Memory is a fickle thing — fluid and illusive. One can never properly estimate how much detail of an event one can commit to mind, or the extent to which the occurrence can affect the psyche.
Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera, in his debut novel, Loss is an Aftertaste of Memories, explores the fluidity of memory while engaging with nostalgia in a manner that is neither sappy nor languid.
Through Chukwudera’s story, we follow the narrative of Nosike as he interacts with his environment, coming of age in an unfolding Nigeria through the early 2000s to the 2010s, in the country’s Edo State.
The story is straightforward enough, and to surmise: a sapling is enjoying the bliss of childhood, with its occasional shockers and shakers.
Loss is an Aftertaste of Memories unfolds linearly; at the beginning, we meet Nosike in primary five as he prepares for his common entrance examination and follow him as he goes through this point into adolescence, as told by a now mature — and perhaps wiser — iteration of the same person.
But while this description is seductive, it is merely simplistic, as we find the lad at several terminals, with his senses coming alive with happiness, sadness, rebellion, passion, rage, jealousy, infatuation, introspection, and several other emotions that make up the cyclical moments which shape Nosike’s thoughts and actions.
The first thing that strikes the senses is communality, first within Nosike’s family as he interacts with his parents and siblings, and then with his peers at school and the church. But despite this kinship, the sense of hierarchy, power, and authority is also never lost on the reader, and all parties exert their authority in a manner that is sometimes expected and other times untoward.
Nosike exerts his power as the eldest of his siblings; his father exerts his authority as the head of his family; the teachers do so at school, and even the priest at church.
As a Nigerian reading this work, the Nigerianness of this story is at once recognisable and relatable, that the events seem like they’re occurring in the present and in real-time. Chukwudera writes about places and scenes in Edo that could as well take place anywhere else in Nigeria; the school playgrounds, churches and their pedantic rituals, the theatrics of a village festival, the rowdiness of a marketplace. In these highlights, too, we still bear witness to the country’s failings — there is one striking moment where a younger Nosike talks about his dead aunt with a boy he just met and the boy asks if she was attacked by robbers. It is a striking conversation that speaks volumes about the insecurity of the country at the time, which has only worsened in the present day. The same can be said for the country’s ever dismal healthcare system, and rate of migration to the West.
Loss is an Aftertaste of Memories explores premonition and intuition, never quite drawing a clear line between rationality, belief, and superstition, and never completely picking a side to tilt towards. Certain events are surreal when they occur. For example, when Nosike is asked the same question twice on the day of the common entrance, the first time seems like a needed intervention. He almost drowns on two occasions that the second time around appears rather evitable, and almost loses his leg twice, both times in a dreamlike fashion, as if to push a conversation whether things happen at random or that they are predestined by supernatural forces.
Nosike’s pensiveness and self-awareness are admirable, and Loss is an Aftertaste of Memories gives credence to the emotions of children, as we experience the world through the eyes of a growing boy. Chapter twenty is particularly striking, owing not just to the fact that it is the only titled chapter — Three Teachers — but also because Nosike realises why he performs poorly at school, despite studying so hard, and why criticism as a correction tool is never fully beneficial without first building interest.
Chukwudera shows us multi-faceted human emotions as we experience Nosike’s undulating highs and lows; his piety, desires, forlornness, and even the occasional resignation about the things he cannot change – such as resigning to being an average football player, or the great demise that eventually happens – or working towards what can be remedied.
The writing is simple yet evocative, and we are at once endeared to the time that the writer lurches us into leaving one to wonder whether this work is semi-autobiographical, and if within the writer is a longing for a lost time. Despite their diversity, one relishes the naivety of childhood in the younger characters, admires the curiosity, doubt, and explorations of the adolescents, and is intimated with the decisions of the adults. One cannot help but laugh at the wittiness of Nosike’s sister, Adaora, or how his brother, Obi, wears his heart on his sleeve. We would chuckle at the craftiness of Amadin, his friend, and contemplate Jude’s reservation, all the while wondering whether these temperaments are innate or acquired.
Chukwudera has written a novel that is humorous and a delight to read. It will hit you with a wave of nostalgia, even though the book never quite lands well with titbit explanations of certain events, which make the impact of certain demises never fully understood or sympathised with. But this is forgivable, still, as time alters our recollection of events.
Holding up to its title, the book is a repository of memories, with events presented as clearly as they occurred or perhaps as a figment of one’s imagination. Chukwudera’s Loss is an Aftertaste of Memories is a time capsule that exists just for the sake of being, not so much to reflect languidly on the present or on the past in retrospection. It is a coming-of-age story that eschews didacticism but only bids you to look back at a simpler time with longing.
And perhaps that is enough.
