Adunni, born in rural Nigeria, is a particularly intelligent hardworking schoolgirl but her future doesn’t look bright. Her breadwinner mother has died and her father, needing money, sells her to the local taxi driver to be his third wife.
His other wives have not produced the two sons he demands. Maybe someone younger, someone fourteen, would perform better. Such is the opening of The Girl With The Louding Voice by Abi Daré.
Fate intervenes and Adunni gets help from a trusted friend’s son to escape. But the son is not the mother and once again Adunni is sold, this time as part of the slave trade still prevalent in the country. She becomes a maid to a rich family in Lagos where she suffers the abuse of the wife and predatory behavior of the husband.
Mixed with the colorful sights and sounds of modern Lagos are the sometimes brutal superstitions of the past. Patriarchy is the rule. Although the setting is unfamiliar to a Western reader, the plot is the familiar quest whereby a young person overcomes many obstacles to achieve a goal. Adunni’s goal is simple. She wants to be a person with agency, one who has control over her own life, someone with a “louding” voice that will be heard.
The disadvantage of listening to the story was that the dialect and vocabulary were sometimes hard to understand. The advantage of this beautiful reading by Adjoa Andoh was the lilt, emotions, little Nigerian songs which brought the character and setting to life.
Gifty, daughter of parents who emigrated from Ghana to the United States to give their son a better chance in life is on a quest of her own. The main character in Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi, she is a PhD candidate at Stanford trying to understand the neuroscience of addiction.
The move to the US did not work out. Her father, unable to deal with the racism of Alabama, abandoned the family and returned to Ghana. Nana, the beloved brother and son was a sports hero until he was injured, became addicted to pain killers, and died of an overdose. The guilty depressed mother who instigated the move is lost in grief. Gifty, ten, is bereft.
She looks for solace in her Born Again, Evangelical religion and vividly remembers the feeling of being saved, when grace filled her body. But where is God now? Her quest becomes existential. Is the transcendent kingdom to be found in faith or in the awe-inspiring abilities of the brains of the mice she studies and the brains and minds of humans.
A totally different place, but again, young women making their way in the world is the story of Dolly by Anita Brookner. Jane, the narrator, was born in London to parents who were very comfortable; Dolly, her aunt, was born in Paris to a mother soon to be single.
Jane’s parents are quiet, cultivated, erudite people and she becomes like them. Dolly’s mother lives by her wits always struggling for money, and Dolly, lively and vivacious, wanting the glamour of the good life, lives by hers. These two women, a generation apart, opposite personalities, are forced together by family ties and responsibilities.
The strongest point of the novel is the minute character studies of the two women. Plot is almost nonexistent; little happens beyond the normal progression of aging and what it entails. The second strong point is the very appealing language – restrained, understated emotions, stereotypically British. The vocabulary is a stretch.
At the end, Brookner brings together her characters’ contrasting approaches to life with a slightly discordant discussion of Sleeping Beauty. Jane has become an author of children’s books and gives lectures about women’s issues in fairy tales. She sees that at heart she and Dolly are not so different in what they want, someone to care for and belong to. Maybe even an unsympathetic relative would do.
It is hard to say which characters are the more likeable in the DVD of The Truffle Hunters – the quirky, individualistic 70-80- year-old men or their beloved highly skilled dogs.
Filmed in the Piedmont of Italy, the movie follows some of the last of the rare Alba truffle hunters as they and their dogs sniff out the elusive underground morsels.
This DVD is not for those who want blockbuster excitement. It is a slow-paced thoughtful movie depicting a simple, independent lifestyle which spotlights the love between the hunters and their dogs. Like The Mushroom Hunters I wrote about last time it contrasts the rural lifestyles of the pickers who spend their lives outdoors in the rolling hills with the luxury market of big city consumers. There is a wonderful tasting scene where individual truffles in chardonnay glasses are being passed around by professionals who are sniffing and discussing their aromas.
At the end, we watched the credits roll so we could continue to listen to the hauntingly beautiful theme song. No wonder we liked it! We finally recognized Follow Me, the love theme from Mutiny on the Bounty, that movie with the gorgeous photography of the South Pacific. And why was it appropriate here? beautiful countryside of a different kind? the siren call of the elegant mushroom? the hunters calling their dogs for another adventure?
When the music stops there is a pause, then gilding the lily are the night sounds of the truffle hunters’ woods and the lovely hooting of owls encouraging the hunters and their dogs to go out once again.
Always a pleasure to read your blog. Thx