#6 Degrees of Separation from Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe to 1979 by Val McDermid

This meme is hosted by Kate from Books are my Favourite and Best, and this month starts with a book finished this month (or the last book read).

I decided to start with Things Fall Apart, the first book in The African Trilogy by Chinua Achebe. I hope to read all three of these novels this month, to follow this journey through life in Nigeria.

Set in the late nineteenth century, ‘Things Fall Apart’ describes traditional Igbo life (in Nigeria). The Igbo were subsistence farmers of yams, taro, and cassava. The main character in the novel is Okonkwo, a proud and respected patriarch from Umuofia, somewhere near the Lower Niger. Okonkwo belongs to a clan of farmers, with traditions spanning generations, with clearly understood rites and rules. He, his wives, and children prosper. Until:

‘The drums and the dancing began again and reached fever-heat. Darkness was around the corner, and the burial was near. Guns fired the last salute and the cannon rent the sky. And then, from the centre of the delirious fury came a cry of agony and shouts of horror. It was the dead man’s sixteen-year-old son, who with his brothers and half-brothers had been dancing the traditional farewell to their father. Okonkwo’s gun had exploded and a piece of iron had pierced the boy’s heart.’

As a result of this unintended death, Okonkwo and his family are banished for seven years. But when he returns, life has already changed.

 I am now deep into the second novel, reflecting on changes to life in Nigeria as traditional life is challenges and supplanted by Christian and British customs.

Thinking about British influence brings me to Australia, and my next link is to Bennelong and Phillip by Kate Fullagar.

‘They died within one year of each other, even though more than two decades separated them in age. Arthur Phillip, the first governor of New South Wales, died in 1814 in Bath, southwest England, after serving the British empire around the globe for more than forty years. Bennelong, a Wangal man from today’s Sydney region, died in 1813, a member of a group of Indigenous people living along the northern shore of Parramatta River.’

I was intrigued by the idea of a dual biography of Governor Arthur Phillip and Bennelong, with a narration that began at the end of each of their lives and worked backwards. Yes, Phillip and Bennelong represent two sides of the encounter between British colonists and Indigenous Australians.

Different places, different times but both books provide examples of the impacts of European colonisation accompanied by Christianity. Have we learned from history?

Perhaps. But not enough. Staying in Australia, but looking at a specific region, I turn to People of the River by Grace Karskens.

‘Sometime in the summer of 1793-4, a small group of people—men, women and children—appeared on Dyarubbin, the river.’

Dyarubbin, the Hawkesbury-Nepean River, is where two worlds, with very different histories and views of land use and occupancy, collided. British felons, transported to Australia to serve their sentences, were here to settle. The Aboriginal people, who had occupied Dyarubbin for at least 50,000 years, were tied to the land spiritually and culturally.

While I found this book interesting, especially the explanation of how the small farms using common land were used in the colony just as they were being abolished in England, this reflects my European history, not that of the Aboriginal people. I wanted more. Can these histories be integrated so neatly? I am not (yet) convinced.

However, I confess to knowing very little of the history of the Dyarubbin (Hawkesbury), and I learned quite a lot about colonial settlement and history. Now I am wondering about the Aboriginal history and how (and by whom) this account can be presented.

Sigh. And now I will move onto a different river, in a novel, with one of my favourite Tasmanian-born authors. Death of a River Guide by Richard Flanagan.

I found this novel both challenging and uplifting.  Challenging because Mr Flanagan manages to describe aspects of Tasmanian history that many of us would prefer to forget or ignore, and uplifting because the language he uses to do this is so rich in imagery. This was Richard Flanagan’s first novel, published in 1994.  While I didn’t like it quite as much as his second novel, ‘The Sound of One Hand Clapping’, I suspect this is because ‘Death of a River Guide’ makes me far more uncomfortable about the past.  It is not an easy read, but I found it rewarding.

Do I stay on the water and drift, or do I try to find more concrete connections? Memories? Will I escape into fiction, or be confronted by it?  I chose confrontation.

The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa

‘You’ll forget you ever had a voice. There’s nothing to worry about, nothing to fear.’

I read this book after being intrigued by a friend’s review. I was taken into a totalitarian dystopian world which grew increasingly worse over time. Most people accepted what was happening: small losses became bigger; objects and senses are just the beginning. Is loss only traumatic when it is remembered? How small does our world have to become before we act to protect it?

I finished this book in 2022 and am still thinking about the questions it raised.

Memory.  I’ll be sentimental now and return to 1979: the year I was married. (Yes, we are still together). But 1979 by Val McDermid is memorable for different reasons.

‘It started badly and only got worse. Blizzards, strikes, unburied bodies, power cuts, terrorist threats and Showaddywaddy’s Greatest Hits topping the album charts; 1979 was a cascade of catastrophe. Unless, like Allie Burns, you were a journalist. For her tribe, someone else’s bad news was the unmistakable sound of opportunity knocking.’

The first novel in Ms McDermid’s new series takes us back to 1979, to a time before the 24-hour news cycle, when technology was shorthand, typewriters, and tape recorders. Allison (Allie) Burns is one of the few women in the newsroom of Glasgow’s (fictional) Daily Clarion newspaper. She needs an explosive story, something more substantive than the women’s issue topics being thrown her way.

Some things change, others do not. Well, that was interesting. From late 19^th century Nigeria to late 20^th century Scotland via New South Wales, Tasmania, and Japan. Fiction and non-fiction.

This was my drifting path for this month’s #6Degrees of Separation. Have you read any of my choices? If you have, what did you think of them?