S1E2 - S1.E2: Season of Crimson Blossoms by Abubakar Adam Ibrahim

Misty Bloom Book Club

Welcome to the Misty Bloom Book Club! Hi, it's Ada. Hope you're taking good care of yourself and doing well. We’re on episode 2 already? Can you believe it? Thanks for sticking with me. It’s just gonna get better and better. In this episode I will be reviewing Season Of Crimson Blossoms by Abubakar Adam Ibrahim. Let’s get into it!

So the reason I selected this book was because I wanted to read a book by a northern nigerian author. Perhaps you know this already, but umm, most of your best known Nigerian authors, including yours truly, are southeners. This novel, Season of Crimson Blossoms is set in northern nigeria against the backdrop of Hausa culture and Islamic conventions of behavior. So this totally fit the bill. Let’s start with a summary. Season of Crimson Blossoms follows a forbidden romance between 55 year old Binta, a respectable Muslim widow and Reza, the local weed dealing overlord who also moonlights as a political thug.

And clearly, with this taboo type relationship there’s bound to be drama, shenanigans, secrets, lies, implications and consequences for not only Binta and Reza, but also for their families, and for the wider community. So I was excited to see how this would all play out.

But before I dive into my review, let me introduce you properly to Binta and Reza to help contextualize the rest of my review. I’ll start with Binta. Like I said, Binta is a widow. She's tragically lost her husband and her first born son to socio political circumstances which are endemic to Nigeria and maybe even particularly the northern nigerian experience. The book interestingly is set sometime during the first ever attacks by the Boko Haram terrorist group and there are some references to that happening in the background.

But anyway back to Binta. She lives with her 8 year old granddaughter, Ummi, love that name, Ummi, and her 16 year old niece, Faiza whose father and brother were murdered in one of the many religious riots that plague northern nigeria. On the other hand, Reza, Binta’s lover is also a victim of a society that quite frankly and sadly sees him as disposable and has thrown him away. He is a 25 year old criminal with serious mommy issues. And I’ll talk about that a little bit later.

Ok, let’s just jump into what I thought was successful about this novel. First thing - This is an accomplished novel and does not read like a debut effort. Abubakar Adam Ibrahim is a writer who's not an amateur. He is not new to this. The author came across as fully formed, self assured, and has a clear and unhesitating perspective.

To me, the author shows off prose that is observant and thoughtful and there is a maturity to the writing. This novel contains some beautifully written prose which I will read to you to underscore what I’ve just said.

For example on page 123, the author writes, "...the two bus drivers were standing by the door, arms hanging by their sides. One was Yoruba and the other Kanuri, but Reza thought they looked alike; the same worn faces, the same sweat-stained jumpers, and the same strained eyes. Occupational siblings."

What I just read shows off the author's strong observational skills and appropriate use of metaphor which separates amateurs from professionals.

A second strength of this novel is the interrogation of Hausa and Islamic norms. For example, this novel explores a custom in which mothers are disallowed from calling their firstborn children by name or being affectionate toward them. Or even acknowledging their later born children. This is a custom that I'd never heard of and I found myself upset by it and responding viscerally to it. But it was also very intriguing. And I loved that the author interrogated this part of the culture while also handling it with tenderness. love love loved it. It gave not only a deeper insight into this dare I say questionable custom but it also has real consequences for the characters' lives.

I appreciated that the author didn’t use this custom as a device to make his novel appear cool. You know what I mean? You know how people do that? Throw in something that has a novelty appeal to compensate for being boring or other weaknessnesses in their storytelling.

In this case, the tradition served a purpose which was to explain the motivations of the characters and propel the story forward. For me, it was one of the most moving parts of the story. No pun intended haha. Guys, I really liked Reza. He is a very well drawn, sympathetic character. He makes questionable choices no doubt and does some really bad things.

But you know, it's in the nature of a rogue to also be charming and I think the author did an amazing job with infusing this character with equal parts compassion and charisma without shying away from the moral complexities that Reza presents.

In this book, the author does a great job with balancing out Reza. I mean, it's just like any other human being, we're never just one thing. Reza is the kind of character, the kind person on the fringes of society, most middle-class people who read literary fiction like season of crimson blossoms and yes, I'm calling out myself and dragging all of you who are listening to this too. Reza is the type of person we will probably never interact with in our lifetimes so shout out to Binta for defying social norms. And I think it's important to feature characters like Reza in fiction so that middle-class people are forced to humanize the types of people they would typically avoid, ignore, or even recoil from. In my opinion, fiction has a responsibility to tell the truth and the author tells this truth well.

Thirdly, I enjoyed the realism of the novel. I felt a sense of place, a strong sense of the characters, their foods, their routines and habits, desires, their pain. Their interactions all felt very authentic and genuine. The novel did not at all feel false or artificial. It all felt real, like I was transported into their town and paying witness to their lives. There was a strong sense of realism woven throughout the novel. It was very well done.

Last but not least, I also thought the author's use of pacing and suspense as literary devices was pretty sharp. I liked how the author would delay revealing the character’s motivations for withholding significant information. It set me up for a greater expectation of more to come. Which is what every writer should be aiming to do with their readers. So two thumbs up to Abubakar Adam Ibrahim for doing this so well.

So that's it in terms of the major strengths of the book. But before I dive into what I thought was a little less successful about this novel here's a quick message from my sponsor.

Welcome back! Thanks for staying with me. So let's pivot to the less successful aspects of this novel.

Cons

First, the tone of the writing felt a little too serious to me. It wasn't so bad, however, as to deter me from continuing to read. It kind of reminded me a little bit of how I felt reading Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

In Season of Crimson blossoms there’s no playfulness or lightness to the prose. No air, no space to move and play. The only glimpses of humor are to be found at the beginning of a few of the chapters. Each chapter in the book starts with a proverb. For example Chapter 10 starts with a proverb that says… the search for a black goat should start way before nightfall… which I found to be pretty amusing, clearly it doesn't take much to amuse me.

However the intrinsic nature of a proverb is not only to present wisdom but to do so sometimes in a cheeky, shady way. But the proverbs in this book as far as I could tell, are not original to the author so I can not ascribe the humor that they provide to the author.

Anyhoo, interestingly both of these writers, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim and Ta-Nehisi Coates are also journalists. So, I suspect that because of their backgrounds reporting the news and presenting factual information in a sober manner, this style of writing bleeds into their fiction leaving it feeling a little stiff.

I'll give you an example. I’ll read you a line from page 12 of the book but before I do, I’ll lay out the scene for you. In this scene, Binta attends a madrasa, which is islamic school, with women in her neighborhood.

On this particular day, their teacher has called in sick and the women decide to spend the time productively by going over previous lessons but they cannot agree on which topics to revise so they agree to disperse.

And this is how the author describes their dispersal… after a lengthy and discordant debate garnished with thinly coated sarcasm the women left in groups…

In my opinion, this was an opportunity for lightness or humor, you know like the women can’t get it together, but for whatever reason, the author just chose not to take it. so I struggled with the overall serious tone of the book.

Please understand that my desire for air or lightness is not to, you know, escape from the importance of the themes that are being discussed but as a reader I demand, mmm look at me demanding things. I demand, as a reader to experience the fuller breadth of human emotion.

I want joy, sadness, empathy, grief, levity, loss, good Humor, compassion, i want to smile, I wanna grunt at something, I wanted be pissed off. Look, I'm spending a good chunk of my time with this book and taking hours over several days to engage with the characters and have them feel like real people that I am interacting with.

and when you interact with people in real life, guess what, you experience a spectrum of emotion. So, this should be no different. This novel felt monotone.

And while we're still on the subject of humor, there is a book Binta owns that's mentioned pretty frequently throughout the course of season of crimson blossoms. The book is titled The Major Sins and is written by Az Zahabi.

I know a book within a book. pretty meta huh? Anyhow the major sins by az zahabi features pretty frequently throughout the narrative of the story. However, it never becomes of significance to the plot and i was confused and slightly irritated by it.

So after I was done reading this novel I went and looked up the major sins. and then I got it. it's kind of supposed to be this ironic, inside joke type thing. However, I think, and this is my personal preference, the most successful jokes while they should be intelligent and engage with the audience's intellect, it should also be immediate.

I don't think the audience should have to go home to uncover research in order to get the joke. You feel me?

Second, I mentioned the character, Faiza, earlier. She is Binta’s rebellious, teenaged niece. Her characterization starts out strong. I appreciated Faiza’s refusal to be tamed especially when juxtaposed against the repressive community in which they live.

I know, I know this is not particularly novel, pun intended this time. We’ve all seen that characterization of the modern teenager rebelling against old customs a thousand times before. However, I promise you in the hands of this author it still comes off as fresh and truthful and not all hackneyed.

On the flip side of this, however, is that I thought the author didn't quite achieve the evolution of Faiza. If you recall earlier I mentioned that Faiza lives with Binta because her father and her brother were murdered in a religious riot. Quick sidebar. I hate the term religious riot.. But here I am using it. It’s such an easy throwaway term that's also inaccurate because religious riots are never really about religion but a perversion of power and corrupt political machinations.

But back to Faiza. Midway through the book, she starts to deal with the trauma of that tragedy. While I do think it was good of the author to address mental health and question the norms surrounding it, I did not think the author did justice to the scope of Faiza’s issues.

And I feel strongly about this because I also tackle mental health issues in my novel, OYIBO. In Season of Crimson Blossoms, Faiza transforms seemingly overnight from this mouthy rebellious teenager into a subdued, moody person. There was no gradual transition.

And the author also abruptly resolved her trauma. He didn't handle it with the finesse I would have liked to see. It felt choppy.

I do understand that the novel is ultimately Binta and Reza's story and the author was perhaps being careful not to let Faiza's story overshadow the main characters but I also thought he could have done a little bit more with Faiza. I thought there was a little more wiggle room in the story for Faiza. She deserved better.

Third, I also spied a few paragraphs that i feel should have been left on The Cutting Room floor. I think the book could have done with a tiny bit more you know tighter editing. I also caught a few words that were overused throughout the prose. Itinerant was one. Exotic was another.

For example, on page 151, the author writes,"... Musa, the teaman came in with an exotic tea set." did you catch that repetition? did you see how the author unnecessarily used tea twice in the same sentence within the space of 11 words?

he could have just simply written Musa wheeled in a tea service and that would have sufficed. You know, it's the little things that bug me and make my skin itch.

The rest of the sentence reads, "Reza admired the dainty porcelain cup with intricate powder blue floral designs and a teapot in the center which was giving off a steady stream of steam through the spout."

did we need the additional words that tell us that steam comes out of the spout? The base? Could we have lived without it? . The editor could have totally cut out those words because any person with a basic understanding of kettles or tea pots knows that steam comes out of the spout. where else would it come out of? the handle?

Or on page 230 where the author mentions Binta feeling a deep sense of foreboding." Can you guess what my gripe here is? I mean to the average reader it’s no big deal. The sentence works just fine.

And I get it but as a writer, my eyeballs latched on to deep sense foreboding and would not let go. A sense of foreboding is a sense of foreboding. foreboding suggests that things are about to go left, something bad is about to happen. Foreboding is ominous. There is no such thing as a deep sense of foreboding. Just as there's no light sense of foreboding. There's no minor or easy sense of foreboding. There's no gentle sense of foreboding. And now the word foreboding is stuck in your head cos now I'm ranting uselessly about foreboding.

But seriously though, look, I've become a pretty merciless editor of my own writing. And I think if any of you listening are aspiring novelists, those are just simply examples of how you can be a more effective editor of your own writing. You know, take a step back, take more steps back, infact take 50 kilometers back and always ask yourself is this word relevant to the story? Does this move the story forward?

Every single word must be loaded, must be weight-bearing, must serve a narrative purpose, must work, work, work, work, work to earn their space on the page. Every single word must be used judiciously to move the story, must help the characters do something, introduce new information that's relevant to the story. Words need to earn their place. So moving on.

Another major gripe that I had with this book was the unfortunate ageism, the reference to Binta as an aged woman. There was a part early on in the book where the author describes her as tagging along with a number of aged women.

I just assumed that she was walking with older women. But as I kept reading, I realized Binta was also part of this aged woman clique. On page 12, the author writes… “it almost made her heart devastated already by the ravages of age and the many tragedies she had endured in life, burst..”.

And on page 13 Binta is pleading for her life, and she cries out, “Please I'm old”. At the beginning of chapter 6, the author refers to Binta’s hair as "a clump of ancient hair". Here we go again and again with the age thing.

Honestly, if the author had not revealed Binta’s age as 55, I would have assumed she was in her 90s or something. And this is not exclusive to Binta which makes it even worse.

On page 90, in a scene where two women visit Binta in her home, the author describes these visitors and I read...Kandiya in her dampened Hijab and Mallama Umma with her shriveled face and sunken eyes had witnessed 60 rains and 61 harmattans. I found the obsession with women only in their 50s and 60s being described as aged, ancient, and shriveled, as honestly super weird, gross, and disturbing.

And guys, can you guess what the absolute worst part of this is? None of the older men in this book are being degraded or defined by their age. On page 281 for example, an old Senator is described as a "little man with boyish eyes." seriously?!

The author also allows one of Binta's suitors, an old man to proclaim his virility. At that point, I was just like, I cant! Anyhoo moving on

I was unable to differentiate among the residents of San Siro where Reza lived with his gang.

I know it's a difficult thing for any writer to successfully individualize members of a collective especially when they are always appearing together in the same scenes.

And I recognize the author's admirable attempts to differentiate between them but I think the problem here was that in the initial descriptions of the residents of San Siro, the author would simply describe the person and not have that person be involved in some immediate plot advancing action which would have helped the character stick in the reader’s mind. So there’s another writing tip. I’m dropping all these gems.

Anyway, overall I didn’t find this aspect of the book to be successful.

Also Season of Crimson Blossoms did not necessarily grab onto my emotions. While I was curious to see how things would turn out, where the characters would end up, I didn’t feel emotionally invested in their journeys. The final shortcoming of this book for me is that both binta and Reza end up in their situationship because they are both searching for someone else in each other.

so you know that common psychological thing where people will say women end up marrying a man like their father or a son will marry a woman that reminds him of his mom, or a man remarries a woman that looks exactly like his ex wife.

Basically to explain where someone would subconsciously fill a void in their life with a person with very specific traits. In this book, Binta and Reza, are doing the same thing which is not unusual, and is a pretty common thing that happens in the lives of many people.

However what makes it uncomfortable here is that both characters are doing it literally, not subconsciously. Binta and Reza are both hyper aware that they are attracted to each other because of significant people in their lives that they’ve lost.

This made me really uncomfortable and not in a good way. I do like when art that I’m consuming causes discomfort whether it’s television, film, reading fiction or whatever. I like to be made uncomfortable because it helps me confront issues and challenges what I think I know of the world.

But in the case of this book, it made me really really uncomfortable in like a gross, unpleasant way. I want to be provoked into thinking differently not into wanting to throw up.

I also thought it was lazy of the author to have this direct psychological manifestation. I thought it would have been more successful if the writer had manipulated the reader into knowing that this is what Binta and Reza were doing without them realizing it and then the reader could observe the characters come to that realization.

So that's it for what I thought was less successful about Season of Crimson Blossoms. Next up, I'll guess what the author is like personality wise and wrap up with some final thoughts. But before I do here's a quick message from my sponsor. Don't go anywhere.

Welcome back to the Misty Bloom Book Club. Thanks for staying with me.

So in terms of personality I felt like Abubakar Adam Ibrahim came across as studious. The type of person that when he was a kid was an excellent student and diligent in school.

Abubakar Adam Ibrahim also came across to me as a cautious sort, the kinda person who takes his time with warming up to strangers. But among close friends he puts his guard down, and is very relaxed maybe with a little bit of a wry sense of humor. Well if you know Abubakar Adam Ibrahim let me know if I pegged him correctly or if I'm completely off.

I’ll end with some final thoughts. The first is and this is a commonality that I noticed between Season of Crimson Blossoms and another book, Born On A Tuesday by El Nathan John which I read maybe 2 years ago.

Both books were published around the same time and in both books there is a focus on northern nigerian characters who are lost boys, street kids who sell weed, hire themselves out as political thugs, you get the gist.

So even though this might be indicative of and endemic to the socio economic and political environment of Northern Nigeria and even other parts of Nigeria, I don't want to see these characters take center stage in every single novel that's written by a contemporary Northern Nigerian writer.

Final Thought 2: I'm a gigantic fan of people chasing happiness because life is tough. And finding happiness is even more weighted and intense in a repressed society so that it then becomes this act of courage.

So I personally can't help but cheer on the people who seek happiness even if I disagree with their methods or values, I'm still ultimately that person who will be like do you, boo.

So if you like stories about ordinary people trying to find simple happiness where and when they can, check out season of crimson blossoms.

Oh one more, absolute final thought, if you do read Season Of Crimson Blossoms let me know what happened to Reza's money?

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