Book Review

I brought this book with me to Korea, and I read it, and it was okay, or whatever, but it read like it was written for discussion in introductory literature courses...in high school. It's a novel about a group of Africans, and there's much bally-hoo over the interdependency of the various individuals in the society, and so on and so on, and it didn't feel quite novel-like to me. I got the sense that it was intended for academia from the get-go.

At any rate, perhaps I'm wrong, and if you've had a lovely experience with the book, well, then, bully for you. But, just in case my thesis is correct, I do not wish to disappoint. So. 


Book Review

The Tiv society in West Africa,
as can be said of African cultures in general,
faced the realities of plentiful but stubborn soil
and a shortage of people to work it.
To ensure their own survival, peoples
developed a structure of mutual responsibilities
between children, parents, siblings, spouses,
clans, age-mates, members of homesteads,
and so on.
                     Elenore Bowen's Return to Laughter
submerges the reader into Tiv culture,
palpably demonstrating the complexities
of such a societal structure.
                                                   The adulterous
actions of Ticha, one of Chief Kako's younger,
"secondary" wives, and the response of the
community are the organic results of
conflicting social obligations
and the raw desire to preserve and produce
the land's most precious commodity--
people.