E_Dagdag

What I love about Chinelo’s writing is that she allows the reader to formulate hypothesis and because of her intricate and complex writing the answers to the questions that may arise are never one sided. Chinelo pushes the reader to deeply read into her narrative and absorb each sentence, phrase, paragraph with an open mind. And only then, will you truly appreciate her craft. I thoroughly enjoyed the first drafts of ‘Runs Girl’ and even enjoy it even more now that others are able to read it. I look forward to reading more of Chinelo’s works. It is a pleasure to have an artist who takes writing to a new level, leaving one refreshed and wanting for more.

((Continued))

As one ages, the connections to parents begin to erode and certain subjects, feelings, decisions are no longer shared in fear of disappointing parents and also because of fearing what their reactions may be. More importantly, the parent to child relation becomes reversed and the child starts to take the roll of parent(s). The child begins to be the sole provider of everything from nourishment, to safety, and often life threatening decisions. In doing so, the child-like tenderness is gone. The child becomes rigid and ultimately becomes incapable of expressing emotions. Ada expresses this notion so well when she states:

"If I had tried to tell her I loved her on our taxi ride that day, it would not have made things any better. I would not have even known how to say it. No matter how I said it, it would have felt contrived, because we no longer said such tender things. And so, I remained silent, only patting her lap gently each time the pain caused her to moan."

By Ada subjecting to the role as a parent at this point. I feel that she then had no other choice but to provide the necessary care for her mother at any means. Since Ada had to be the sole provider, did she then make the right choice? Is the mother the main cause to Ada’s demise?

What I love about Chinelo’s writing is that she allows the reader to formulate hypothesis and because of her intricate and complex writing the answers to the questions that may arise are never one sided. Chinelo pushes the reader to deeply read into her narrative and absorb each sentence, phrase, paragraph with an open mind. And only then, will you truly appreciate her craft. I thoroughly enjoyed the first drafts of ‘Runs Girl’ and even enjoy it even more now that others are able to read it. I look forward to reading more of Chinelo’s works. It is a pleasure to have an artist who takes writing to a new level, leaving one refreshed and wanting for more.

‘Runs Girl’ is only a small piece that exemplifies Chinelo (Nel) Okparanta’s incredible mastery of words and story telling. Each word, description, and reference to verses from the Bible are carefully thought out and well researched. ‘Runs Girl’ is a powerful piece that encompasses various issues/ topics and the way in which Chinelo weaves each one together is an unmistakable trademark of hers, rightfully deserving of high praises. With that said, I would like to share one theme that can be extracted from this wonderful and thought provoking piece.

What I love most about ‘Runs Girl’ is that Chinelo captures the reader—or at least that’s how I felt—to be part of the character. In doing so, Chinelo allows us to bring to notion feelings that we, perhaps, choose not to address such as the child to parent reversal roles that children are often forced to accept and the damages causes.

Ada shares a point in the narrative which I consider to be her moment of accepting “parenthood” and sheds her child-like mannerism in order to provided aid and comfort to her mother. She states:

"I should have told her I loved her. But how? Aside from prayers and practical exchanges, we rarely even talked those days just before she fell ill. I was busy with my studies, and she was busy with the market. And so there were silences, as if we no longer valued spoken words, as if spoken words were gaudy finishes on a delicate piece of art, unnecessary distractions from the masterpiece, whose substance was more meaningfully experienced if left unornamented."

I find this excerpt very intriguing because it evokes a feeling of loosing innocence and a part that I find to be a tragic. I believe that readers can connect to Ada at this point based on various reasons. The first is Ada’s inability to say how much she loves her mother, second, the lost value of the powerful words “I love you” which were taught to us at such a young age, and finally, the lost value of a parent to child relationship. In addition, Ada at this point in the story, is forced to live a dual life; Ada learns to live as an adult trapped in a child’s body.