Continued Critique of Children of Blood & Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
I'll begin by saying congratulations to Ms Adeyemi for the success of her breakthrough debut fantasy novel, which is being developed into a motion picture--- and also, I do plan to read the sequel and jump back into the story to see what happens. The book held my attention,
But---
How is it that Marvel's Black Panther showed us a more authentically African story and aesthetic than a book that was hyped up as being supposedly written with deep research into African, specifically Nigerian/Yoruba history???????
How is it that a book that is supposed to be set in a fictional Nigeria had snow, castles, long dresses, horses, multiple European artifacts, Greek architecture and painting, and a bizarre Japanese anime-like treatment of Ifa? One of the oldest cosmologies in the world?
African historically recorded and even recent things were cast away in favor of more "familiar" European things. Instead of making the story easier to digest, it made it feel like a "Black fan fiction" of a foreign culture entirely.
The art of sculpture was entirely absent from the book yet Ifa and Yoruba culture is HEAVILY rooted in sculpture! Instead we are shown paintings on temple walls the likes of which echo Italian Catholic churches. Down to the "symbols" that bare no implication of being inspired by nsibidi, which is at least of Nigerian origin even if it is Efik/Ejagham/Igbo.
Not only are strange foreign hair styles like one character sporting a single slick braid (huh???? So we are just going to ignore intricate plaits, sculptural coiffures and beads???? Are we going to toss into the trash can the hundreds of uniquely and singularly African hair sculpting traditions found nowhere else in the world?) But most of the characters has attributes associated with people from outside Nigeria. Limp white hair. Check. Long braid. Check. And no. The power of the orisha giving hair its coil did not make much sense. Does that imply that all the people of Orisha had limp hair if the coil comes from the magic of the gods?
But most of all, AN IRON BUILDING in the middle of the tropics would spell instant death for those who choose to dwell within it. Why then was there a building made of iron in a place baked by the sun???????? Is temperature-regulating Adobe not good enough?
How did the editors and marketers go over these things and say nothing? And why is white hair a sign of the gods rather than say, a unique marking (like a scarification from birth) or unusual eye color? Especially when an important message about albinism in Africa could have been tackled sensitively in the matter of colorless-ness in hair, eyes or skin.
The reader is left more clueless about Ifa/Orishas than when they went in.
I want to know how on earth a stadium filling with water and mock ship battles is in many way shape or form African. Do we need to copy ancient Greece to show readers a display of brutality in the plot? Why, when thousands of years of brutality in very terrifying ways existed already in these African cultures?
Why were the maji (European origin word "mage") not dismembered or something, with their parts sold to witch doctors or greedy black market dealers? That would have also helped raise awareness about real life persecution of "different" people on the continent.
Africans did not use murderous stadium shows like the Greeks. It is an insult to appropriate Greek imagery for a story that is being hyped as an African based story. All cultures had their ways of torturing misfits. Why choose the European one for a "Nigerian" fantasy?
If colonization by the mentioned/implied european "visiters" was made clearer, it would have made more sense.
To add insult to injury, African indigenous faiths are already misunderstood and demonized in the West compared to other ancient faiths. All this book did was inject an active West African tradition into a foreign model further alienating an already stolen culture further from its roots.
How then can we properly tackle the issue of the blatant theft of Ifa by racist colonialists in Latin America? Now these racists will be further validated, with the reality further obscured into the dust of history. There was an Ifa church BANNING BLACK PEOPLE in a Latin American country. Why is the book associating it with Rome, Greece and Portugal then????
Sure, perhaps its painting a metaphor of what happens when a government actively tries to suppress a people and mistreat them out of jealousy or spite or cruelty, but the aesthetic reinforces current misconceptions.
The light eyes of the maji also reminds me of the stereotype that white-like features are an "upgrade".
Perhaps the above was too much, but I fail to see how the situation can turn out any differently if the upcoming movie stays true to the book descriptions.we will all be led to believe that Ifa/Yoruba is a Latin (colonizer) construct!
Also, if anyone can challenge my views I am open to it 100%.
Again, I enjoyed the story and admire Tomi Adeyemi so so so much. But that book really disappointed people who really do enjoy African culture and history.
Taking for granted the ignorance of the masses will not teach the masses to correct their ignorance.