Buchi Emecheta: The Joys Of Motherhood

[abecedarian]

What an amazing little book. Besides the insights to Nigerian tribal customs and how they've changed with all the influx of outside(Western) influences, the author hits the nail on the head about how hard moms work to earn those 'joys' of motherhood. She also hits it pretty well about how no matter how hard we try to steer the offspring in the 'way they should go', the kids will chose their own path, and that path might not look at all like we imagined it would. All in all, I recommend this book highly.

[Mirabell]

wow. thanks. wiki'd her and she does sound interesting. never heard of her (yes, ashamed I am).

if I may, a question: how is the writing?

[abecedarian]

This was a tough book to put down; I needed to see what else would befall the poor heroine. Emecheta's characters seem as real as anyone on my block or in my town, yet I felt I learned a little about Nigerian tribal life and how the influx of western culture changed it.

[Stewart]

I think he means, by "writing", the actual prose style. Dense, light, poetic, etc.

[abecedarian]

Originally Posted by Stewart

I think he means, by "writing", the actual prose style. Dense, light, poetic, etc.

Hmm..Definately not light or overly dense.. and when I think of poetic prose examples like The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea or Mia Couto's Voices Made Night, I'd have to rule out the term poetic too. If anything, the style is more earthy and concrete. There's also a low undertone of humor; The title is very tongue in cheek. Without resorting writing in dialect, Emecheta manages to sound as if the reader is listening to her tell this story in person.

[Mirabell]

Originally Posted by Stewart

I think he means, by "writing", the actual prose style. Dense, light, poetic, etc.

yes, thank you sorry. all you said plus, possibly, wording, vocab, syntax etc.

[Stewart]

Coming back to this book, I was surprised to notice when looking at the book over the weekend that Emecheta was listed in Granta's Best Of Young British Novelists 1983, alongside the likes of Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Ian McEwan.

[kratsy]

new member jumping in here . . .

my favorite part about this book is the way that it depicts the lives of a variety of different women. there is the mother, her co-wife and her co-wife's daughters. there are the women that live in the village, and there are the other women that live in the city while their husbands work for the white people. there are also women of different economic classes and with different degrees of education. this is what makes the book really unique - it shows the variety of women's experiences in Nigeria before the end of colonialism.