Free An Orchestra Of Minorities Composed By Chigozie Obioma Accessible As Mobi

orchestra of minorities is that which comprises the voices of the flightless wings clipped and rendered inutile with the shame of poverty, of great loss, of inconceivable trauma.
They, who exist on a perpetually lateral plane of suffering and affliction, And bound to such a fate, what can the litany do but become a metamorph of rage and madness In Chigozie Obiomas second, brilliant novel, his themes are explored through a distinctly male lens it is a sprawling, oracular tale, modelled on the classical myth and its common loci: Love, Violence, Obsession, and Revenge, four sides of an ancient, proverbial prism.
Obioma gives quite a long, intense narrative performance that is relentlessly claustrophobic and increasingly so as the novel reaches its violent, manic conclusion.
My biggest criticism is that the one of the novels strengths is also its weakness: the mythic maleness caricaturizes and nearly silences the female point of view, greatly limiting the scope of what is otherwise a luminous tale.


This is the only novel on the Booker Prize shortlist which doesnt concern itself with a political agenda, mirroring and offering a commentary on current events.
It is a fable, an odyssey of a man who becomes a djinn, a manspirit, a vagabond, a descaled wanderer, a thing creeping in the bush, a selfexiled outcast, shorn from the world.
And who among us can predict what he will be tomorrow, . . Bravo. UPDATE AFTER READING THE ACTUAL ARC:

After trying for so long, I finally got my hands on the novel!! As anyone who has seen my posts know, I loved THE FISHERMEN and believe Obioma is probably one of the topgreatest writers writing right now.
He is doing what no one else is doing, and were this writer European or American, he would be better celebrated, I'm trying to develop a career around studying the works of this great writer,

An Orchestra of Minorities is a cosmic novel, magic realist, but also realist, If you thought the language in Obioma's first novel sings, wait until you read this book, There are paragraphs, lines that will blow your mind, Because the book is not really yet in circulation, I will update this post with lengthier review sometime next year,

Look for it people, look for this amazing intercontinental love story told in a way that has never been seen before in fiction.
Look for it!

Now, here is the short review:

The story is set in Umuahia, a city in the East of Nigeria that was pivotal in that nation's civil war chronicled in books such a Half of a Yellow Sun.
Chinonso, a poultry farmer, who had become in love with birds after owning a gosling, the small bird on the jacket, meets Ndali, a young medical student about to jump over a bridge.
Having lost his own family and recovering from grief, he saves Ndali, We follow his evolution as he goes from a lonely man to being in love with her, There comes the heart of the story, His affection for Ndali will drive a wedge between her and her family and force him to make daring sacrifices that will take him to the island of Cyprus.
But will he, after those years, be able to reconnect with Ndali

That question, existentialist as it is, sits at the heart of An Orchestra of Minorities.
The chi, the narrator of the story, is a godineveryman figure, In the Igbo worldview, every human being has a chi who lives in them and is their mediator in the realm of the metaphysical.
What is more fascinating is that this reincarnating spirit has lived in many people before, and is therefore able to give life lessons every inch of the way while telling us the story of Chinonso's doomed romance with Ndali.
It is an extraordinary narrative device, something I have never seen before but which is comparable to George Saunder's device in Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the Man Booker Prize.


This book is in some ways darker than Obioma's The Fishermen, which was a finalist for the Man Booker prize.
But it is more ambitious, and yet more subtle, It will take time for me to figure out which of these two books I love better, But I learned much more from An Orchestra of Minorities, and found it much more thoughtprovoking,

On the title, I found the title one of the richest elements in the story, It first comes from Ndali's speech describing what happens to the chickens in the aftermath of a hawk attack, It is one of the most heartrending scenes you will ever read in modern literature, But my favorite moment in this is book is the part with a strong racial component when Chinonso, lost in Cyprus, is mobbed by a group of young islanders.
The chi narrates:

"They did not know that he was a man of great poverty, a man whose poverty extended beyond the diameter of time.
In the past, what he owned he lost, In the present, he owned nothing, And in the in the prospected future, nothing, " "A story should glide like a yacht, not bump along like a supermarket trolley, "
Me

Having seen a profusion of rapturous reviews for this African tale, I had very high hopes.
And what a gorgeous title too! I was beguiled and ready to be seduced, "Let me at it!" I cried,

Hurrrrrrchh! A screech of brakes, or a needle skidding on vinyl,

Alas, I just didn't take to it,
I know I'm a fusspot, but I really didnt warm to it, And for that, I'm truly sorry,
The omniscient narrator a guardian spirit waffled on in a simplistic writing style that had me rolling my eyes and wishing we could bring a resuscitation team of literary greats back from the dead.
The first few chapters were all exposition and there was nothing here that resembled an actual story, Our ethereal narrator kept repeating, "I had seen it many times, " To which I retorted, "Yes, you've said it many times too, you insufferable parrot!"
And, . . relax.
Namaste.
So, while the cosmic blather continued with little sign of anything resembling dialogue or human interaction on the horizon, I shimmied into a lifebuoy and prepared to jump ship.

Happily, a story began to emerge, And a very promising one at that: a tale of Nonso Olisa, an illstarred Nigerian poultry farmer who falls in love with a woman who, as a result of being jilted, was intent on throwing herself off a bridge.

"Ahha! That's more like it!" I cheered, casting off my lifebuoy and getting myself nice and comfy with a packet of chocolate chip cookies.

Auspiciously, the author began to move through his literary gears, fashioning a contemporary Greek tragedy that suggested it might finally live up to its star billing and what eventually happens to our unworldly chicken farmer when he relocates to Cyprus is a complete volteface from the An Orchestra of Minorities's uneventful opening chapters.
The scene was set and I was ready to give it a second chance,
But, d'oh! Again with the exposition! Chigozie Obiama snatches defeat from the jaws of victory by reintroducing yet more explanatory notes groan that are surely surplus to requirements.
There was a potentiallymoving human story here that needed to be told! A thorough edit and word

cull would have done this novel a power of good.

The story continued to advance like a slug through treacle and, despite his terrible woes, I lost all sympathy for the hapless main character he was largely the architect of his own downfall.
I rooted for Ndali the lady from the bridge much more, The pacing throughout remained leaden and I really struggled to get to the finishing line,

In my humble opinion, Salman Rushdie Midnights Children and Gabriel García Márquez One Hundred Years of Solitude do firstperson and thirdperson narrative storytelling so much better.


But, as you can see by its plethora of laudatory reviews, Chigozie Obiama's book delights a great many of his readers, so I'm almost certain you should take what I've said with a pinch of salt and dive right in!
Have a lifebuoy ready, though, just in case.