptation. In Nafisi's 'Reading Lolita in Tehran", there is much debate about wearing the veil and the chador. Some women feel that it is their choice to wear it, and they want to wear it out of respect and propriety. But some, like Nafisi, despise the veil, regarding it as an imposition of the Islamic Republic, and one that renders women "Invisilbe" and "irrelvant". In any case one only has to look at the drawings in the graphic novel "Persepolis" (one of my favorites) to see the striking effect of what it looks like when all women wear the veil and chador, so the only part that can be seen is their eyes.
In Abani's "Graceland", a central part of the novel is that Elvis dresses up as the white singer and dancer, even putting talcum powder on his face as a form of whiteface. Early in the novel, Abani writes about Elvis' encounter with a woman at a bustop. He writes, "She paused in front of him, taking in his clothes and wig and talcum powder running in sweaty rivulets down his face. 'Who do dis to you?' she asked. But before he could answer, she turned and walked away laughing." Indeed Elvis has done this to himself--or has he? Like the veil, perhaps some can view this cotume as an external imposition. Yes, Elvis is not required to wear this mask as women are required to wear the veil in the Islamic Republic, but does he really have a choice? How else is he going to make money? Is this an imposition, or an adaptation?
These ideas of the mask, of costume, of personal freedom, of choice--they may seem black and white, but really these issues are extremely complex under the surface. What masks and costumes do we wear here, in the United States, a democratic country? What is our choice, and what isn't?
In any case, I am only a quarter of the way through "Graceland", but these issues were running through my mind. I'll update when I have something to say. Until then--
I never realized when I started the book how it could have so many similarities to the nonfiction book I just finished, "Reading Lolita in Tehran". After all, Nafisi's book takes place in Iran, and Abani's book all the way in Nigeria. However both places are suffering from wars that revolve largely around religion. In Iran, Khomeini establishes Islamic rule, much to the exclusion of other religious minorities and secular constituents, and in Nigeria battles rage between Christians and Muslims. Of course wars have long been religion-based, from the Crusades all the way up until present day, so this similarity does not come as shocking to me.
What did surprise me, however, was the obsession with the West that occurs with the characters in both books. In "Reading Lolita in Tehran", Nafisi discusses this strange phenomenom at length. Her students seem to either blindly reject the West and its "imperialist" and "decadent" culture, or to fantasize about it without considering its shortcomings. Nafisi ponders that both oversimplicfications can be dangerous. At one point, her students put Fitzgerald's "Gatsby" on trial. The prosecutor, a Mr. Nyazi, states, "Our revolution is opposed to the materialism preached by Dr. Fitzgerald. We do not need Western materialisms , or American goods. If anything, we could use their technical know-how, but we MUST reject their morals." Even here there is an ambivalence, a nod to the West's technical know-how, but a rejection of its morals. This trial went on for some time in one of Nafisi's college classes, and this fact alone shows how the youth struggled with this existence, this notion, of the 'Other"-the West. They listened to Michael Jackson, they read Jane Austen--but here they were, in the Islamic Republic, in a very different environment. They could either deify or reject this "Other"-what other choices did they have? They could dream of living this "American lifestyle", or they could spit on it. This either/or mentality seems prevalent in Nafisi's Tehran. You are either Muslim, or secular. You are either pro-Revolution , or anti-change. You either wear the veil, or you are a whore. These are the choices--but when you look deeper, there are choices in-between the exteremes. You can wear the veil, but wear it askew. You can wear red nail polish under your gloves. You can find fault with Gatsby, but also symphasize with him. You can love Iran, and feel that you belong there, but you can also choose to leave--to Canada, like the young Iranian woman Mitra and her husband, to America, like Nafisi and her husband--to the West. Or you can admire the West and still admire Iran--and stay there, like Nafisi's friend "the magician". This either/or is much more complex under the surface of propoganda speak.
In Abani's "Graceland", the locals also obsess over the West. They drink Coca-Cola, they read Entertainment magazine, and they dream of leaving to America. Abani writes, "Elvis mused over his mixed feelings. His fascination with movies and elvis Presley aside, he wasn't really sure he liked America. Now that the people he cared about were going there, he felt more ambivalent than ever." His friend Redemption deifies all things Western, and divulges his plans to go there with an American visa he has obtained. Yet Elvis occupies this middle ground, this in-between the either/or. He grumbles about Lagos, remarking about how crazy it is that so many people die by crossing the streets at the wrong section, and that the government leaves the bodies to rot because the family cannot afford the fine the government charges to pick up the body. Yet Nigeria is his home, the land of the Kola nut, the land of his mother, and his grandmother.
I am also interested in the idea of external imposition, or adaptation. In Nafisi's 'Reading Lolita in Tehran", there is much debate about wearing the veil and the chador. Some women feel that it is their choice to wear it, and they want to wear it out of respect and propriety. But some, like Nafisi, despise the veil, regarding it as an imposition of the Islamic Republic, and one that renders women "Invisilbe" and "irrelvant". In any case one only has to look at the drawings in the graphic novel "Persepolis" (one of my favorites) to see the striking effect of what it looks like when all women wear the veil and chador, so the only part that can be seen is their eyes.
In Abani's "Graceland", a central part of the novel is that Elvis dresses up as the white singer and dancer, even putting talcum powder on his face as a form of whiteface. Early in the novel, Abani writes about Elvis' encounter with a woman at a bustop. He writes, "She paused in front of him, taking in his clothes and wig and talcum powder running in sweaty rivulets down his face. 'Who do dis to you?' she asked. But before he could answer, she turned and walked away laughing." Indeed Elvis has done this to himself--or has he? Like the veil, perhaps some can view this cotume as an external imposition. Yes, Elvis is not required to wear this mask as women are required to wear the veil in the Islamic Republic, but does he really have a choice? How else is he going to make money? Is this an imposition, or an adaptation?
These ideas of the mask, of costume, of personal freedom, of choice--they may seem black and white, but really these issues are extremely complex under the surface. What masks and costumes do we wear here, in the United States, a democratic country? What is our choice, and what isn't?
In any case, I am only a quarter of the way through "Graceland", but these issues were running through my mind. I'll update when I have something to say. Until then--
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Recession Reading: Famished for Fiction
I just finished the book "Reading Lolita in Tehran", a memoir about reading, teaching, and relating to "forbidden" fiction in the Islamic Republic of Iran in the 1970s and 1980s. In the book, author Azar Nafisi writes, "I have come to believe that genuine democracy cannot exist without the freedom to imagine and the right to use imaginative works without any restrictions. To have a whole life, one must have the possiblity of publicly shaping and expressing private worlds, dreams, thoughts, and desires, of constantly having access to a dialogue betweenthe public and private worlds. How else do we know that we have existed, felt, desired, hated, feared?"
Nafisi's memoir revolves around reading fiction within the realm of a repressive regime during a very specific time and place in history. However her words about the necessity of imagination and fiction to make us "whole" span a boundless time/space continuum. People have needed fiction as a means of survival and growth throughout history, and this does not change today. Here in the United States we are living during a recession, a time of political and economic uncertainty. Unemployment is at 7.6 percent, a high of sixteen years. People are scared. But we still have fiction. We still have that other imaginary world. And like others before and after us, we need to turn to this private world as both a means of self-evaluation and reflection, and as a means of escape.
I have always loved to read and write, especially fiction. I graduated with a degree in Literature and Writing, and continue to read whenever I can. However whenever I come to the end of one book, I almost always have trouble selecting a new one. Should I read one of the classics I never read? A new up-and-coming author? A novel of the avant-garde? So, I have decided to end that problem. I have decided to read all of the fiction books in the fiction section of a local bookstore in Los Angeles, in alphabetical order of the author's last name--hence, The AlphaBook Project.
Since I graduated I have been missing the frequent discussion of books that I used to have with classmates and professors. I am not sure if anybody will read this blog, but I have decided to post about the books I am reading. Hopefully people will join in with comments and thoughts, and discussion will ensue. In the very least, I will get a chance to "think out loud" about many other imaginative worlds that I'm excited to encounter. I'm not sure how often I'll post, or what I'll post about. I'm not giving myself any guidelines other than the main goal of the project because I want this to be enjoyable. I may not have money, I may be in debt, I may have a lot of uncertainty in life right now. But as Azar Nafisi affirms, I always have my other "world", this imaginary space that I can indulge in. And, like many others today, I am famished for fiction.
First up: "Graceland" by Chris Abani. After reading the back of the book, I learned that the author, Abani, is from Nigeria, and he published his first novel there at the age of sixteen. Since he suffered a lot of persecution for it, however, he went into exile in England and the United States, and now lives in Los Angeles. The book is about Elvis, a poor teenage boy in Lagos, Nigeria in the late 1970s and early 1980s, who makes money by impersonating Elvis in hopes of getting out of the ghetto. Sounds interesting. I'll keep you posted.
Nafisi's memoir revolves around reading fiction within the realm of a repressive regime during a very specific time and place in history. However her words about the necessity of imagination and fiction to make us "whole" span a boundless time/space continuum. People have needed fiction as a means of survival and growth throughout history, and this does not change today. Here in the United States we are living during a recession, a time of political and economic uncertainty. Unemployment is at 7.6 percent, a high of sixteen years. People are scared. But we still have fiction. We still have that other imaginary world. And like others before and after us, we need to turn to this private world as both a means of self-evaluation and reflection, and as a means of escape.
I have always loved to read and write, especially fiction. I graduated with a degree in Literature and Writing, and continue to read whenever I can. However whenever I come to the end of one book, I almost always have trouble selecting a new one. Should I read one of the classics I never read? A new up-and-coming author? A novel of the avant-garde? So, I have decided to end that problem. I have decided to read all of the fiction books in the fiction section of a local bookstore in Los Angeles, in alphabetical order of the author's last name--hence, The AlphaBook Project.
Since I graduated I have been missing the frequent discussion of books that I used to have with classmates and professors. I am not sure if anybody will read this blog, but I have decided to post about the books I am reading. Hopefully people will join in with comments and thoughts, and discussion will ensue. In the very least, I will get a chance to "think out loud" about many other imaginative worlds that I'm excited to encounter. I'm not sure how often I'll post, or what I'll post about. I'm not giving myself any guidelines other than the main goal of the project because I want this to be enjoyable. I may not have money, I may be in debt, I may have a lot of uncertainty in life right now. But as Azar Nafisi affirms, I always have my other "world", this imaginary space that I can indulge in. And, like many others today, I am famished for fiction.
First up: "Graceland" by Chris Abani. After reading the back of the book, I learned that the author, Abani, is from Nigeria, and he published his first novel there at the age of sixteen. Since he suffered a lot of persecution for it, however, he went into exile in England and the United States, and now lives in Los Angeles. The book is about Elvis, a poor teenage boy in Lagos, Nigeria in the late 1970s and early 1980s, who makes money by impersonating Elvis in hopes of getting out of the ghetto. Sounds interesting. I'll keep you posted.
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