Book Title: Half Open Lid
Name of Author: Uzoamaka J. Eze
Genre: Fiction, Novel (Prose)
No. of Pages: 159
Publication: Purple Shelves
Year of publication: 2023
ISBN: 978-978-993-047-0
Reviewer: Salamatu Sule

The epigraph from Robert Frost’s 1915 poem, “The Road Not Taken,” provides the reader with the plot background and the primary thematic preoccupation of the novel Half Open Lid. Unlike Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, where W.B. Yeats’s The Second Coming offers an epigraph about European penetration in Umuofia and the entire African continent, injecting alien cultures as it rapes the continent of its fortune, Frost’s poem ushers in Uzoamaka’s plot, highlighting how these cultures not only raped but indeed changed the social composition of society and its people forever. Like the road not taken, there are huge consequences.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler. Long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth:
(Stanza, 1, Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken)
The novel Half Open Lid is set in modern-day Ameze; a township that upholds its cultural and historical values and heritage until it falls into the seductive embrace of modernity. Sociologically, people who come together to form a community that grows into society have socio-cultural, political and laws that guide them to provide morality, ethical decorum and modesty. It is therefore laughable to say such a society was uncultured and savagery. This is the premise for which Uzoamaka set out with this novel.
When Akwaugo walked past Ekwenugo, he knew he had seen something that was not of the way of the people. Her speed is like an inferno ravaging the town if not quenched with water immediately. Akwaugo represents all that Ameze people frown at. She is the very bile that destroys nearly the fabrics of their culture.
While industries and education sprout, institutions like churches and schools are injected into the minds of the new generation of youth in Ameze to abandon their tradition. Akwaugo brings in a marriage system that is traditionally alien and woos many into her cult while her parents support her lifestyle, the consequences of that action await them. Just before they realise the looming danger, she is at a point where she can no longer return.
The author deploys the chameleon strategy for her characters to portray the social behaviours of the effect of colonialism on the human personalities as represented by the characters in this novel.
“Ameze Town had been in contact with foreigners since the days of old. Strategically, located in a central position from where other towns could be accessed easily”. (HOL, Pg; 3)
“The outsiders came with their strange ways and little regard for tradition and custom. The older generation of Ameze indigenes were dismayed with the indecent clothes the newcomer women wore and the scandalous manner they allowed their men to do unmentionable things with them in public, like wild beast which had no homes”.-pg. 3
Uzoamaka says in this novel that while we leave our children to take the wrong route in the wake that the world has evolved, we may set them to taking the wrong path. Nwamkpa is an idealist, he sees his daughter as enlightened and knowledgeable. He doesn’t see anything wrong with her dress sense, he doesn’t guide her to observe modesty to which he pays dearly for his actions.
The author does not condemn all aspects of modernization but welcomes that which is not repugnant to the society of Ameze and the culture that they have lived and practised for centuries.
It is important to note that there will always be fragments of colonial relics in Africa as played out in this novel. The heavy investment in industrialization brought by the colonial culture and the withering of the traditional custom of Ameze. The colonial policy of association in Africa can be likened to the adoption of the chameleon strategy.
This is because so as not to be greeted with total resistance, they empowered the native rulers to take charge of the affairs of their societies in the manner fashioned out by the colonial masters. This collaboration brought about the willingness of the people to submit while they remain in total control of raping the continent of its fortune. Ameze upholds its tradition and banishes whoever brings in that which is offensive as such is the fate of Nwampa’s daughter.
Akwaugo is a product of an education system that has a certain repugnant lifestyle. She graduates believing the world has changed and Ameze too should.
The author says, there’s a need for parental supervision about the type of knowledge our children consume especially in this digital age and that when we adopt a new lifestyle, we should also pay attention to the laws of the land.
Ekwenugo’s tragic fall shows readers what can happen when we keep to a half-open lid. We can lose all that we have strived for, especially if we are known for such virtues.
The burning of the Obieze’s throne shows the symbolic tragedy of how the traditional stool has lost the glory and grace it used to enjoy by the older generation. This is because, politically, the strength of most traditional rulers has been weakened due to the effect of colonisation.
The white man has given his garb of colonialism to the black man who no longer understands the ways of his Chi or to put it appropriately, he now eats with yam and cocoyam in the same mouth.
This novel will make a good visual effect for a film adaptation and the theatre because of its didactic attributes and thematic focus. It should be recommended as a creative or literature text for students as it will bring them back to understanding where to draw the line and to know when they are straying from the modest path of life, whether traditional or modern.
Throughout the read, the novel is devoid of typographic error and I give my commendation to the editorial team for a good job done.