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Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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Notes on Grief (edition 2021)

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Author)

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4371956,752 (4.15)53
I received this book in a Goodreads Giveaway. As always, this did not affect my review.

This is a gorgeous essay. In 80 short pages Adiche tells us about ugly grief. She provides a chronicle of the body blow of trying to say goodbye to a beloved person and of doing so from thousands of miles away during Covid lockdowns/travel bans. Most importantly she tells us about how to parent and how to live through her brief memories of her luminous father, a man of pure decency and intellect, worthy of honor, down to his smallest molecules. This is a tall order for any author given any number of pages, but Adiche, the most adroit of writers, does so in the number of words it takes most writers to describe a mundane dinner party. Her observations are razor sharp. She said this about her father:

In my later teenage years, I began to see him, to see how alike we were in our curiosity and our homebody-ness, and to talk to him, and to adore him. How exquisitely he paid attention, how present he was, how well he listened. If you told him something he remembered. His humour, already dry, crisped deliciously as he aged

Isn't that amazing, evocative, beautiful? In a few brief sentences, we see the father he was, we envy her for having had him, and we understand how world changing his loss must have been. Also, as someone who just loves great writing, "crisped deliciously" rocked my world.

I said that receiving this book free had no impact on my review, and I am pretty sure that is true, that even if I had paid the $16 list price I would have felt just as grateful to have had the chance to immerse myself in this book. That said, it is notable that this is a tiny book. The 80 pages are physically small, perhaps 7x5, the line spacing is substantial, the font generous and the margins large -- I would estimate this is perhaps 30 normal pages long. I am not a super fast reader, perhaps on the upper end of typical, and I read it in 4 subway rides, which is less than 2 hours. $16 is a lot for that. Still, it was a really good 2 hours. ( )
  Narshkite | Oct 23, 2021 |
English (14)  Dutch (2)  Spanish (2)  Catalan (1)  All languages (19)
Showing 14 of 14
This sweet short memoir contains Adichie's reflections after the sudden death of her father in June of 2020. My father died 13 months later, also during COVID shut-downs, and that's when friends, Dom and Nancy, gave me this lovely book. One of Adichie's descriptors really describes my father as well: "A gentle man and a gentleman." ( )
  booksinbed | Feb 3, 2024 |
I’d been both looking forward to and dreading reading this one for years. I waited until it was the 25th anniversary of my mom‘s death. Adichie writes such beautiful and intimate descriptions of grief. Her words echoed my own feelings back to me.

“Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language”

“How is it that the world keeps going, breathing in and out unchanged, while in my soul there is a permanent scattering?”

“I finally understand why people get tattoos of those they have lost. The need to proclaim not merely the loss but the love, the continuity. I am my father’s daughter. It is an act of resistance and refusal: grief telling you it is over and your heart saying it is not; grief trying to shrink your love to the past and your heart saying it is present.”

“A friend sends me a line from my novel: 'Grief was the celebration of love, those who could feel real grief were lucky to have loved.' How odd to find it so exquisitely painful to read my own words.”

“Another revelation: how much laughter is a part of grief. Laughter is tightly braided into our family argot, and now we laugh remembering my father, but somewhere in the background there is a haze of disbelief. The laughter trails off. The laughter becomes tears and becomes sadness and becomes rage. I am unprepared for my wretched, roaring rage. In the face of this inferno that is sorrow, I am callow and unformed.”

“Does love bring, even if unconsciously, the delusional arrogance of expecting never to be touched by grief?”

“I back away from condolences. People are kind, people mean well, but knowing this does not make their words rankle less.”

“Grief is not gauzy; it is substantial, oppressive, a thing opaque. The weight is heaviest in the mornings, post-sleep: a leaden heart, a stubborn reality that refuses to budge. I will never see my father again. Never again. It feels as if I wake up only to sink and sink. In those moments, I am sure that I do not ever want to face the world again.”

“We don't know how we will grieve until we grieve.”

“I wish.. I wish.. the guilt gnaws at my soul. I think of all the things that could've happened, and all the ways the world could've been reshaped to prevent what happened on that day...” ( )
  bookworm12 | Jul 13, 2023 |
The book itself is well-written. Having experienced loss myself, I related to much of the emotions expressed throughout the book.

However, my personal opinion is that this should not have been published as a paid book. It is around 11 USD on Amazon, and for it being so short and such a personal recollection of thoughts and emotions regarding such an intimate moment, I feel like it somehow takes away from the authenticity of death and grief by making the book purchasable.

That being said, I think I would've been able to give this a full 5 stars had it been available for anyone online without the requirement of payment.

Just to clarify, I do not have a problem with paying for books — I am 100% a believer of paying the authors for their hard work. I just think there are instances where you charge, and instances you don't. But again, this is all my personal opinion.

Everyone can have different opinions, and the writing itself was lovely. This is my second book by Adichie and I am a fan of the writing style. ( )
  aubriebythepage | Jul 7, 2023 |
i picked it up randomly and couldnt stop reading. the writting was so beautiful and there was so many passages I highlighted and related to. i dont wanna rate it bc its a very personal book so it feels weird but i loved it and it made me tear up a couple times
  chardenlover | Jun 10, 2023 |
The death of a loved one is a universal experience, even if the manifestation of grief is unique for each person. I do not judge Adichie for being crippled by grief at the sudden loss of her beloved father; I do judge the book she decided to publish, and I do not have a high opinion of it.

On the page, Adichie's grief is so all-consuming that it leaves no room for others' grief. Indeed, she resents and dismisses the expressions of mourning from those around her. Her words alienated me rather than sparking empathy; there is no room for the reader in her pain.

On a side note, the only other book I've read of Adichie's is We Should All Be Feminists, so I was greatly surprised when in Notes on Grief she patronizingly tells her mother she should not engage in certain traditional mourning rituals without bothering to ask her mother if she wishes to observe them. Surely telling women what they should do based on your preconceived notions is the antithesis of feminism?

I would have given the book a lower rating if Adichie had not included memories of her father: it sounds like he was a truly amazing man, and I can understand how his death would leave a gaping wound in those who love him. ( )
  amanda4242 | Feb 27, 2023 |
If there is one thing I’ve learned in the five weeks since I lost my beloved cat of 19 years, it is that grief is a unique experience for each person. And yet, my darling girl also died suddenly from a complication of kidney disease (also with a specialist appointment scheduled for shortly after), so I cannot help but draw comparisons between my story and Adichie’s.

I can’t count the number of times I laughed aloud - in shock and horror - at how EXACTLY Adichie’s thoughts match my own journal entries. It’s incredible, terrible, striking - how well her thoughts and feelings mirror my thoughts and feelings. I know her grief well, I am living in it now.

Notes on Grief is highly recommended to anyone who has lost a loved one suddenly, especially when that loved one was living with what was thought to be a well-managed condition. You won’t find useful advice for healing here (it’s not that type of memoir) but it will show you quite clearly that no matter what you are feeling, you are not alone. ( )
  dinahmine | Jan 5, 2023 |
Sad, sweet, beautifully written essay by an adult daughter who lost her beloved elderly father. ( )
  steve02476 | Jan 3, 2023 |
Another short but poignant vignette from Chimamanda Ngosi Adichie. Written as a way to come to terms with the passing of her father during the pandemic which made grieving more difficult for everyone. I feel like this shows how grief is really one of those things - like motherhood - that is only understood when it happens to you. It struck me that she kept saying how "unexpected" his death was and, at 88 with kidney disease, one could argue that it isn't unexpected at all but it strikes to the heart of how unfathomable it is to just have someone who is part of your life not be there ever again. And how that feeling is sudden and forever. She definitely adored her father and writes about him with immense love and admiration. This isn't something that she will get over but a new way to exist with the world from this point forward. ( )
  JediBookLover | Oct 29, 2022 |
A beautiful reflection of her grief, Adichie shares memories of her 88-yr-old father. It's a story of her going through the early stages of grief during the COVID pandemic. Honest and beautiful. ( )
  Beth.Clarke | Dec 30, 2021 |
I received this book in a Goodreads Giveaway. As always, this did not affect my review.

This is a gorgeous essay. In 80 short pages Adiche tells us about ugly grief. She provides a chronicle of the body blow of trying to say goodbye to a beloved person and of doing so from thousands of miles away during Covid lockdowns/travel bans. Most importantly she tells us about how to parent and how to live through her brief memories of her luminous father, a man of pure decency and intellect, worthy of honor, down to his smallest molecules. This is a tall order for any author given any number of pages, but Adiche, the most adroit of writers, does so in the number of words it takes most writers to describe a mundane dinner party. Her observations are razor sharp. She said this about her father:

In my later teenage years, I began to see him, to see how alike we were in our curiosity and our homebody-ness, and to talk to him, and to adore him. How exquisitely he paid attention, how present he was, how well he listened. If you told him something he remembered. His humour, already dry, crisped deliciously as he aged

Isn't that amazing, evocative, beautiful? In a few brief sentences, we see the father he was, we envy her for having had him, and we understand how world changing his loss must have been. Also, as someone who just loves great writing, "crisped deliciously" rocked my world.

I said that receiving this book free had no impact on my review, and I am pretty sure that is true, that even if I had paid the $16 list price I would have felt just as grateful to have had the chance to immerse myself in this book. That said, it is notable that this is a tiny book. The 80 pages are physically small, perhaps 7x5, the line spacing is substantial, the font generous and the margins large -- I would estimate this is perhaps 30 normal pages long. I am not a super fast reader, perhaps on the upper end of typical, and I read it in 4 subway rides, which is less than 2 hours. $16 is a lot for that. Still, it was a really good 2 hours. ( )
  Narshkite | Oct 23, 2021 |
Anecdotario sobre un duelo. Breve pero intensa lectura.
  franhuer | Oct 14, 2021 |
This was very raw and gut wretching. So many truths and unspoken things that people just don't talk about. My hold my grief as a scar of honor....this book told truths not simply notes. ( )
  MorbidLibrarian | Sep 18, 2021 |
Have you ever grieved the loss of a loved one? Are you grieving now? Do you know someone who is grieving? The marvelous writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, generously shares her very personal experience of grieving her own father. If you are fortunate enough to listen to the author's audio narration, it is a bonus to listen to her rich articulation of her own words. So much of what she says resonates with my own experience of grief. The waves of sadness, the anger, the feeling that no one says the right thing, because there is no right thing to say. I particularly was touched by her thought that grief "opens the door to doubt". Indeed, the unthinkable can come to pass. Comforting, enlightening, and universal! Wonderful essay! ( )
  hemlokgang | Jul 4, 2021 |
On June 10, 2020 James Nwoye Adichie, the father of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, died in the family’s ancestral village of Abba in Nigeria at the age of 88 from complications of chronic kidney disease. Chimamanda was living in the United States at the time, and due to the COVID-19 pandemic she and five of her six siblings were only able to see their parents on weekly Zoom calls set up by the one brother who lived nearby and was able to visit them in person. She had seen and spoken to him the day before, and other than seeming to be tired she was not alarmed or concerned by his appearance, and when she received a call from her brother the following day to inform her of her beloved father’s death her world fell apart:

”My four-year-old daughter says I scared her. She gets down on her knees to demonstrate, her small clenched fist rising and falling, and her mimicry makes me see myself as I was: utterly unraveling, screaming and pounding the floor.”

In the wake of her father’s death Chimamanda is irrational and inconsolable, as she is unable to accept this loss and becomes deeply angered by visitors who come to pay their respects, she derives no comfort from friends and well wishers, and she even finds one of her own written statements about grief in one of her books to be a painful remembrance. Her inability to be at her father’s bedside due to travel restrictions caused by the pandemic only add to the surreal nature of her father’s death, as he appeared to be peacefully sleeping when she saw him shortly after he died.

In an effort to grasp this staggering loss Chimamanda writes about her father, who was the second person and the first Nigerian to earn a PhD in statistics from the University of California, Berkeley, a highly respected professor and administrator at the University of Nigeria, but most importantly a humble man who was dedicated to his family and was Chimamanda’s greatest supporter and closest friend.

'Notes on Grief' is a powerful view into an anguished soul from an immensely talented writer, who unforgettably captures the grief of unexpected death and personal loss, which is amplified by our difficulty or inability to spend the final days of our loved ones during the COVID-19 pandemic, making their deaths more difficult to accept and more painful to experience. Tragically, as this book was being published in March her mother, Grace Ifeoma, a beloved administrator at the University of Nigeria who was the school’s first female Registrar, died suddenly in Abba. “How does a heart break twice?” asked Chimamanda after learning this news. Unfortunately that question has been on the lips and in the minds of many thousands of other people across the world who have lost multiple family members and beloved friends during this modern day plague. ( )
4 vote kidzdoc | Jun 8, 2021 |
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