Status
Available
Genres
Description
Fiction. Literature. HTML:A heartbreaking story about a Nigerian poultry farmer who sacrifices everything to win the woman he loves, by Man Booker Finalist and author of The Fishermen, Chigozie Obioma. "It is more than a superb and tragic novel; it's a historical treasure."-Boston Globe Set on the outskirts of Umuahia, Nigeria and narrated by a chi, or guardian spirit, An Orchestra of Minorities tells the story of Chinonso, a young poultry farmer whose soul is ignited when he sees a woman attempting to jump from a highway bridge. Horrified by her recklessness, Chinonso joins her on the roadside and hurls two of his prized chickens into the water below to express the severity of such a fall. The woman, Ndali, is stopped her in her tracks. Bonded by this night on the bridge, Chinonso and Ndali fall in love. But Ndali is from a wealthy family and struggles to imagine a future near a chicken coop. When her family objects to the union because he is uneducated, Chinonso sells most of his possessions to attend a college in Cyprus. But when he arrives he discovers there is no place at the school for him, and that he has been utterly duped by the young Nigerian who has made the arrangements... Penniless, homeless, and furious at a world which continues to relegate him to the sidelines, Chinonso gets further away from his dream, from Ndali and the farm he called home. Spanning continents, traversing the earth and cosmic spaces, and told by a narrator who has lived for hundreds of years, the novel is a contemporary twist of Homer's Odyssey. Written in the mythic style of the Igbo literary tradition, Chigozie Obioma weaves a heart-wrenching epic about destiny and determination.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member Beth.Clarke
I listened to the audio version and that may have been a mistake. The book was too long and the narrator rambled on and on. The actual plot was quite good and at times I found the narrative beautiful. The storytelling is creative and unique which I always appreciate, but it could have used some
Show More
editing. Show Less
LibraryThing member chrisblocker
Chigozie Obioma's second novel, An Orchestra of Minorities, starts off really well. That's not to say it's an easy or fun read; even in the opening chapters, where the story is at its best, there's a complexity to the narrative and the plot that can be tiring for a reader to scale. Despite the
The voice of this novel may cause some division opinions. I didn't particularly care for it, though I appreciated Obioma's effort to break with some traditions of the western novel. The story would've moved at a brisker pace without Chinonso's chi, but it also would've been a different story. I think the biggest problem I had with the narrator was the inconsistency in knowing so much yet knowing nothing. This ancient entity seems to struggle with technologies a hundred years old, yet understands a relatively new bureaucratic entity without explanation. It's difficult to get a non-human narrator right, and I think Obioma did a stellar job compared to many who use such a unique narrator, but it can be terribly distracting at any point when the effort shows flaws.
Back to the novel at large. The later events of the novel, where the build-up and climax are intended, fell flat for me. The story goes in a direction I was not expecting, but also didn't really care for. It features an arc that was all too familiar. As the stakes of the story rose, my interest waned. I found that I grew increasingly eager for the story to reach its conclusion. It certainly did not help that a character who's easy to sympathize with in early chapters grows increasingly vile in his treatment of others.
Between the narrative and the latter half of the novel, I can understand why some were less than impressed with this huge undertaking. Certainly, I was hoping for a different novel overall. But I really did enjoy the story and the characters in the first half, so I still must give this novel some love. Obioma is a gifted writer who clearly understands how to spin an intelligent and captivating tale. I may have not cared for the final destination, but I enjoyed parts of the journey, and I'll be interested to see where the author takes us next time.
Show More
dense nature of the text, An Orchestra of Minorities runs at full power for more than a couple hundred pages. Personally, I felt the story ran out of steam at some point after this... before we go there, let's talk about the narrative.The voice of this novel may cause some division opinions. I didn't particularly care for it, though I appreciated Obioma's effort to break with some traditions of the western novel. The story would've moved at a brisker pace without Chinonso's chi, but it also would've been a different story. I think the biggest problem I had with the narrator was the inconsistency in knowing so much yet knowing nothing. This ancient entity seems to struggle with technologies a hundred years old, yet understands a relatively new bureaucratic entity without explanation. It's difficult to get a non-human narrator right, and I think Obioma did a stellar job compared to many who use such a unique narrator, but it can be terribly distracting at any point when the effort shows flaws.
Back to the novel at large. The later events of the novel, where the build-up and climax are intended, fell flat for me. The story goes in a direction I was not expecting, but also didn't really care for. It features an arc that was all too familiar. As the stakes of the story rose, my interest waned. I found that I grew increasingly eager for the story to reach its conclusion. It certainly did not help that a character who's easy to sympathize with in early chapters grows increasingly vile in his treatment of others.
Between the narrative and the latter half of the novel, I can understand why some were less than impressed with this huge undertaking. Certainly, I was hoping for a different novel overall. But I really did enjoy the story and the characters in the first half, so I still must give this novel some love. Obioma is a gifted writer who clearly understands how to spin an intelligent and captivating tale. I may have not cared for the final destination, but I enjoyed parts of the journey, and I'll be interested to see where the author takes us next time.
Show Less
LibraryThing member maryreinert
This is not an easy book to read, but one worth the effort. Told by the spiritual Chi of a young man in Nigeria, this is the story of Chinonso's journey from falling deeply in love to the horrible result years later. Chinonoso is a poultry farmer who throws two of his prized hens over the bridge in
After finding himself in Cyprus, he is fearful, lost, and confused. He is befriended by some, but seriously harmed by others. A Turkish nurse appears to be of help, but that too is a scam and he finds himself in prison for several years supposedly having killed the woman's husband. Throughout all this, his Chi is telling the story while often referring to other humans who had the same Chi in history. The Igbo cosomology of multiple gods provides a framework for the story.
Eventually Chinonso is able to return to Nigeria after the nurse retracks her story. His goal is to find the man who defrauded him in the first place. However, when he finds Jamike, he finds Jamike a changed man after a conversion to Christianity. Jamike asks for forgiveness and after Chinonso forgives, Jamike returns the money.
This is a long story of struggle, of revenge, of forgiveness, of false hopes, and of tragedy. The ending was unexpected.
It took me a long time to get into this book and almost gave it up about page 30 or so. Lacking anything else to read at the time, I stuck with it and once I was comfortable with the Chi narrator and the many references to Igbo gods, I was totally drawn into the story. Still there are so many African words and phrases, that reading is sometimes difficult. I had to keep my phone close by to look up so many references. In short, however, it is a great portrayal of life in Nigeria and of people who are a part of the vast "orchestra of minorities" - those without voice, poor, lost, and without a way out. So well written.
Show More
the effort to save a young woman, Ndali, who is attempting suicide. Ndali is from a wealthy family and is cultured and educated. Chinonso is poor, but a love affair results. After being shamed by her family, he sets to improve himself by going to a university in Cyprus. However, he has been duped and the money he spent was taken through a scam run by a former friend. After finding himself in Cyprus, he is fearful, lost, and confused. He is befriended by some, but seriously harmed by others. A Turkish nurse appears to be of help, but that too is a scam and he finds himself in prison for several years supposedly having killed the woman's husband. Throughout all this, his Chi is telling the story while often referring to other humans who had the same Chi in history. The Igbo cosomology of multiple gods provides a framework for the story.
Eventually Chinonso is able to return to Nigeria after the nurse retracks her story. His goal is to find the man who defrauded him in the first place. However, when he finds Jamike, he finds Jamike a changed man after a conversion to Christianity. Jamike asks for forgiveness and after Chinonso forgives, Jamike returns the money.
This is a long story of struggle, of revenge, of forgiveness, of false hopes, and of tragedy. The ending was unexpected.
It took me a long time to get into this book and almost gave it up about page 30 or so. Lacking anything else to read at the time, I stuck with it and once I was comfortable with the Chi narrator and the many references to Igbo gods, I was totally drawn into the story. Still there are so many African words and phrases, that reading is sometimes difficult. I had to keep my phone close by to look up so many references. In short, however, it is a great portrayal of life in Nigeria and of people who are a part of the vast "orchestra of minorities" - those without voice, poor, lost, and without a way out. So well written.
Show Less
LibraryThing member richardderus
I liked [The Fishermen] in 2015. I like this book as well. I am, however, at a loss to comprehend how this religious tract with its absolutely inescapable christian last act can be Booker-worthy. I liked the Igbo chi-narrator, a daemon for for fans of His Dark Materials fans as a reference
She rattled a string of cowries and performed the ritual of authentication to ensure I was not an evil spirit pretending to be a chi:
‘What are the seven keys to the throne room of Chukwu?’ she said.
— Seven shells of a young snail, seven cowries from the Omambala river, seven feathers of a bald vulture, seven leaves from an anunuebe tree, the shell of a seven-year-old tortoise, seven lobes of kola nuts and seven white hens.
‘Welcome, spirit one,’ she said. ‘You may proceed.’ I thanked her and bowed.
But then we descend into some unpleasant monotheistic revenge porn. Like Job, the subject of the Divine Bar Bet, a man is driven to the edge of madness by his (inexplicable and unexplained) love for some woman:
Egbunu, the man of rage – he is one whom life has dealt a heavy hand. A man who, like others, had simply found a woman he loved. He’d courted her like others do, nurtured her, only to find that all he’d done had been in vain. He wakes up one day to find himself incarcerated. He has been wronged by man and history, and it is the consciousness of this wrong that births the change in him. In the moment the change begins, a great darkness enters him through the chink in his soul. For my host, it was a crawly, multi-legged darkness shaped like a rapidly procreating millipede that burrowed into his life in the first years of his incarceration.
And thus begins a thoroughly nasty fall into female objectification, the assertion of property rights, and a sort of ragey nastiness that I intensely disliked.
So the three stars? All for the chi, for the ancient creature both on top of Life and curiously clueless about the way we live it now. "I have seen it many times." But mostly for this utterly perfect moment:
Guardian spirits of mankind, have we thought about the powers that passion creates in human beings? Have we considered why a man could run through a field of fire to get to a woman he loves? Have we thought about the impact of love on the body of lovers? Have we considered the symmetry of its power? Have we considered what poetry incites in their souls, and the impress of endearments on a softened heart?
Show More
point:She rattled a string of cowries and performed the ritual of authentication to ensure I was not an evil spirit pretending to be a chi:
‘What are the seven keys to the throne room of Chukwu?’ she said.
— Seven shells of a young snail, seven cowries from the Omambala river, seven feathers of a bald vulture, seven leaves from an anunuebe tree, the shell of a seven-year-old tortoise, seven lobes of kola nuts and seven white hens.
‘Welcome, spirit one,’ she said. ‘You may proceed.’ I thanked her and bowed.
But then we descend into some unpleasant monotheistic revenge porn. Like Job, the subject of the Divine Bar Bet, a man is driven to the edge of madness by his (inexplicable and unexplained) love for some woman:
Egbunu, the man of rage – he is one whom life has dealt a heavy hand. A man who, like others, had simply found a woman he loved. He’d courted her like others do, nurtured her, only to find that all he’d done had been in vain. He wakes up one day to find himself incarcerated. He has been wronged by man and history, and it is the consciousness of this wrong that births the change in him. In the moment the change begins, a great darkness enters him through the chink in his soul. For my host, it was a crawly, multi-legged darkness shaped like a rapidly procreating millipede that burrowed into his life in the first years of his incarceration.
And thus begins a thoroughly nasty fall into female objectification, the assertion of property rights, and a sort of ragey nastiness that I intensely disliked.
So the three stars? All for the chi, for the ancient creature both on top of Life and curiously clueless about the way we live it now. "I have seen it many times." But mostly for this utterly perfect moment:
Guardian spirits of mankind, have we thought about the powers that passion creates in human beings? Have we considered why a man could run through a field of fire to get to a woman he loves? Have we thought about the impact of love on the body of lovers? Have we considered the symmetry of its power? Have we considered what poetry incites in their souls, and the impress of endearments on a softened heart?
Show Less
LibraryThing member hhornblower
Words cannot express how much this book touched and impacted me. This is a book that you will lose yourself in.
LibraryThing member TheEllieMo
I really thought I’d like this one, and it pains me to give it a a poor score, but it just didn’t work for me. What sounds like an interesting concept of the narrator being the MC’s “chi” turns out to be an excuse for verbose lectures that slow up an already slow-burn story - it sits
Meanwhile, the MC himself, Chinonso, is a man-child who blames everyone else for his own stupid decisions. Given that the whole premise of the novel is that the “chi” is trying to defend Chinonso’s actions, the fact that I had not a single ounce of sympathy with him suggests that the idea failed.
This is another of those books that makes me wonder what the Booker Committee look for in a book.
Show More
alongside Midnight’s Children as a book in need of better editing.Meanwhile, the MC himself, Chinonso, is a man-child who blames everyone else for his own stupid decisions. Given that the whole premise of the novel is that the “chi” is trying to defend Chinonso’s actions, the fact that I had not a single ounce of sympathy with him suggests that the idea failed.
This is another of those books that makes me wonder what the Booker Committee look for in a book.
Show Less
LibraryThing member thornton37814
Chinonso and Ndali fall in love, but her family objects to his family's poverty. Chinonso, a chicken farmer, believes a school in Cyprus offered him an opportunity to study but discovers he trusted too much when no place for him exists. He suffers hardships on Cyprus and returns to Nigeria. I found
Show More
the novel difficult to read, and for me, it did not flow well. I did not enjoy the story that much. Still I see where it might work better for others. Show Less
Awards
Booker Prize (Longlist — 2019)
Digital Book World Awards (Finalist — Fiction — 2019)
BookTube Prize (Octofinalist — Fiction — 2020)
Internationaler Literaturpreis – Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Winner — 2020)
Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year (Fiction — 2019)
Chicago Public Library Best of the Best: Adults (Selection — 2019)