Tail of the Blue Bird in Around the World in 80 Books

Jan 14, 2021 Steph S rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, contemporary-literary-fiction, africa, detective-novels, black-books-matter, 2021

I'm not sure how to rate this book. I'm not even sure how I came across this book. I ordered in June 2020 from a black-owned bookstore (Semicolon Books in Chicago), but with the events of that time (the murder of George Floyd, BLM protests, COVID-19, and working as a psychotherapist throughout it all), I was incredibly emotionally exhausted and my memory of that time is quite hazy; I have no idea how I heard of it or what prompted me to order it. So, to me, this book seems to have just magically I'm not sure how to rate this book. I'm not even sure how I came across this book. I ordered in June 2020 from a black-owned bookstore (Semicolon Books in Chicago), but with the events of that time (the murder of George Floyd, BLM protests, COVID-19, and working as a psychotherapist throughout it all), I was incredibly emotionally exhausted and my memory of that time is quite hazy; I have no idea how I heard of it or what prompted me to order it. So, to me, this book seems to have just magically appeared and waited on my shelf for me to pick it up.

I had no idea what to expect when I picked this up a few days ago following a few weeks of a book slump (in which nothing I picked up kept my attention), but this book was strangely perfect for easing out of the slump. I was (again) emotionally exhausted (COVID-19 still, attempted coup, my best friend's dad just died, and I'm still a psychotherapist) - but Tail of the Blue Bird drew me in by giving my brain something to do and leaving my emotions alone for the most part.

It started from the perspective of Opanyin Poku - a Ghanaian hunter (hunting in the more traditional ways), and his mind and dialect were foreign enough (to me) to engage my little grey cells. I was disappointed when the perspective shifted to Kayo. He is a western-trained forensic pathologist whose mother taught him the traditional ways of living and interacting in rural Ghana, and - though he honors the traditional ways - he is a bit more familiar to western readers. Still, I pressed on, and I'm glad I did.

This short novel is immersive and wildly interesting. I enjoyed that the author subtly poked at western expectations and ideologies through the use of language and dialect. An example:

"At the time it wasn't long after Mensisi came that our chief summoned me. The leopard skin for his palace, which had been there since the time of his grandfather's father, had begun to tear. He summoned me because in the days of our elders, when the chiefs took tributes to Asanteman, it was my family that used to go with his family to hunt so that we could pay our respects to Asanteman. The old laws allowed him to travel as far west as Bia to hunt a leopard every two years, but with the new laws he wasn't sure, because some of the hunting we did was now called poaching by those who had been educated by the English man."

He later describes the leopard hunting process a bit - in such a way that makes it clear the respect that this hunter has for the beasts he hunts:

"Leopards are not easy to find, but it is important to watch them before you kill any. It is not good to kill the young ones or the females, and the males, you have to look well; if you kill one that is with a female that has new children, another male will come to claim her and kill the children. You want the adult male, but the less mature ones, their skin is also nicer."

This is definitely the first book I've read where an animal dies and I didn't flinch. The death was not gratuitously described - it was done painlessly and with respect.

I very much enjoyed every bit of the book that featured Opanyin Poku's perspective and story-telling, and I can see how Kayo served as an example of someone who was educated differently and brought a different perspective, but still respected and honored the traditional ways of the village (something we can all learn from) - but I wanted less Kayo and more Poku. That's a personal problem, though - and Opanyin Poku's story-telling is a significant feature in the novel, particularly in the latter half. I loved reading his insights on the natural world and the beasts that inhabit it.

I had trouble initially with some of the pidgin words and dialect, but once I began to read some of those parts aloud, the meanings became more clear and I enjoyed being thrown in to just figure it out. I still didn't really have much of an emotional response to the novel - but honestly, that was a welcome relief at this point in time. Again, my brain was happy and my heart unbothered. Right book, right time. ...more

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