The New Yorker Short Story Review

"Birdsong" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
 This story can be found online at http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2010/09/20/100920fi_fiction_adichie?currentPage=1

This story is about a young lady who is dealing with the the pressures of life and those around her. It's also a story of her complete dissatisfaction with how she is treated by others. She starts happy and carefree with the way her life has turned out and ends completely dissatisfied with the consequences.

The author tells the story through a series of flashbacks that the first-person main character goes through while sitting in traffic. She is stared at by another woman in traffic, who brings up all the feelings of dissatisfaction in her life.

Through stories about her happiness with her married lover and how they bond over business and sports news and how he shows her birds in the trees at his home, she slowly sees the falsehood in what she thought was real. She sees how his driver doesn't respect her. How the waiter never addresses her. She feels powerless.

But the degree of self-worth she feels doesn't stop there. It is also reflected at work, where the woman are always expected to cut the cake, and are asked when they are going to be wed. She begins her own journey into the past to look at how real and satisfactory her life has been.

The story-telling through descriptions create imagery in the reader's mind.

"I stayed for thirteen months and eight days, mostly in his house in Victoria Island—a faded-white house, with its quiet grandeur and airy spaces, which was built during British colonial rule and sat in a compound full of fruit trees, the enclosing wall wreathed in creeping bougainvillea."

Through her description you can see the home nestled between fruit tress in a rural area of Nygeria, where the story takes place. This is just one example of the descriptive detail in the story.

Another place the author thrives is symbolism. The lady that is at the start of the story symbolizes who the main character wants to be. She wants to be riding in the back of a car, looking every part the dignified lady this woman appears to be. By thinking back over her past the main character is rationalizing her actions and yet they are filled with deep regret.

"I should have got dressed, gone back to my flat in Surulere, and deleted his number from my phone."

At the end of story she leans out her car window and yells a the stanger. The main character then feels deep satisfaction at yelling at the other woman. Asking her what she owes her. It is somewhat of a breakthrough for the character as she sees what she wants. She wants to be that woman.

The one weak aspect of the story is the lengthy flashbacks. Not necessarily the lengthy flashbacks but the way of which one aspect of the story will be lengthened in such a way that it takes something from the orginal point. For example, she tells of the first time she and her lover quarrelled and yet goes on to explain a certain contract at work and a story about "meatpies" that goes on into quite a bit of detail. Later she explains the story to her lover at which he wants her to go out and get some meatpies. On her adventure out with her lover's car driver she feels he treats her rudely. This is what they argue about. It seems the meatpie quarrell is lost when she goes into detail on the politics of the work contracts.

I feel by shortening deep descriptions that seem to lead no where the story would stay on track. Thus, keeping the reader always engaged in the story.

The overall verdict I have for the story is that is is just satisfactory. The story itself seems halted by the lengthy descriptions.  Instead of so many blatant examples of her dissatisfaction with her life, the author could look at rewriting it in order for it to flow more like a story. But there is no doubt that the writing and descriptions are very enjoyable to read.