The Thing Around Your Neck

Each story in this book made me pause to think before moving on to the next story. I don't know if I have a favorite because I like all of them. They all evoked different emotions in me. For some reason I could resonate with most of the main characters in the story.I must say one of the stories was very dark. The one that talked about Nonso.I will read this book again.I wish some of them could be made into full novels. Like the arranged marriage and the American Embassy. I am also curious about Chinedu and what happened to him and Ukamaka....I am dying to read another collection of Chimamanda's short stories. She is brilliant!

These stories helped to educate me on life for women in Nigeria who struggle with their relationships, religious and political violence and adjusting to Western culture. The final story The Headstrong Historian gave the account of life in a small village. This story was also the prelude to the slave trade in the western world. I learned that the irony continues as I read to discover that in truth, our heroine is a slave in so many senses.

I recently saw a TED Talks address by the author which led me to purchase this first book.This was both a joy and a pain to read. A joy because it brought stories of a way of life and culture we know so little of as black people in my Caribbean country. I suppose we hear of Africa what the rest of the world does. It was also a pain because in these stories is also a reality of how much we take for granted that our culture and customs and history should be told and preserved and passed on to generations. Somehow we've been taught to believe our stories are not interesting enough unless told through a certain perspective that mimics what's already out there. This is my first but won't be my last read by this author. Thank you for telling stories so wonderfully and purposefully.

Good price and was a book daughter needed for school

There are books that I can’t help skimming, skipping few paragraphs here and there. Not Adichie’s. Even if I notice my eyes were not focusing - I get back to the book with full attention. I enjoy reading Adichie’s books, though after reading Americanah and this book - I started feeling slight frustration with her harsh depiction of American life and culture. “The trick was to understand, to know that America was give-and-take. You give up a lo but you gained a lot, too”. That’s not America, that’s everywhere. When you leave your village, your city, your country - you leave behind your past, heritage and sense of security. That applies to all foreigners. I understand it’s catchy and shocking to compare the cultures, in Adichie’s case - always diminishing America, but it is getting slightly old and annoying.

"It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a grand scale, and men going at it blind--as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness." -Joseph Conrad Ngozi Adichie's short stories tend to consist of various criticisms of America. The Nigerian characters have the unfortunate habit of taking on a self-righteous tone as they make superficial observations about Americans--generally negative--without giving much thought to how Americans might have gotten that way. Kamara, the protagonist in "On Monday of Last Week," is a good example. She's critical of virtually every facet of the American family for whom she works--though she never criticizes herself for specifically disobeying her employer's orders (allowing, for example, the child she babysits to dump his vegetable drink down the sink). Even before she's hired, she's irritated that Neil, her employer, compliments her English because she believes he assumes "English was somehow his personal property." This borders on silly. Neil lives in a country in which at least 300 million people speak English; surely he doesn't think of the language as strictly his own personal property. Also, it seems likely that if Neil had spoken perfect Igbo (a language spoken in Nigeria), Kamara would have been surprised (as in "The Thing Around Your Neck," in which the Nigerian character is surprised when a restaurant patron merely demonstrates knowledge of racial differences in Nigeria). On page 78 Kamara gets upset because Neil speaks to her "as people spoke to housegirls back in Nigeria." She feels deeply resentful that she's a babysitter in spite of her master's degree. This tells us that Nigeria is a class-oriented society where women like Kamara have the right to speak as they choose to lower-class Nigerians--but that's okay. And Neil didn't hire her for her master's; he hired her as a nanny. On page 82 she makes this observation: "a sated belly gave Americans time to worry that their child might have a rare disease they had just read about, made them think they had the right to protect their child from disappointment and want and failure. A sated belly gave Americans the luxury of praising themselves for being good parents, as if caring for one's child were the exception rather than the rule." Kamara goes on to slag off American women talking about parenting on tv. This is about the extent of Kamara's experience of living in America: criticisms of Neil's household and America in general. There's nothing about Kamara's living situation or her experience outside of the household. "Jumping Monkey Hill" is an obvious, heavy-handed and unlikely diatribe against colonialism--as if anyone has to be persuaded colonialism is one of humanity's worst ideas. The narrator, Ujunwa, seems unaware of her own condescending attitude, imagining the resort at which she will be staying to be full of "affluent foreign tourists [who] would dart around taking pictures of lizards and then return home still mostly unaware that there were more black people than red-capped lizards in South Africa." It seems rather presumptuous to assume that is all the tourists have come for. And if the tourists took photos of Africans, the narrator would undoubtedly complain--as does Akunna in "The Thing Around Your Neck"--that Africans are just "exotic trophies, ivory tusks."Ujunwa continues her criticisms after being complimented on her looks by an Englishwoman: Her first thought "is to ask if Isabel ever needed royal blood to explain the good looks of friends back in London." On page 102 the African writers have a general belly-aching session mostly about white authors who have written about Africa. The implication is that whites have no right to write about Africans nor any right to their opinions about colonialism--an odd position to take since that would, conversely, preclude Adichie from writing about America and Americans. Nor is a professor who defends Conrad entitled to argue his position; he believes Conrad took the side of the Africans--"as if [the Senegalese writer] could not decide for herself who was on her side." Again, the implication is that only Africans are allowed to discuss Africa or form an opinion about Joseph Conrad's writing about Africa. Freedom of speech and free exchange of ideas anyone? This point is hammered home throughout the story by the way Edward--white, Oxford-educated, and host for the African writers--comes out with lines such as "homosexual stories of this sort [aren't] reflective of Africa really." Followed by lots of self-righteous indignation from the African authors. There is more figurative rapping of Edward's knuckles on page 112: "Imagine an African gathering with no rice, and why should beer be banned at the dinner table just because Edward thought wine was proper and breakfast at 8 was too early, never mind that Edward said it was the `right' time and the smell of his pipe was nauseating ..." Edward is a straw-man Adichie has set up for target practice. "The Thing Around Your Neck" begins with some very heavy-handed advice for a character headed to America: "Don't buy a gun like those Americans." (As if in Africa children aren't running around with AK-47s.) The narrator moves from Lagos to "a small white town in Maine," where she is taken in by her "uncle" whose wife "had to drive an hour to find a hair salon that did black hair." We then get a paragraph about how ignorant and arrogant Americans are collectively. This is followed by another paragraph of the narrator's disdain: "white people who liked Africa too much and those who liked Africa too little were the same--condescending." In other words, American attitudes toward Africa have to be approved by Adichie--like fairytale porridge, they have to be "just right." "The American Embassy" is perhaps the cake-taker when it comes to America bashing : "Sometimes I wonder if the American embassy people look out of their window and enjoy watching the soldiers flogging people," says the man in line behind the protagonist. The problem with this statement is that there is no behavior on the part of the "American embassy people" to even suggest that, let alone support it. It's simply thrown out there without any justification. It is also interesting that when a Nigerian soldier beats a Nigerian citizen, it is somehow an American problem. At the end we have a reiteration, it seems, of the attitude that if you are not African, you can't understand Africa or Africans: "[The protagonist's] future rested on that face [of the interviewer at the American embassy]. The face of a person who did not understand her, who probably did not cook with palm oil, or know that palm oil when fresh was a bright, bright red and when not fresh, congealed to a lumpy orange." It might have helped if the main character had actually answered the interviewer's questions, but she's too full of contempt to bother. It's also rather presumptuous: the interviewer very well may cook with palm oil and know what it looks like when it's fresh; she lives in Africa, and she may also have a grasp of African politics. It's hard to see a cultural obstacle here although the main character has clearly imagined one. Overall, there's a disappointing lack of information about the lives of transplanted Nigerians. I'd love to know what Lagos is like, how the smell of Maine differs from the smell of the Nigerian capital, how Akunna felt surrounded by deciduous trees in Maine rather than palms, how a sunset in Maine affected her as compared with one in Lagos. And these are just a few simple questions of topography. There are numerous others that go unanswered. I'd like to know what (and who) these characters miss, if they miss speaking their native tongue and the like. I'd also like to read STORIES rather than hear characters grinding woe-is-me axes.You are probably better off skipping this book unless you are interested in self-righteous whining.

Adichie can tell a long story (Americah) but she can also tighten it up and produce stories that are concentrates. Each story in this collection is the length it needs to be. Some are vignettes with closure; others are a "story" that takes some time to tell. The writing is flawless. Characters are developed exactly to the extent they need to be. "Supporting characters" are not flat but rather are interesting in their own right (though, appropriately, not as fully developed). The stories written in the second person place you right in the heart of the character because "you" are in pain or are conflicted/happy/resolved.What I will be looking for next from Adichie is venturing into new ground. She has insightfully explored the experience of cultural hyphenation. Now, perhaps she can share with us stories of people who are wholly rooted in one culture. And perhaps it is that culture which forms a tragic story... or one of hope or positive resolution.

Adichie versammelt hier zwölf Geschichten, bei denen einer der thematischen Schwerpunkte das Verhalten von Nigerianischen Männern und Frauen - und Männern und Männern - in Nigeria und in den USA zueinander ist. Dabei geht es in diesem Zusammenhang sowohl um Frauen, wie auch um Mätressen, die im Christlichen Nigeria sehr üblich zu sein scheinen. Daneben spielen Auseinandersetzungen zwischen Christen und Muslimen, die Migrationserfahrung - insbesondere in die USA - und auch Erfahrungen aus der Kolonialzeit eine Rolle.Eine sehr erhellende - und auch teilweise verstörende - Kurzgeschichtensammlung, die ich gerne weiterempfehle.

Each story better than the one before. This is what writing should be, honest, relatable, brilliant, stories that touch the heart, across cultures

CHIMAMANDA. A name that I heard three years ago. A name that I was trying so desperately to get familiar with. A name, to be honest, I fell in love with instantly. It is also a name that I found on Facebook during a time when she had written what I consider to be her masterpiece. Along with all that, it is also a name that I am glad I didn't try to read three years earlier because had I read her then, I know I would have pretended to like her words because I knew she was 'cool'.I received The Thing Around Your Neck as a birthday present from a 'friend' whose friendship, unfortunately, didn't last long. Chimamanda did, though. I don't remember ever thinking about why I wasn't picking her up even though her book was waiting to be read. Her art of simplified truances were not for me. Now, the story is different. Books have taught me a lot and I have matured enough to bask in the sinful glory of a dreamless haze; sinful because how can someone, in a language that is being used everyday, create something as mesmerizing and as private as this?Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's collection of short stories, The Thing Around Your Neck, is, for me, like a fabled dream. African cultures have always drawn me towards themselves. The sheer monopoly with which writers from Africa or those of African origin carve their stories and tales in words is something with which I will be always biased. It is the history of slavery that had first drawn me to African writings and it is the same history of slavery, of oppression, of British colonialism and of the neo-colonialism that constantly perpetuates strength in me. African history is a history that taught me there is more to 'national' and 'cultural' history than what we generally see.This book of short stories contain twelve short stories by Adichie. There is something about short stories that I both like and dislike - like the gorgeousness of pain, it stays and tingles long after the effect becomes invisible to the peering eyes. Be it the growing up of a boy in Cell One or the opaqueness of future of The American Embassy, the ghosts of Ghost or the contracts of The Arrangers of Marriage, the freedom of The Jumping Hill or the hate of Tomorrow Is Too Far - I want to carry it all. I want to carry Nkem's hopefulness, Chika's searchful eyes, 'you''s nothingness, Udenna's memories, Kamara's cage and Afamefuna's courage. I wish I had it in me to carry all of it but I know that I am too weak to bear all the weight.This short story collection needs to be read by all of us. If it is possible, I'd even say that it needs to be re-read if you could spare a few moments to it. It is devastating, chilling, nauseating and yet it is so beautiful and glorious that it wouldn't part away with your skin. Read it. You must.

Unlike many, I was largely unimpressed - and frankly disappointed - by the self-conscious, overblown nature of 'Half Of A Yellow Sun' with its annoying, cardboard cut-out characters in spite of the importance of the subject addressed i.e. the Nigerian civil war. Thankfully, 'The Thing Around...' sees Miss Adichie return to the more subtle approach that made her first book 'Purple Hibiscus' such an outstanding debut. Her economic use of language is her forté. Adichie is neither abstract nor does she underestimate the intelligence of her readers by giving us too much information. Yet there is simply so much going on in these vignettes and so much depth to the characters despite each tale really not being very long at all. A host of issues and themes simmer under the surface of each of the stories in 'The Thing Around...'. This is no small feat and I can only put this down to the effortless quality of her writing. The underlying theme of most of the collection - that of the culture clash experienced by those moving from developing countries to the West - is hardly new. Yet Adichie brings a fresh perspective, breathing life into a well-worn topic. I especially enjoyed her relentless critique of American life, it's displaced priorities and values that so many Nigerians who emigrate there are willing to adopt. She doesn't spare her own country -or the African continent as a whole- from her beady observations either. A couple of things, however did irk me. I felt there were aspects of tokenism in some of the stories as the author seemed overly-intent on appealing to the LGBT community. There were also some side-swipes at the charismatic churches of Nigeria which I felt had more to do with Adichie being perhaps a lapsed Catholic, nevertheless regarding with a slight contempt those who were not part of the 'true' faith. There is plenty to make one cynical about the state of Nigerian churches at home and abroad but there are also lots of positive things going on if we care to look for them. She's far too intelligent to get away with making generalisations and so it didn't sit well with me when she did.That said, I felt overall 'The Thing Around...' was a return to form for Adichie after being disillusioned by what was to me a highly-overrated second novel. This is one of the most consistent short story collections I have read so far and confirms once again, Adichie's enviably natural style of writing. A true literary star of my generation.

I only bought this because I was searching for Achebe's "There Was A Country" (at that time unavailable on Kindle) and Amazon suggested I might like it. I'm so glad I did; Adichie is a brilliant writer, and having read and devoured this I immediately went and bought her (then) two full-length novels (she's since written another one), and in short order she became my favourite contemporary author.This collection shows her at the peak of her powers - her characterisation, scene-setting, storytelling, her ability to make you *care* about someone you only met a couple of lines ago, are without equal. All her novels are full of characters who appear for a few pages, a brief flicker of interaction with the main storyline before vanishing (sometimes for many chapters on end, sometimes forever), and that's a skill she uses to maximum effect here, the short story the perfect format for Adichie to display her brilliance.I know I'm gushing with praise here. I can't help it, she really is that good. Read this book. Read it now.The order of the stories is interesting, and I wonder how many people might be put off by the sample - "Cell One", which opens the collection, is the most uncompromising thing here, dumping the reader straight into a stark, tightly-wound tale of middle-class family breakdown and prison brutality peppered with Igbo phrases and Nigerian slang and references to things like cults and the harmattan. Adichie has talked in lectures about growing up reading Enid Blyton, packed with alien cultural references; the first few pages of "Cell One" provide the Western reader with a similar experience, a similar expectation to get with the programme straight away. Do persevere, it is absolutely worth it. Some of the stories are more shocking ("The American Embassy" and "Tomorrow Is Too Far" both pack a wounding gut punch whose effects you'll never quite shake off), but most of the drama here is internal, vignettes of intense domestic dramas and questions of identity in Nigeria and in the diaspora. Not one of them is forgettable, staying with you to be savoured and reflected over even as you inevitably rush to start the next one because you can't wait to hear more.Picking out highlights is a waste of time because there's not really a weak link in the collection. The title story, from which several themes are picked up in Adichie's third novel Americanah, is probably the best short story I've ever read, told entirely in the second person and painting just about the most convincing character portrait you'll ever see, is a magnificent centrepiece to the collection, but in truth pretty much every story here would be enough to carry a whole volume. "Jumping Monkey Hill" is a fascinating one; it's too tempting to see the central character, a Nigerian writer attending a pan-African writers' workshop hosted by an insufferable white English academic at a hokey safari-themed resort in South Africa, as Adichie herself. I'd love to know how autobiographical it really is, because the British characters come across as (literally) unbelievably patronising, and yet the host's attitude to the heroine's workshop submission - a true story from her life with a couple of key details changed - is also to call it far-fetched, as if to warn the reader not to make the same mistake with Adichie's own work. The final story, "The Headstrong Historian" is just Adichie showing off, a sublime piece of fan fiction set in the timeline (and written in the style) of Achebe's "Things Fall Apart", centred on a background character from the original novel, and done with such staggering aplomb it takes the breath away as you first realise what she's doing and then stand stunned as she carries it off.Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie hasn't long turned 30; not only is she one of our best young writers, I don't think the "young" qualification is needed. This is such a good introduction to her work, I already know I will buy every book she ever writes.