Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga (April 2021)

[Judy]

Roman Clodia wrote: "I thought that Tambu thinking like that was a response to the colonialist situation which she has internalised so deeply - she has subscribed unquestioningly to the narrative that tells her that a British education, a role within a Christian religious institution, and other associated values are 'everything'...."

Yes, and despite being so invested in getting a British education, I think she starts to realise it isn't "everything" after all, as the book goes on. I mainly noticed Tambu thinking that wealthier people could not really suffer early in the book, when she is in such desperate poverty and so finds it hard to imagine that people who "have everything" can suffer.

Once she lives with her uncle and aunt's family and is in more comfortable circumstances, I think she realises that Nyasha and her mother are suffering too, particularly as a result of the patriarchal society - although her own mother's situation is still more desperate. Her views do change and become more nuanced during the book, as I read it. But I have only read this book so far, so my views on Tambu may well change when I read the later books.

[Roman Clodia]

Thanks for sharing that troubling experience, Alwynne. And it brings up the important issue of intersectionality which we've briefly touched on in this wide-ranging discussion.

Tambu's experience in this book seems to be simultaeously a general stand-in for the colonised subject, living the 'nervous conditions' of the title. But, at the same time, the lived experiences of the African characters is varied and different. They have a range of ideas about education, about independence, about patriarchy, and they don't seem to be straightforward. For example, Tambu's aunt is extremely well-educated with her master's from London, but she doesn't rebel in the way that Nyasha does. Lucia is also interesting for how she develops later in the trilogy.

What I'm trying to say is that TD is acutely aware of how other factors intersect with race in forming her characters and the shapes their lives take.

[Alwynne]

Roman Clodia wrote: "Thanks for sharing that troubling experience, Alwynne. And it brings up the important issue of intersectionality which we've briefly touched on in this wide-ranging discussion.

Tambu's experience ..."

Thanks RC but I wasn't so much 'sharing' as trying to make a point about the complexity of the issues around privilege and relations of power which I think you picked up on anyway.

[Jonathan]

Alwynne wrote: " the colonial education system results in producing someone alienated from and outside of their own culture. For the women in the novel I think these forms of violence are not purely related to colonialism but also to patriarchal oppression ..."

Roman Clodia wrote: "the important issue of intersectionality which we've briefly touched on in this wide-ranging discussion ..."

Totally agree with these assessments. While the journey of Tambu is a great vehicle for Dangarembga to portray the often unwitting influences being brought to bear on her I think the patriarchal oppression is portrayed in an overt and sometimes shocking manner while the cultural alienation is more nuanced.

What does make this a wonderful, and layered, book is the intersection. Arguably the greatest Southern Rhodesian writer ever was Doris Lessing (whose real political activism com[pares with Tsitsi Dangarembga). Lessing is renowned for her novels of empire and oppression- and to have done so resulted in her expulsion from the country. But Lessing focused specifically, and only on the colonial aspects of Rhodesian life.

Interestingly, the word/description "Intersectionality" (the idea that people experience discrimination differently depending on their overlapping identities), was first coined as a general description in 1989, after the publication of Nervous Conditions. Its a hugely controversial term.

Tsitsi Dangarembga answered a question about the term on the BBC World service book club last month in an hour long interview and retrospective on Nervous Conditions.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cs...

[Ang]

Responding to Alwynne's examples, I guess my point is that just because it could have been worse, I don't think making a comparison to how it was for others is helpful to anyone who is suffering. I prefer people able to be open about their issues rather than be piled on so that no one feels they can be open anymore. There's always something worse. I don't think it's a good subject here though so it does not need to be continued.

[Ang]

Jonathan, roughly where in the program does intersectionality come up? I would like to skip to it for now and come back to the rest of it later perhaps.

[Alwynne]

Ang wrote: "Responding to Alwynne's examples, I guess my point is that just because it could have been worse, I don't think making a comparison to how it was for others is helpful to anyone who is suffering. I..."

I think perhaps we are coming at this from different angles, I am thinking in political terms and I sense that you are coming at this from a different perspective. And I agree at this point I think agreeing to disagree is the best way forward!

[Ang]

I'm guessing our politics would align though, Alwynne. :)

[Jonathan]

Ang wrote: "Jonathan, roughly where in the program does intersectionality come up? I would like to skip to it for now and come back to the rest of it later perhaps."

Its about 15 minutes in.

[Roman Clodia]

Jonathan wrote: "Arguably the greatest Southern Rhodesian writer ever was Doris Lessing (whose real political activism compares with Tsitsi Dangarembga). Lessing is renowned for her novels of empire and oppression- and to have done so resulted in her expulsion from the country. But Lessing focused specifically, and only on the colonial aspects of Rhodesian life."

I wouldn't argue with Lessing being a great writer! She's also, I think, surprising in the trajectories of her books, at least the few I've read so far. And both she and Nadine Gordimer seem to have an essential awareness of their position as 'white' South Africans (Gordimer has Jewish ancestry) and the complications of writing about oppression from a position of relative privilege.

However, I would say that both women are also attuned to the dynamics of gender, as is Dangarembga, and the double oppression that results. Both, too, are acutely ironic in their viewpoints - I'd be very interested if Dangarembga has ever mentioned either as influences: does anyone know?

[Ang]

Jonathan wrote: "Its about 15 minutes in."

Oh wow, thank you. Great questions and may I say, eloquent questioner?

I am going to listen to the rest now.

[Ang]

Count me as another Lessing fan.

[Ben]

The BBC World Book club program with Tsitsi Dangarembga was very good. She's quite articulate and thoughtful.

Her statement that Tambu was a character meant to be "representative" of Zimbabwean women and girls felt very true to me. I also was glad to hear that she did not specifically identify herself with Tambu. I suspect there is some of the author in all the characters.

I liked hearing Jonathan ask his questions.

[Roman Clodia]

I haven't listened to this yet but Nyasha in the third book has some similar experiences to TD i.e. studying Film in Germany.

[Alwynne]

I'd like to re-read Lessing's Children of Violence sequence, I read it in my teens so not sure what I'd make of it now. The only books of hers I've read recently are her memoirs which I'd recommend wholeheartedly.

[Brian E]

I finished The Book of Not and this is my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I am impressed by the high level of analysis and discussion about this trilogy going on here. I think I'm enjoying this trilogy on a much simpler level, more of a "it's got a good beat and I can dance to it" analysis level.

[Roman Clodia]

Alwynne wrote: "I'd like to re-read Lessing's Children of Violence sequence, I read it in my teens so not sure what I'd make of it now. The only books of hers I've read recently are her memoirs which I'd recommend."

These are definitely on my list. How high, would you say, is the overlap between Martha Quest and the memoirs? I ask because that Lara Feigel book seemed to imply quite a lot. I don't have an issue with that, given that The Golden Notebook also reworks some of Lessing's own experiences, but just interested to know.

[Brian E]

I just read the first 50 pages of This Mournable Body today and I'm struggling through it. I'm finding the change to a 2nd person point of view for this novel to be irritating and uncomfortable. It surprised me that Dangarembga chose to change the point of view for the third book of a series about one character.
It helps that several reviews mention that the book's second half is better. Right now, the books events are depressing and not very interesting and that, in combination with the more irritating point of view, has made this book a bit of rough going. Hopefully I'll get used to the point of view and the events will get more interesting.

[Jonathan]

Ben wrote: "I also was glad to hear that she (Tsitsi Dangarembga) did not specifically identify herself with Tambu. I suspect there is some of the author in all the characters...."

I agree with you Ben. I suspect its not only the author who has divided up her real character and shared it around her fictional ones, but I think her own extended family are key underlying presences.

There’s a very distinct and linear connection running through the early American missions in Southern Rhodesia in the late c.19th, via the influence of Booker T. Washington (his Tuskegee Institute) and the first interim Independence government of Bishop Abel Muzorewa, and Tsitsi Dangarembga’s own immediate family - all centred on education of indigenous people in Old Umtali.

A little commented upon element about the mission presence in Southern Rhodesia, and in sub–Saharan Africa, is the influence of Americans.
Coming from a background with no historic African “empire”, and with a very active race debate and affirmative action, in the southern States, the American missions had a rather different ethos to the British in the “education” of the "native".
Its possible to perceive this American approach as an enlightened, and less knowingly selfish one, than the British, German and Irish influencers in Southern Rhodesia. That's not a conclusion that you can draw from the responses of Dangarembga's characters (the headmistress at The Sacred Heart convent, for example, is American).
The unravelling of the mission influence, conflated with the tribal rivalries that religion in part fuelled were evident in triumph of Mugabe and Zanu/Ndebele in the Independence of Zimbabwe in 1980 (which also included the dimunition of the Shonas).

[Alwynne]

Roman Clodia wrote: "Alwynne wrote: "I'd like to re-read Lessing's Children of Violence sequence, I read it in my teens so not sure what I'd make of it now. The only books of hers I've read recently are her memoirs whi..."

Missed this earlier RC, I read the memoirs more recently, but my impression was pretty substantial, just vastly different in style and the novels are far more atmospheric. I found the Feigel quite irritating, I thought her points on Lessing seemed very sound, but found Feigel's own life less than captivating!

[Roman Clodia]

Thanks, Alwynne - I'll start with Martha Quest, then.

Interestingly for this thread, there are some essays from Lessing on trips back to Zimbabwe after she'd been exiled from the former Rhodesia: African Laughter: Four Visits to Zimbabwe.

[Roman Clodia]

Brian wrote: "I just read the first 50 pages of This Mournable Body today and I'm struggling through it. I'm finding the change to a 2nd person point of view for this novel to be irritating and uncomfortable."

I felt the same when I jumped straight into Mournable without having read the first two books, but reading in order made me realise how broken and self-alienated Tambu has become by book 3, indicated by her 2nd person narrative, seeing herself as 'you'.

It opens with her looking in a mirror and seeing a fish. (Is TD the queen of arresting first lines?) This is one of the reasons I don't think it works effectively as a standalone, we need the context of Tambu's experiences to fully appreciate how she is - just as we need to know a country's past to understand its present.

[Ang]

This Mournable Body worked well for me as a standalone. I knew Tambu was disillusioned and there are hints to indicate something of why that was. They are two completely different books in style, and also substance. In Nervous Conditions, Tambu is full of hope. For me, her experiences of life in This Mournable Body were not diminished by not knowing her full background.

[Roman Clodia]

That's interesting, Ang. I love it when we have such a spectrum of views and reactions to the same book :)

[Ang]

Thank you, Roman Clodia. I know my view on This Mournable Body is not common but it's good to have it acknowledged.

[Jonathan]

I have had three very different reactions recently to books that form part of a series and the question of whether they stand alone.
For me This Mournable Body, which I read first of the three parts of the trilogy was a great example of a book that worked well. My lack of any background awareness of Tambu meant that it was similar to many novels where there is an unknown or hidden past as a character is developed by the author.
When I read Nervous Conditions I liked TMB even more.

Conversely I thought Ali Smith’s final instalment of her seasonal quartet was very dependent on awareness of the interlinkage of characters from previous novels in the series.

Then there’s Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy where I thought the author seemed very conscious of wanting to make this accessible for readers who had missed the first two parts, and I felt there was too much duplication.

[Jppnkirk]

As the book is an easy read I finished it before the end of the month even though I started late.

Some points from me:-
Often referred to as an African novel. However, this is unfair to Tsitsi. Yes the setting is in Africa but the experience of the characters could have been set in any situation where society is experiencing deep change – and not just colonialism. Think about religious change in Ireland as it became more secular, political change in Russia as it moved away from Communism, economic change in Spain as it moved away from deeply agricultural society to tourism etc. etc. People there have to adapt to changes and make decisions about how to react to the opportunities thrown up and many will find themselves in the same situation as Tambu. How much “Englishness” are they to take on to make the best of the changes going on around them without losing out their existing history and values.

In my edition there was a question and answer session with Tsitsi. One of the questions was why she chose Tambu to tell the story. Yes! What a great question. It would have been fascinating to see Tambu’s journey told from someone else’s point of view. I would dearly have loved to have read Nyasha’s account of Tambu’s change. In many ways she’s a more complex character than Tambu – but really if any of the other characters had told Tambu’s story we would have had entirely different insights on someone from her background ending up by going to Sacred Heart. I suppose the easy answer is that Tambu was there for the whole journey but that doesn’t mean we can’t speculate.

Final point. The end seemed to finish quickly and in a rush. In Chapter 10, “the nuns came to the mission.” and thirty pages later Tambu all set up in her new school and to all intents and purposes had left her old life behind and was ready to begin completely afresh. Disappointing to end so suddenly after the slow burn to get that point.

Tambu suggests that there was .more to tell – and that would be told later. It hints at a sequel which I note has now been written – and I’ll add it to my list of books to read. It must have been very frustrating for those who read the book when it first came out – and then had to wait nearly twenty years to find out what happened next.

Thanks to the group for suggesting this. I would never had read it if you hadn’t and I would have missed out on a good read.

[Alwynne]

Jppnkirk wrote: "As the book is an easy read I finished it before the end of the month even though I started late.

Some points from me:-
Often referred to as an African novel. However, this is unfair to Tsitsi. Ye..."

That's an interesting perspective although not one I would probably feel particularly comfortable adopting. Although obviously we all come to books from slightly different angles. I'm a bit puzzled about the notion of something being understood as an 'African' novel then resulting in 'unfairness', I'm finding it hard not to interpret that as a suggestion that somehow a novel dealing with a specific historical aspect of Zimbabwe's past is inferior to some other brand of novel? I understand about relating something we're reading to other situations, I think we all do that to a certain extent, but I wonder how much that then leads to ignoring the specificity of a narrative and what it's trying to communicate?

I'm also not convinced that, for example, economic change in Spain, however traumatic, is on a par with the experience of the colonised. But I'm probably completely misunderstanding what you're saying - it's been a long day at the end of a long week. But the idea that all 'deep change' is equivalent seems to me to veer a little too much towards a particularly Western form of universalising, and in this case I think there's a danger that that detracts from the political, historical and moral force of this book, as well as Dangarembga's indirect address to African women. Although there are, perhaps, stronger parallels with aspects of Ireland's history, as another country that was on the receiving end of British colonialist policies, and in the case of Northern Ireland still experiencing the aftereffects.

[Roman Clodia]

Jppnkirk wrote: "Often referred to as an African novel. However, this is unfair to Tsitsi. Yes the setting is in Africa but the experience of the characters could have been set in any situation where society is experiencing deep change – and not just colonialism."

Welcome, Jppnkirk - and thanks for posting your thoughts. You make some interesting parallels but, for me, Nervous Conditions isn't so much a book about general 'deep change' as specifically about the psychological affects of colonial - and patriarchal - oppressions.

As we've noted earlier, Dangarembga takes her title from Franz Fanon who discussed the psychopathology of the colonised and specifically writes about Blackness. As Alwynne says, I'd also be wary about flattening the specificities of Zimbabwean history and experience that make this book so fascinating under a general rubric of social change.

I'm being careful here as it's a bit difficult to remember where Nervous Conditions ends and where The Book of Not starts but while there is clearly politicised agitation for change going on in the background, it rarely, I think, intrudes in this book, though it does become more prominent later in the trilogy. (view spoiler)[And the Fanon allusion is interesting, too, for the way he discussed the use of violence in overthrowing colonial regimes - an idea with which the later books engage. (hide spoiler)]

I do agree with you on the sometimes jumpy pace and chronology - and yes, that open ending must have been both frustrating and hopeful. I'm very glad we're able to read the three books back-to-back now :)

[Ben]

Another interview with Tsitsi Dangarembga I enjoyed.

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-asks-5-aut...?

[Jonathan]

Ben wrote: "Another interview with Tsitsi Dangarembga I enjoyed.

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-asks-5-aut...?"

Thanks for this link Brian. I see the (May 11) interview was notionally about The Book of Not , but the questions and answers are very general.

When asked to summarise what the book was about, and Tsitsi Dangarembga answered "My book is about how the intersection of colonialism, patriarchy and class struggle creates a formidable force that black girls must struggle against, often without access to role models" I almost fell off my chair!!

[Brian E]

Jonathan wrote: "Ben wrote: "Another interview with Tsitsi Dangarembga I enjoyed. https://lithub.com/lit-hub-asks-5-aut...?"
Thanks for this link Brian..."

While I do appreciate being thanked, this one is meant for Ben, who has been doing the work of finding, analyzing and posting such items.

[Jonathan]

Brian, yes!
Thanks Ben!!

[Ben]

A new interview with Tsitsi Dangarembga in Prospect Magazine

Tsitsi Dangarembga’s trials of freedom

[Alwynne]

Thanks Ben, I'll check it out.