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Carregando... Tail of the Blue Bird (2009)de Nii Ayikwei Parkes
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Registre-se no LibraryThing tpara descobrir se gostará deste livro. Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro. Rich, complex and earthy. It sounds more like I'm trying to describe a wine but seriously, this is beautiful, vivid storytelling. At it's simplest this is a whodunnit, but there's so much more going on... family and culture, myths and legends. "Sonokrom is a place that has not changed for hundreds of years; the men and women speak the language of the forest, drink aphrodisiacs with their palm wine and commune with the spirits of their ancestors. However, the woman's intrusion and ensuing events lead to an invasion from Accra, the capital city, spearheaded by Kayo; a young forensic pathologist convinced that scientific logic can shatter even the most inexplicable of mysteries." Warning: cruelty to woman, cruelty to children A young scientist and forensic expert, Kayo, is coerced into investigating some foul smelling, presumably human remains found in a small village far away from the Ghanaian capital of Accra when other policemen are baffled by the villagers' lack of cooperation. A newly-minted forensic investigator, a genteel and polite Ghanaian man educated in England, is forcibly coopted by the chief of police (who, obviously, has his own agenda in pursuing the case). Kayo and his assigned partner Garba use take a more traditional and respectful approach and gain the village's confidence, especially the great hunter and the medicine-man. The book's strength is the contrast between modern forensic science and traditional tribal values and storytelling, and the breakthroughs in the case are from both approaches. However, the pidgin of Ghana is hard to follow and shame on the publisher for using a website, rather than printing a glossary to help readers. Shameful. There seems to be a great idea behind this text, a fusion on several levels. The dramatic contrast in the social fabric of modern Kenya is reduplicated in the narrative, a detective story that aspires to incorporate, even reconcile the split by offering a double perspective, coexistence without contradiction. Sadly, the execution reduces this ambition to a quirk. While it is not a bad story after all, even half a year later, having given it all some thought, I cannot figure out how it is supposed to work as a crime fiction novel (ostensibly, all told, it is one). And as such, it fails to impress. The characters (of which there are slightly more than one) are quite flat, and the story line bears such obvious marks of multiple editing that I had to go back to a previous page several times to see what I missed. Still it reads well and manages to impress and makes me wish that there is a next installment and that it matures to be a success. This book is set mainly in the village of Sonokrom, deep in the Ghanaian bush country, although it’s only a few hours from Accra, Ghana’s Capital and largest city, things have remained the same for hundreds of years. This is a place where the people walk in step with their ancestors, where the old ways and the old words still have meaning, where they still understand Mother Natures tongue and the only link to the modern world is a transistor radio. After the discovery of some suspicious, possibly human, remains in one of the village huts by the girlfriend of a government minister, who freaked out by what she sees, sets off a chain of events in Accra, that goes from her to the minister and from him to an ambitious corrupt police inspector and on to the hero of this book - Kayo Odamtten, a young man, who after studying forensic pathology in England, then working several years as a crime scenes officer in the Midlands, has returned home and now is working as a forensic pathologist for a private company in the capital. Kayo at first refuses, but is forced by the inspector, to work the case or face imprisonment on (false) conspiracy charges. This story then returns to the village of Sonokrom, where Kayo sets about trying to solve this case. This book is part traditional detective tale, part literary novel; blending both concepts seamlessly into a beautiful whole that manages to satisfy as a whodunit, whilst perfectly highlighting the disparities between the modern world and the traditional life of the village, that delights with it’s descriptions of the world it inhabits, scenes that don’t merely shine on the page but continue to glow on the retina and yet like all good social commentators, whilst showing the light, the writer doesn’t shy away from the darker side of this society, painting a vivid portrait of the madness & corruption inherent in the society. http://parrishlantern.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/nii-ayikwei-parkes.html sem resenhas | adicionar uma resenha
'A delightful book that combines the basic tug of the whodunit with the more elegant pleasures of the literary novel' Independent Sonokrom, a village in the Ghanaian hinterland, has not changed for hundreds of years. Here, the men and women speak the language of the forest, drink aphrodisiacs with their palm wine and walk alongside the spirits of their ancestors. The discovery of sinister remains - possibly human, definitely 'evil' - and the disappearance of a local man brings the intrusion of the city in the form of Kayo, a young forensic pathologist convinced that scientific logic can shatter even the most inexplicable of mysteries. As old and new worlds clash and clasp, and Kayo and his sidekick, Constable Garba, delve deeper into the case, they discover a truth that leaves scientific explanations far behind. Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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Google Books — Carregando... GênerosClassificação decimal de Dewey (CDD)823.92Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 2000-Classificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos E.U.A. (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
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En commençant cette lecture, j’ai été un peu déroutée, d’autant que les romans policiers ne sont pas vraiment mon truc, même s’ils se passent au Ghana. Pourtant, j’ai persévéré, et bien m’en a pris. Parce que je me suis vite aperçue que c’est plutôt une parodie de roman policier. Pour simplifier, mais en empruntant à un personnage sa marotte, ce livre, c’est Les Experts au Ghana (heureusement, c’est une série dont j’ai vu quelques épisodes !). Et le « au Ghana » a toute son importance parce qu’avec cette enquête policière, Nii Ayikwei Parkes prend un malin plaisir à se moquer des travers de sa société. Notre héros, le jeune expert médecin légiste, Kayo, est envoyé de façon assez cavalière pour enquêter sur un possible meurtre dans un petit village perdu au fond de la brousse.
On trouve dans ce roman, pêle-mêle, un joli exemple de la façon dont l’administration peut fonctionner, une belle opposition entre les valeurs villageoises et l’identité ghanéenne d’un côté et l’urbanisation et la dilution dans une sorte de mondialité de l’autre. On se promène d’un village de pêcheurs au maki du coin, d’une plantation de cacao à une cellule de police sans barreaux, tout cela très naturellement au fil de l’histoire et de la plume de Nii Ayikwei Parkes. On touche du doigt les classes aisées et corrompues mais on reste principalement avec les humbles et ceux qui tout simplement cherchent à s’en sortir. Et dans ce roman au style caustique, on fait le voyage avec Kayo, ce jeune homme qui a fait ses études en Angleterre et qui est revenu au pays depuis peu pour être près de sa famille et participer à la vie de son pays. Ce jeune homme plein d’illusions qui s’est pris la réalité de plein fouet et est déjà complètement désabusé, dans une enquête où il perd d’autres de ses illusions mais se rapproche peut-être d’une autre forme de sérénité.
C’est un beau roman, divertissant (à part l’avant-dernier chapitre, qui a bien plombé l’ambiance tout de même, mais qui a le mérite de ne pas présenter une société toute rose) et qui donne vraiment l’impression d’avoir pris un aller simple pour Accra en moins polluant que l’avion, un roman, mais aussi un roman qui fait réfléchir. C’est toujours difficile d’allier les deux, mais ici c’est réussi. Il faut certes un petit peu de temps pour rentrer dans l’histoire, mais c’est déjà la sensation que j’avais eu avec le précédent livre traduit par Sika Fakambi : comme elle cherche dans la traduction à se rapprocher au mieux du langage parlé et de la forme d’anglais propre au pays auquel le livre se rattache, elle utilise la forme du français le plus proche géographiquement, ici le parlé de l’Afrique de l’Ouest donc. C’est un choix que j’imagine contestable et je veux bien croire que les partis-pris de Sika Fakambi dans l’exercice de son métier de traductrice soient contestés par certains, mais pour moi, ils sont un délice, en tout cas une fois que je me suis habituée au rythme des phrases et aux particularités du phrasé. Cette forme de traduction y est pour beaucoup dans la capacité du livre à dépayser son lecteur, et je me suis encore une fois régalée à savourer les phrases et à apprécier le contenu autant que le contenant, le propos de l’auteur en même temps que la langue traduite.