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The Memory of Love
Dec. 9th, 2018 03:00 pmThe Memory of Love is a sprawling tale of love and loss in Sierra Leone, following the stories of three different men across several different time periods. The civil war looms large in the background, and the book talks a lot about the aftermath of trauma, and the difficulties of addressing it when it affects an entire nation.
But the stories of Elias, Adrian and Kai are also intensely personal, exploring their attitudes to love and their desires for themselves and their lives.
What I struggled most with in the novel was the attitude towards women. All three of the men treat women as objects to be possessed, and all three see the women they claim to love as vessels for providing a sense of stability and purpose that the men are unable to secure for themselves.
I don't know if the intention is to demonstrate the oppression of war, and the way it warps people's perceptions and approach to relationships. But I found it odd for a female writer to remove the agency and self-determination of her female characters to such an extent. It may well be a realistic portrayal of women's helplessness in this situation, but not to even give them their own voices in the story - only filtering them through the viewpoint of the men - felt too dismissive to me.
Still, it's an impressive work, and very well written. It kept me engaged until the end, despite the horror and the desperation of the stories.
But the stories of Elias, Adrian and Kai are also intensely personal, exploring their attitudes to love and their desires for themselves and their lives.
What I struggled most with in the novel was the attitude towards women. All three of the men treat women as objects to be possessed, and all three see the women they claim to love as vessels for providing a sense of stability and purpose that the men are unable to secure for themselves.
I don't know if the intention is to demonstrate the oppression of war, and the way it warps people's perceptions and approach to relationships. But I found it odd for a female writer to remove the agency and self-determination of her female characters to such an extent. It may well be a realistic portrayal of women's helplessness in this situation, but not to even give them their own voices in the story - only filtering them through the viewpoint of the men - felt too dismissive to me.
Still, it's an impressive work, and very well written. It kept me engaged until the end, despite the horror and the desperation of the stories.
