Thursday, July 19, 2018

Review: Happiness, by Aminatta Forna

Happiness is not a story so much as following the daily activities of a pair of intelligent characters as they visit London for their work. This is a work that challenges common conceptions of such things as animal predators in urban areas, the effects of trauma and stress, and what it means to be happy. Of course, plot happens, as when the two characters have a meet cute and begin to fall in love, and as their respective jobs pull them into conflict of some sort or other. This is a slow, absorbing read, one that changed my perspective in some ways, and also taught me a lot (the animal stuff is fascinating).

The first character we meet is Attila, a doctor from Ghana who specializes in post traumatic stress disorder. He is in London to give a talk on the occurrence of PTSD in the civilian population, but he also has other history in the city with a former love named Rose who is suffering early onset Alzheimer's. On top of that, Attila's niece has been evicted from her house, falsely accused of being an illegal immigrant, and her son has escaped foster care. As you can tell, Aminatta Forna fills her book with adult characters who have a lot of problems to juggle (Attila most of all), just like most of the rest of us. Attila approaches these issues with the composure of a detached doctor ready to tackle any stress with seeming nonchalance and authority.

Jean is an American visiting London to study the urban fox population, which has been increasing. Jean's purpose is to learn about the foxes, not resolve any issues. She has less of a network in London than Attila, as her ex-husband and her son are elsewhere. Thus it's not much of a surprise that she rather quickly grows fond of the large man she runs into (literally, during her morning jog).

This book, though, is not a romance. It has romance, yes - romance of the adult variety. Jean and Attila think about each other, yes, and Jean has the occasional insecurity as is normal, but the two do not obsess over each other. Forna allows the two characters to behave like mature, middle-aged, fully-fleshed out adults, like real people who have thoughts and interests outside of romance.

That this is not a romance is also evident from the opening chapter, which takes place in 1834. We follow a wolfer who happens to trap and kill the last of the wolves in the New England area. The importance of this chapter isn't known until much later. From a sequence in Jean's past we learn that the death of the wolf allowed the coyote to take its place - a smaller predator than the wolf, but one more suited to urban living and much more difficult to get rid of. Through these scenes with Jean, we realize that human happiness and mother nature are interlinked. The wolfer tracked down and killed the wolves because he was hired to do so by some farmers who were made unhappy by the wolves hunting livestock. Yet again with the coyote, and in London the fox, people complain and want them removed, as if their very presence prevents them from being happy.

Honestly, this was a difficult review to write. The novel is titled Happiness, but without that title, happiness as a theme would not be apparent. There are multiple subjects that seem unrelated - animals, nature, post traumatic stress, illness, immigration, race - but the thread, I suppose, is happiness. Many of these factors are used as a crutch to prevent people from being happy. At one point, Jean notes that people seem to think happiness means having the innocent naivete of an infant - and we also see another angle on this in the form of Rose, who seems blissful in her lack of awareness. I think what Forna is trying to show is that people must accept that happiness is not absolute, and that suffering does not mean there is no happiness. We must allow suffering to strengthen us, not hold us back. But this also might be an oversimplification. This is such a rich, complex novel, with so many ideas flowing through it and so much to teach. I'm glad I read it.

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