156/2020. This is a social realist novel about a middle class urban Ghanaian woman who falls out of marriage and into love, with all the consequences for herself and her extended family, told from an African feminist perspective. The author manages to be both sharply perceptive and amusingly witty without sacrificing realistic portrayal. It's also freer in form than traditional European novels, with more influence from oral culture and West African conversational style. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Quotes

I'm laughing so hard: "years of having a clever woman in his home and an unbroken chain of rather stupid heads of department at his place of work had taught him not to take anything for granted in a discussion."

LMAO: "Indeed the only opinion Musa Musa could possibly have shared with African heads of state is that any discussion of mortality is treason and punishable, by death of course, if the circumstances are right."

Grandma on marriage and society: "[...] remember a man always gained in stature through any way he chose to associate with a woman. And that included adultery. Especially adultery. Esi, a woman has always been diminished in her association with a man. A good woman was she who quickened the pace of her own destruction. To refuse, as a woman, to be destroyed, was a crime that society spotted very quickly and punished swiftly and severely."
[...]
"Life on this earth need not always be some humans being gods and others being sacrificial animals. Indeed, that can be changed."

On adaptive traditions: "All the spirits should have been appeased: ancient coastal and Christian, ancient northern and Islamic, the ghost of the colonisers." ( )

"It was a man's world. You only survived if you knew how to live in it as a woman", 31 July 2015

This review is from: Changes: A Love Story (Paperback)
Set in 1990s Ghana, this very readable novel follows three marriages of career women: there's statistician Esi, our central character, whose teacher husband resents her career and wants her to follow a more traditional role. Then there's her lover Ali, a Moslem - but with a wife and family. And lastly Esi's best friend, midwife Opukoya, badly paid and rather a drudge to her family.
There are no easy answers: "a man always gains in stature any way he chooses to associate with a woman - including adultery -But in her association with a man, a woman is always in danger of being diminished."
Many differences to women's experiences in the West - but many similarities too! ( )

An insightful novel from Ghana about what is changing and not changing as women entering professions face demands to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their husbands.

The world is changing, and here and there women are taking exciting professional jobs. What does that mean for their personal lives? Ama Ata Aidoo provides an African variation of their dilemma. For Esi, the problem is not the demands of her daughter, a guilt-producing waif largely ignored in the novel, but the demands of her husband. Earning more than he does, she spends time working and traveling that he believes ought to be devoted to him. When he decides to establish his dominance, Esi rebels. Neither her family nor her best friend approve. Is life alone or as a second wife of a less demanding man any better?

Read more: http://mdbrady.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/changes-a-love-story-by-ama-ata-aidoo/

This is a novel of paradoxes, starting with the pace. The writing style makes it a very slow read, even for 150 or so pages, but the story itself progresses forward apace, even jumping ahead to relevant life events. The reader is drawn in to liking the main character, Esi, even though she herself is challenged with her decisions, and she gradually alienates or loses many around her. Continuing the paradox, the male characters, and in a feminist book no less, clearly are behaving in a negative way in a culture perpetuating and accepting their actions, yet the author brings to light attitudes and writing that makes them sympathetic. Overall, a thought provoking and challenging book that likely meets the author's goal, is troubling for the reader, but does not have a story or writing skill that makes it a must read. ( )

This had more of a plot than most of the African fiction I've read so far, but it moved pretty slowly for me. Basically the story is this: Esi, a high-earning statistician in Ghana, is having marital problems and the final straw is when her husband rapes her. She leaves him, falls in love with a Muslim guy named Ali, and becomes his mistress. Eventually Ali takes Esi as his second wife, but their relationship doesn't change -- he still only visits once in awhile before going "home" to his first wife and kids.

You could classify this as feminist literature -- the three female characters in the story are all professional women who try, with varying degree of success, to juggle careers, husbands and kids in the face of their partners' indifference, envy and/or disdain. The women in this story would have a lot in common with Western women that way. Most people in the West don't imagine African women as having professional jobs like the characters in Changes do.

I think the story was okay, and I certainly could understand and empathize with the characters. The author did an omniscient narrative very well -- sometimes those are hard to pull off. The story did sort of peter in the end without much of a conclusion, but I can easily to see real life turning out just the same way. I don't think I'll be looking to read other Ama Ata Aidoo books, but for people interested in African and/or women's fiction, this would be well worth a look. ( )