Book Review: An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma

If you have read The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma, you would remember the continuous sinking feeling with every tragic event set in motion by the words of a madman. I felt the same way through the 384 pages of this book.

In his second book, the tale of a poultry farmer is narrated by his chi. The guardian spirit stands before “Chukwu, the creator of all” to defend his host who had just committed an unforgivable crime for which “Ala, the custodian of the earth” had demanded he be punished for.

Through his plea, the reader comes to experience in-depth the pain of a man whose only crime was loving a woman so madly that he gave up everything for her. Obioma lets us know that the noblest causes are not always rewarded with good.

Chinonso mourns the loss of his father and left with no family as his sister had run away to live with an older man saves a woman from jumping off a bridge. The love between him, a secondary school dropout and a sophisticated woman, Ndali is spontaneous and a bit premature.

Both of them find solace in their newfound love, clinging on to each other to avoid sinking into sadness once more. This love blinds them to their incompatibility by Nigerian societal standards. She is the daughter of a rich man, a pharmacist trained in a prestigious school overseas. He is the shepherd of a herd of chickens, with just his father’s land to his name.

Their love is struck a tragic blow by her parent’s rejection of Chinonso. Dejected, he decides to return to school to become worthy of Ndali. Despite warnings from his uncle, friend Elochukwu and Ndali herself he sells his land and his precious birds to travel to Cyprus to gain a university degree.

He does this with the help of Jamike, an old schoolmate, who dupes him of his money and disappears. Left in despair in a strange land, Chinonso does not contact his beloved “Mummy” to explain what has happened. He loses his chance to tell his story when he is accused of attempted and is jailed. He suffers unspeakable things in prison.

His chi recounts his anguish at being unable to contact Ndali and his further frustration at being unable to exact revenge on Jamike, who becomes a pastor Chinonso’s unlikely friend. It is through his efforts that Ndali is found and Chinonso discovers that she was pregnant for him before his departure to Cyprus.

He tries to reclaim his son and her love but fails to do so. He then sets off to restart his life in another city but not before he sets her pharmacy on fire and unknowingly ends her life.

Chigozie is a master of tragedy. He borrows from Odyssey, the hope of a man arriving after many years bound against his will to reclaim the love of a woman that has waited for him. Yet by the mere fact that Chinonso’s guardian spirit is standing in Bechukwu telling a story in defense of his host, the reader knows that there will be no happy ending. Throughout the story, we see signs of doom but a man in love is oblivious to every single one. Chinonso finally understands the words of Ndali which she uttered in tears when he sold his land saying he had destroyed himself for her.

Chinonso was not my favorite character. He was a man who lived life driven by his passions which is a dangerous thing to do. Maybe this was what attracted Ndali to him, his ability to do anything for what he loved. She must have found comfort in a coarse man who would kill a hawk viciously for trying to steal one of his birds knowingly he would do the same for her. In a way maybe this foreshadowed her death. His nature would lead him to harm anyone that stood in the path of him and what he considered his own, even the woman herself.

This story of a ruined man is filled with Igbo Cosmology. I have learned more about the spirit world and its interaction with the physical in this book. Spirits lurk through the pages, powerful yet at times unable to control the very humans they inhabit like Chinonso’s chi was unable to stop him from disaster. Obioma does a fascinating job of beginning pages and paragraphs with the many names of the Supreme Being. I must say it got a bit too for me. But the proverbs and the imagery of the spirit world that we live beside painted a picture of how mysterious the world is and how little man knows of it.