Married But Available [Paperback]

Francis B. Nyamnjoh (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 9956558273 | ISBN-13: 978-9956558278 | Publication Date: August 31, 2008

Married But Available ventures into a theme about which people say as much as they withhold. It explores intersections between sex, money and power, challenging orthodoxies, revealing complexities and providing insights into the politics and economics of relationships. During six months of fieldwork in Mimboland, Lilly Loveless, a Muzungulander doctoral student in Social Geography, researches how sex shapes and is shaped by power and consumerism in Africa. The bulk of her research takes place on the outskirts of the University of Mimbo, an institution where nothing is what it seems. Through her astounding harvest of encounters, interviews, conversations and observations, the reader gets a captivating glimpse into the frailty and resilience of human beings and society. Lilly Loveless comes out of it all well and truly baptized. And so does the reader!

Product Details

• Paperback: 488 pages
• Publisher: Langaa RPCIG (August 31, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9956558273
• ISBN-13: 978-9956558278
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,711,127 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Get thee to an editor!, January 5, 2010

By 

rudiger (Hoople, ND) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Married But Available (Paperback)

Francis Nyamnjoh may be one of Africa's most distinguished scholars these days. His talents as a writer include wry wit, interest in a broad range of subjects, and above all productivity: Nyamnjoh has authored at least 10 books since the mid-1990s, and co-authored or co-edited another four that I'm aware of. These works run the gamut from fiction to social scientific research.

In "MARRIED BUT AVAILABLE" Nyamnjoh turns his sights to a very hot, very spicy topic: sexual relations and marriage in a contemporary African society, as glimpsed through the eyes of Lilly Loveless, a European doctoral student researching her dissertation on this same topic. The scene is the country of Mimboland, a very thinly disguised version of Nyamnjoh's native Cameroon. Given such promising subject material, and a host of fascinating characters with names like Wiseman Lovemore, President Longstay, and Chief Dr. Mantrouble Anyway, what could possibly be more fun?

A lot, unfortunately. While the book starts out strong, it quickly degenerates into a tiresome recitation of ethnographic vignettes from Lilly's inexhaustible local research assistant Britney. "I know this one couple," Britney says before unleashing a torrent of salacious rumors about people who never otherwise appear in the book's storyline. By my count, the text contains no less than 50 separate vignettes from Britney alone, composing the bulk of its central chapters. Reading the first half-dozen of these anecdotes, I assumed they were leading somewhere. By the time I'd read 15, I began to despair. After 30 my eyes had glazed over and I just started skipping ahead. Other minor characters provide even more such anecdotes throughout the novel. Their purpose, apart from filler material, is rather obscure.

Professor Nyamnjoh, I beg you to consider the following questions. How many case studies do you need to make your point? Come to that, what is your point? Do your characters exist merely to provide copious amounts of ethnographic data, conveyed unfiltered to the reader with very little comment or analysis? Why don't you develop your characters or your plot? Why, at the end, does Lilly simply wrap up her fieldwork and return home, barely taking time to reflect on what she's learned?

"MARRIED BUT AVAILABLE" offers about 150 pages of fascinating and enjoyable material--which is worth three stars. This material, alas, is buried under another 220 pages of second-hand gossip about people the reader never otherwise even glimpses. The author simply dumps his "data" and walks away. Toward the end he attempts to titillate the reader with Britney's memories of her lesbian affair with a fake nun, but he can't even sustain his own interest in this digression. He does manage to go out of his way to tie in some of his own publications (anthropological articles and novels), which Lilly reads approvingly. In the hands of some writers, such hybrid anthro-fictional bending of genre boundaries could be most engaging. But those aren't the hands of this author, who needs to learn the true meaning of ECONOMY. It should be about quality, not quantity.

Would someone please get this man an editor?