The Thing Around Your Neck

Just finished reading ‘The Thing Around Your Neck’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. After reading ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ and ‘Americanah’ I fell in love with her narratives and the messages behind them, her personality that informs her works with a distinct character and her talent that binds words and sentences into gripping meaningful stories. I searched for the other two books for a long time and finally found them.

As part of my Introduction to Creative Writing class I tried to write a short story for the first time a few weeks ago. It wasn’t an easy thing to do, and I don’t think I did a particularly good job. But what’s important is that now I read books differently – ‘read as a writer and write as a reader’ is the motto of Professor Fred D’Aguiar teaching the class. And indeed it was fascinating to read this collection of short stories by one of my favorite contemporary writers from this perspective. I bet it’s not easy to write a good story for anybody, but putting it together in such a way that it appears to have been written easily, effortlessly – this is art.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie certainly mastered this art to perfection. Of course, it’s impossible to separate the form, the literary side of the story from it’s contents. And this is where it gets even better. She deals with the subjects that I want to explore, something that fascinates and makes me think.

Every story is precious in its own way. The two that impressed me the most are the eponymous ‘The Thing Around Your Neck’ and ‘The Shivering’. The former made me question myself, my own actions and reality – not too many stories do that. The latter is an unexpected combination of half-told contemplations that give food for thought rather than clearly outlined answers. Another story that I want to mention is ‘The Headstrong Historian’. It feels like she is channeling Chinua Achebe while keeping a strong voice of her own.

Other stories are also very interesting and span a number of subjects. This breadth of scope is what I think I love the most about this rather short book. Even though you don’t have a chance to stay too long with her characters, each one stays in your heart. If you haven’t read this book yet, I definitely recommend it!