In America, being called “thin” is a complement; you don’t ask questions like “was it the black girl or the white girl?”; you say “I’m not sure” instead of “I don’t know”. These are the fine-grained, subtle nuances of American culture that Adichie reveals in her powerful and down-to-earth novel, Americanah.
Americanah is a love story, but it’s not like the love stories I grew up reading where the girl is blond, blue-eyed, and tall (and often a princess) and the guy is lean, muscular, and even taller. Americanah tells the story of Ifemelu, a Nigerian who moved to America as a college student out of “lethargic choicelessness”, and, after braving several years of upward climb and struggle as she adjusted to her new life, has been thriving; she’s won a fellowship at Princeton University and writes a viral blog entitled “Raceteenth and Various Observations About American Blacks (Those Formerly Known As Negroes) by a Non-American Black”. But constantly in the back of Ifemelu’s mind is Obinze, her high school lover whom she lost touch with when she cut off contact after one particularly traumatic experience during her early years in America. While the novel is structured around the everlasting love that haunts and is shared by Ifemelu and Obinze, a surprisingly slim portion of the plot is actually about their love; the novel is more focused on their separate lives (mostly Ifemelu) and addresses heavy yet prevalent issues such as race, identity, and what it means to be an African-American vs. an American-African.
Adichie is masterful at developing characters, and the most obvious character who deserves mention is Ifemelu. She’s strong-willed, intelligent, and thoughtful – she’s the protagonist who you can’t help but cheer for because she’s an able, independent, and strong woman who’s breaking boundaries and pushing the limits in 21st century America. Can we take a moment to applaud her? When Ifemelu struggles at the beginning of her new life in America, she endures the hardships, picks herself up from her depression, and find success doing what she loves, blogging; she has a unique, bold style, which is largely revealed through her blog; she has an unwavering sense of direction – when Blaine (who we’ll get to soon) gives suggestions on how she can improve her blog, Ifemelu considers his comments but refuses to lose her voice because of them. I also loved Adichie’s characterizations of Blaine and Dike. Blaine is one of Ifemelu’s boyfriends during her time in America. On the outside, he’s just a nerdy Yale professor, but Adichie brings him to life as a highly principled “goody two-shoes” who cooks quinoa, runs every morning, uses big words when he speaks, and makes virgin cocktails. On the other hand, Dike is Ifemelu’s younger cousin and the son of Aunty Uju, who Ifemelu looked to greatly as a child. Dike, especially when he is younger, represents innocence; he brings out the playful, light-hearted side of Ifemelu. Soon he grows into a popular teenager who watches videos on YouTube, talks differently around his friends, and dates a pretty white girl who wears short skirts. He does suffer a significant trauma in his teenage years, which shows his progression from a naïve child to a more jaded young adult, but what’s nevertheless really cool about him is that throughout the book, I can’t help thinking that he’s someone I would want to be friends with in real life; Dike is funny and genuinely curious, which is emphasized when he visits Ifemelu in Nigeria.
I’m going back to those “fine-grained, suble nuances of American culture” that I mentioned at the beginning of this review because I need to emphasize that Americanah made me realize little details about American culture and, not only the large-scale, but the everyday impacts of racism on it. It is for this reason that everyone should read Americanah. It makes such honest, real remarks and offers diverse perspectives spanning from Africans to African immigrants (“Americanahs”), African-Americans to white Americans, African children living in America who visit Africa to elderly Africans living in Africa who visit America. Beyond my aforementioned examples, Adichie (through Ifemelu) also points out that when a white woman points to a black woman in a magazine and calls her beautiful in a certain exaggerated tone, the black woman is often just an ordinary-looking black woman. And, because they aren’t able to identify the difference between African-Amercans (black people with a long history in America) and American-Africans (Africans who have just recently moved to America), Americans instinctively speak about “blacks and poor whites” instead of “poor blacks and poor whites”. Now that’s a true testament to Adichie’s insight and keen observation.
Americanah is written in third person, which I really enjoyed because it’s like having a good friend accompanying you through the story. Sometimes the narrative takes on the voice of Ifemelu or Obinze, but for the most part, I could hear Adichie’s own thoughts and opinions bleeding through the story – something that would have been hindered if the story had been in first person. Dotted throughout the novel are also Ifemelu’s own blog entries, which she write about race during her time in America. Ifemelu’s entries are brutally honest and assess every uncomfortable corner of racism. They are often very funny and cover a wide range of topics to supplement the storyline, from the generalization of all Non-American Blacks (Ifemelu’s examples are “Jamaicans” and “Ghanaians”) as “black” in America to the election of Barack Obama as president to hair as a metaphor for race.
That brings us to the topic of hair, which serves as a significant symbol throughout the story. One of the first scenes in Americanah is Ifemelu going to a salon to get her hair braided, and throughout the novel, we see Ifemelu struggle with her hair. At first she gets it braided periodically, but as she looks to get a job, she relaxes her hair because she is told that, as a black woman, she will not be hired unless her hair is tamed and straight. When her hair and scalp have a terrible reaction to the relaxer, Ifemelu is forced to cut her hair down to a short afro, which she finds very embarrassing – consequently, Ifemelu to go to work for several days. As Ifemelu struggles to deal with her kinky, African hair, she begins to question why she struggles: Why does she put up with the pain of altering her natural “fro”? Why does she care how American society perceives her, if it’s purely based on her appearance? Why can’t people know her for what’s inside of her? It is at this point that Ifemelu chooses to grows out her afro and refuses to straighten it again, despite the disparaging comments muttered by African-Americans when she goes out with a white man – “You ever wonder why he likes you looking all jungle like that?”
When Ifemelu moves back to Nigeria, Adichie also takes the opportunity to discuss Nigeria, a country that has too much pride to put up with its “Americanahs” — arrogant big shots who return from abroad to act condescendingly upon their native Nigerian countrymen, and yet simultaneously supports foreign values. I loved reading about how Ifemelu has changed during her time in America – for example, Nigerian buildings which she once found beautiful, she finds ugly upon returning from America – and about how Dike reacts to his first visit to Nigeria since being a toddler.
Americanah is a must-read because it gives Americans a cold, brutally honest slap of reality. Racism is real and racism is wrong. The novel is a call to action, demanding that we quit sitting idly by. And while Americanah points out that some white people treat Africans poorly, it also acknowledges that most white people actually try to treat Africans kindly, but they end up taking part in racism without even realizing it. For instance, at Ifemelu’s freshman orientation, a girl at the front desk trying to guide Ifemelu speaks to her in slow, choppy sentences. The girl isn’t trying to be mean; she’s just wants to help, but to Ifemelu, it’s offensive. She’s been living in America for a long time and can speak English perfectly well.
If I were to describe Americanah in one word, it would be “raw.” Every comment about racism or American culture or human nature is so accurate and a perfect depiction of the world around us. After having finished the novel two days ago, I find myself constantly rereading certain passages, and I’m sure that the discomfiting yet true realities of our society that Americanah blatantly presents will stay in my mind for a long time. They leave the world exposed and raw.
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