katedelaney

In The Memory of Love, Aminatta Forna's third book, four people are trying to get a grip on their lives again, amidst the fragile remnants of the Sierra Leone civil war. It is love, or the memory of love that connects them together. Elias Cole, a selfish and obsessed man, just cannot get Saffia out of his mind. No matter that she is the wife of his colleague and friend Julius. In fact, he will do anything, become Julius' most dependable friend if need be, to get closer to her. When push comes to shove, when the impending war is forcing him to choose a side, Elias makes a decision that not only determines his own future, but also that of Saffia and Julius. For Kai, living in the present is the only way he can cope with the past. But in the darkness of night, and at unguarded moments, the memories break through ruthlessly. In the past, at the height of it, he had attended to people whose limbs had been severed. [...] They complained of feeling pain in the lost limbs, the aching ghost of a hewn hand or foot. [...] The pain is real, yes, but it is a memory of pain. And when he wakes from dreaming of her, is it not the same for him? The hollowness in his chest, the tense yearning, the loneliness he braces against every morning until he can immerse himself in work and forget. Not love. Something else, something with a power that endures. Not love, but the memory of love. At some point, Kai asks Adrian why he is in Freetown. To be a hero, like everyone else? Adrian doesn't really know. Part of it, is that his mother was almost born here. Also, he is wanting to make a difference, and not wanting to live out his comfortable, but oh so predictable life back home. To change the course of his life. Love was not part of his plan. How does a man like him believe in love? A man trained to analyse the component parts of emotion. [...] There exists, somewhere, a scale for love invented by one of his profession. Othres have identified the neurological reward pathways of the brain, the tripwires that mark the way to love. And there are others still who say love is but a beautiful form of madness. Adrian does not know. And finally, there is Mamakay, who is the missing piece of the puzzle. She is a woman who lives and loves intensely, and unforgettable in her own right. In order to get to know more about her, you will have to read the book. As soon as I turned the first page, I was drawn into the dusty heat of Freetown. The author, daughter of a Sierra Leonian father and a Scottish mother, portrayed the city very clearly. Her description of the war and its aftermath were horribly shocking at times, but written into the story quite naturally; those scenes are part of the country's history, it's as simple as that. Even though the main theme of the book is (the memory of) love, and how it can save as well as destroy, Forna does not shy away from more crude truths either; Adrian, Ileana and dr. Seligmann seem to be the only foreign aid workers that are sincere and realistic. The others are motivated by less honorable reasons; to have easy sex, and to come out of it feeling better about themselves while looking down on the locals. And those who think they can come and go and "save" or "fix" the native Sierra Leonians just like that, have unrealistic expectations. In the book, Kai assures Adrian that there is nothing to fix, the traumas have become part of the people themselves, innocence and ignorance are lost forever. Despite his fair warnings, I was glad to find hope in Adrian's actions. He, who initially tries to cure his patients in the more conventional ways, achieves small successes in the end.

2023-08-03 22:00