Nervous Conditions

This novel has a fantastic opening that immediately captured my interest:
“I was not sorry when my brother died. Nor am I apologising for my callousness, as you may define it, my lack of feeling…I shall not apologise but begin by recalling the facts as I remember them that led up to my brother’s death, the events that put me in a position to write this account. For though the event of my brother’s passing and the events of my story cannot be separated, my story is not after all about death, but about my escape.”

Set in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) in the 1960s-1970s, protagonist Tambu looks back on her life. As a teen, she yearned for education, but “the needs and sensibilities of the women in my family were not considered a show more priority, or even legitimate.” Through a confluence of circumstances, she gets the chance to attend a Protestant mission school. She is beholden to Babamukuru, her uncle and the head of the school. She wants to stand up for herself but finds it difficult. Her friend, Nyasha, daughter of Babamukuru, who has studied in England, has much less trouble rebelling against traditions.

“You had to admit that Nyasha had no tact. You had to admit she was altogether too volatile and strong-willed. You couldn’t ignore the fact that she had no respect for Babamukuru when she ought to have had lots of it. But what I didn’t like was the way all the conflicts came back to this question of femaleness. Femaleness as opposed and inferior to maleness.”

This story examines post-colonialism, race, class, gender, education, traditions, and the patriarchal society. It is a lot to pack into a 250-page novel, but these factors are all integrated beautifully into the storyline. The ending sets up the next book in this trilogy. show less

Back in the 1960s, when Zimbabwe was still called Rhodesia, a girl dreamed of a better life than ceaseless manual labor she sees her mother doing. She gets a few years in school, thanks to her uncle, a man with a degree who studied in the UK and who now supports an extended family. Her older brother is the one who gets to continue with school, until a tragedy gives her an opportunity she is determined to make work for her.

This is the first book in a trilogy by Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga and I'll certainly be continuing my journey with Tambu as she fights for the opportunities an education might bring her. This was a well-crafted book that did not feel like a debut. Dangarembga plays off of the difference between Tambu and her show more cousin, a girl her age who went with her family to England and grew up there, only to be brought back as a teenager and expected to fit back into a deeply patriarchal and hierarchical society, which she finds impossible to do. The novel gives a glimpse of what life was like then for an ordinary Rhodesian, the enormous gap between the Black population and the colonists, and the enormous resiliency and tenacity of one girl. show less

I was not sorry when my brother died. Nor am I apologising for my callousness, as you may define it, my lack of feeling.

Thus begins this coming of age novel of Tambu, a young Zimbabwean girl straddling the divides between men and women, white and black, uneducated and educated, rural and urban, European and African. From the first sentences, Tambu is presented as a strong person relating her story to an other that may not understand her. She makes no excuses and, although she is sharing her experiences, she does not feel a need to justify herself or her decisions. Her voice is quite unique.

Even as children, Tambu's older brother had assumed the role of a traditional, conservative male, feeling an innate superiority to his female show more siblings. This arrogance was reinforced when their Western-educated uncle chooses him to be educated at the missionary school where he is the headmaster. Tambu chafes at her brother's good fortune, for she is equally intelligent and ambitious. It is only after her brother dies, that her uncle takes her in to be educated.

Life in her uncle's house is revelatory. Indoor plumbing, kitchen appliances, and other accoutrements of a wealthy, Western-influenced home impress Tambu. She doesn't at first understand that her well-educated aunt is as entrapped by her womanhood as her poverty-stricken mother, or the reasons for her cousin Nyasha's rebellion. Slowly Tambu must grapple with the grey choices of escape from poverty by assimilating or remaining true to her village roots at the cost of her ambitions.

[Nervous Conditions] is the first in a trilogy of novels about Tambu. Although this first novel deals with issues of feminism and colonialism, it comes to no conclusions. In fact, that is part of what Tambu learns in this book: that the world is not clear-cut and that ambiguity clouds our choices. Although not as strongly written as [A Girl is a Body of Water] or [Woman at Point Zero], I enjoyed being immersed in Tambu's world and will look for the next book in the trilogy. show less

This novel has a fantastic opening that immediately captured my interest:
“I was not sorry when my brother died. Nor am I apologising for my callousness, as you may define it, my lack of feeling…I shall not apologise but begin by recalling the facts as I remember them that led up to my brother’s death, the events that put me in a position to write this account. For though the event of my brother’s passing and the events of my story cannot be separated, my story is not after all about death, but about my escape.”

Set in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) in the 1960s-1970s, protagonist Tambu looks back on her life. As a teen, she yearned for education, but “the needs and sensibilities of the women in my family were not considered a show more priority, or even legitimate.” Through a confluence of circumstances, she gets the chance to attend a Protestant mission school. She is beholden to Babamukuru, her uncle and the head of the school. She wants to stand up for herself but finds it difficult. Her friend, Nyasha, daughter of Babamukuru, who has studied in England, has much less trouble rebelling against traditions.

“You had to admit that Nyasha had no tact. You had to admit she was altogether too volatile and strong-willed. You couldn’t ignore the fact that she had no respect for Babamukuru when she ought to have had lots of it. But what I didn’t like was the way all the conflicts came back to this question of femaleness. Femaleness as opposed and inferior to maleness.”

This story examines post-colonialism, race, class, gender, education, traditions, and the patriarchal society. It is a lot to pack into a 250-page novel, but these factors are all integrated beautifully into the storyline. The ending sets up the next book in this trilogy. show less

The tensions arising between traditional ways of life and opportunities that European interventions offer to native Africans willing to accept them reside at the heart of Tsitsi Dangarembga’s incisive and poignant novel, Nervous Conditions. In 1960s Rhodesia (soon to become independent Zimbabwe), Tambudzai (Tambu) Sigauke lives with her parents and siblings on the family homestead, in a rural village 20 miles from the town of Umtali. The homestead is squalid and life is hard, facts she can accept because it is all she knows. But Tambu is smart. Limited time at the local school has demonstrated that she possesses a quick and searching intelligence. She yearns to expand her horizons. What’s holding her back (other than her family’s show more poverty) is her gender. As a girl, her route through life is set in stone: inevitably she’ll become someone’s wife and have children. But opportunity for a different kind of life does exist: her brother Nhamo is attending the residential mission school in Umtali, where his fees are being covered by their well-off British-educated uncle Babamukuru. The family expects that once Nhamo’s education is complete, he will find gainful employment and provide them with economic security. Back on the homestead Tambu is consumed with envy. Taken out of school to help on the farm because of Nhamo’s absence, she has no choice but to accept her fate. But when Nhamo dies suddenly, the tragedy forces a decision on the grieving Sigauke family, and despite her mother’s objections Tambu takes her brother’s place at the mission school. Tambu, who cannot afford to be sentimental, can hardly believe her luck. Over the next two years, in an atmosphere where the pursuit of excellence is encouraged, she rises to the top of her class, exceeding her own and her uncle’s expectations. But Tambu discovers that success in the English-speaking white man’s world does not come without a cost. As her academic triumphs push her further and further from her family, her language, and the world she came from, she’s left feeling that she’s betrayed everyone and wondering what she’s gotten herself into. Dangarembga’s semi-autobiographical fiction, first published in 1988, has been followed by two sequels, The Book of Not (2006), and This Mournable Body (shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2020) which bring Tambu’s story into the present day. Tambu Sigauke, an exceptionally self-aware protagonist, knows her own mind and is unapologetic when it comes to pursuing her hopes and dreams. But by the novel’s end she is deeply conflicted, immersed in a goal-oriented European lifestyle, culturally unmoored, ashamed of her humble origins and suffering guilt because of this shame. Despite her successes she is blindsided when the realization hits her that, as a black African living in the white man’s world, she has no idea where she belongs. Written with candour and wrenching honesty, Nervous Conditions provides a powerful commentary on colonialism’s painful legacy from an insider’s perspective and leaves an indelible impression on the reader. show less

This was a wonderful find. [[Dangarembga]] is an author on the current Booker longlist and her book, [The Mournable Body] caught my eye. On further research I found it's the third in a series of novels focusing on a 13 year old girl, Tambu, growing up in 1960s Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe). So I started at the beginning with [Nervous Conditions].

Tambu is growing up in poverty, but in an obviously beautiful setting, loving the river by her homestead. Her father can't afford to send her to the local school (her brother gets to go instead), and she begins to realize before she's even a teenager that her life as a girl will be different than a boy's. Tambu decides to earn her own money to pay her way at school. Then her brother dies show more while he's away at school at a nearby mission. Tambu's educated and relatively wealthy Uncle, who is headmaster at a mission school, takes Tambu in and she gets the opportunity to go to school.

There are many themes explored in this book, but I'd say the focus is Tambu's path as a woman and her relationships with other women - her mother who is living a traditional and stifling role as an African mother, her aunt who has a Masters from her time in England but in Africa is no more than her husband's wife and caregiver, and her cousin Nyasha who was raised in England and is now deeply confused about who she is. Through these relationships we see different but similar challenges that women face in Africa, but also see that many are similar to sexism in other cultures as well.

Dangarembga's writing is excellent. The novel has an autobiographical feel and tons of detail about life in Rhodesia. There are local foods, customs, naming systems, and descriptions of the land that are not described for American readers, but you can figure out from context or a quick google search. I liked that it wasn't dumbed down or written specifically for non-African readers. It was different to reading someone like, say, [[Adichie]] (though I love her writing as well!). I saw in a bio of Dangarembga that she was the first Black woman in Zimbabwe to publish a novel in English.

I highly recommend this book. I've already bought the second book, [The Book of Not], and will read [This Mournable Body] as well.

Original publication date: 1989
Author’s nationality: Zimbabwean
Original language: English
Length: 224 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased kindle edition
Why I read this: from the booker list, 1001 books show less

This was heartbreaking. On the surface, it's a coming-of-age story of a young girl in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), with looks into poverty and gender. Underneath, it's an examination of cultural imperialism. It's beautifully written and compelling. The sequels don't seem to garner the same love, so I'm tempted to leave it here and keep the feeling of happiness that I read it, even though we wonder where it will go for Tambudzai and Nyasha.