What do You think about Girls At War And Other Stories (1991)?
This collection of stories from three different decades feels a bit strange, just in the different personalities of the stories from different times. The stories from the 1950s and 60s often have a quiet gentility, an observational quality that was almost a little distancing for me. "The Madman" is a social portrait of reversal of roles on market day between a wandering lunatic and a young man trying to rise up the social ladder; "Marriage Is A Private Affair" tells a tale of family tension around a mixed marriage; in "Akueke" four brothers fail their sister and grandfather during her sickness and lose their familial links to both; and a story like "Chike's School Days" almost seems to have no plot development at all. "The Sacrificial Egg", set in the midst of a horrible smallpox plague, has a greater sense of direness and action than most of the other earlier stories, but most of them come from an almost tranquil place, which I found a little harder to access.There's a real enjoyment in these 'social portrait' stories, please don't misunderstand me. For a relatively poor and untraveled fellow like me, the stories are a great opportunity to enjoy what the Chinese saying describes: "The reader can travel around the world without leaving his home." It's a wonderful glimpse into a world of great cultural differences and great human commonalities, providing an opportunity to compare and contrast with the cultures I've known. It's also neat to see social critique within a culture ("Vengeful Creditor" almost seems to be an embryonic version of A Man of the People, even though the story is five years younger than the satirical novel). It's a fascinating simultaneous embrace and criticism of one's own culture. But then come the last three stories from the aftermath of the Biafran War and a new intensity suffuses these stories. Like the world Christopher Hedges describes in War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, life seems so much more vivid under the conditions of war. Survival means so much more, as do patriotism, loyalty, friendship, desire, and need. "Sugar Baby" revolves around the character Cletus' miserable addiction to sugar in a time when it can't be found. Instead of feeling small and distancing as it might have in the earlier stories, the narrator's harsh judgment of Cletus seems absolute and total. Cletus has humiliated himself, abased his character and alienated a woman who loved him for a half dozen sugar cubes. We know everything about him we could ever need to know from the narrator's stories about him. In "Girls At War" and "Civil Peace", the various actors' strength of character, senses of honor, and personal ethics also come into sharpest relief. If they are great souls, it becomes clear. If they are venal, it shows. The desperation of the times reveals all, lays bare the inner fortitude of Achebe's characters. Maybe I am a victim of the small-minded dependency on war culture that Hedges described, but these three stories are those that most struck me in this beautiful little book.
—Josephus FromPlacitas
A nice collection of short stories from Achebe. I wasn't quite fascinated by the content, as it seemed to be a set of recurring ideas linked strongly to Igbo culture and their way of life, which is probably very distinct in most of Achebe's works. However, I loved a couple of references that led me back to the days when I was much younger and would curl up with my copy of 'Things Fall Apart' when there was nothing else to read. 'The Madman' wasmy favourite, closely followed by 'Girls At War'. Three stars.
—Jama Jack
Before I get to ranting, a disclaimer: Quite a few of these stories are really funny and warm, and I found myself chuckling. "My belief is that a child who will be somebody will be somebody whether he goes to school or not." Spoken by a callous, and of course wealthy, man to his impoverished teenaged nanny. The government offers free education, then takes it away and the newspapers gloat. A girl is sent to work by her mother who once gave up on good marriage prospects for a manual laborer, who her missionaries thought would be closer to Jesus, and sees her own education prospects dashed. While reading this collection of short stories, many which centered on the hopes and disappointments of education, I was repeatedly reminded of the "you don't need college" schtick of Rick Santorum, or that other fool, Andrew Sullivan, who once posted an article by a burnt out adjunct, entitled "Please! Don't go to college." Sullivan was smugly riding the words of its author, an exhausted composition teacher, who had he decent benefits and fair compensation for the work he'd now concluded was meaningless, would have likely retained some of his commitment to his students. Things sure are the same all over. And this is how they fall apart.
—Sara
