Has anyone read this? I finished it about two weeks ago. I was excited about reading it after reading a lot of reviews online. It is described in very high terms, such as 'classic' and 'masterpiece' by critics and readers alike. Which is why I am so disappointed now.
Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad book by any means, but I don't think it's a great one either. It is set during the Nigerian-Biafran civil war in the 1960s for anybody who isn't familiar with it. The blurb on the back promises three intersecting lives which get tugged and ripped when the conflict begins.
The strange thing is that I liked the first half of the novel quite a lot, that is everything in the early 60s before the conflict begins. At that point it began to lose my interest.
One problem I had with it is that none of the male characters really rang true for me. Richard, an Englishman living in Nigeria, seemed a particularly weak, cardboard character. It was difficult to understand his motivations and also the motivations for a couple of things that Ugwu (the servant of two of the main characters) did near the end. Also what might have been an interesting falling out between two twin sisters simply evaporated and seemed pointless as a result. And if I had read one more scene with somebody in a kitchen cooking rice I would have sworn off the stuff for life! There must have been a dozen scenes like this and after the first few the rest added little to the story.
It all appeared to me to run out of steam a long way before the end, but I'd be very interested to hear what other forumers think about it, because I seem to be the only one who doesn't regard it as a modern masterpiece!
Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad book by any means, but I don't think it's a great one either. It is set during the Nigerian-Biafran civil war in the 1960s for anybody who isn't familiar with it. The blurb on the back promises three intersecting lives which get tugged and ripped when the conflict begins.
The strange thing is that I liked the first half of the novel quite a lot, that is everything in the early 60s before the conflict begins. At that point it began to lose my interest.
One problem I had with it is that none of the male characters really rang true for me. Richard, an Englishman living in Nigeria, seemed a particularly weak, cardboard character. It was difficult to understand his motivations and also the motivations for a couple of things that Ugwu (the servant of two of the main characters) did near the end. Also what might have been an interesting falling out between two twin sisters simply evaporated and seemed pointless as a result. And if I had read one more scene with somebody in a kitchen cooking rice I would have sworn off the stuff for life! There must have been a dozen scenes like this and after the first few the rest added little to the story.
It all appeared to me to run out of steam a long way before the end, but I'd be very interested to hear what other forumers think about it, because I seem to be the only one who doesn't regard it as a modern masterpiece!