Such a Beautiful Thing To Behold by Umar Turaki
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Such a Beautiful Thing to Behold
by Umar Turaki
Little A, 2022
Set in a small Nigerian town called Pilam, Umar Turaki’s debut novel, Such a Beautiful Thing to Behold, follows a group of young people as they navigate a world beset by a disease known only as “the Grey.” What begins as a greying and blackening of the eyes—which removes the afflicted person’s ability to see any colors other than grey—quickly progresses until the sufferers are unable to function. They feel heavy in body and mind. They have trouble concentrating. They feel disoriented and depressed, “…submerged in a wave of liquid despondency…” It always ends the same way, everyone who contracts the Grey ultimately takes their own life. And it only affects adults. By the time the story begins most of the adults in Pilam have already fallen to the disease, leaving a town of children to fend for itself.
Such a Beautiful Thing to Behold is first and foremost a character-driven novel. It follows a group of survivors living in Pilam, including a group of four siblings. The eldest of the siblings, a boy named Dunka, begins the novel already infected with the Grey. He’s lost the ability to see color but is determined to seek out a rumored cure for the affliction. Panmun, the eldest sister of the family, toys with the idea of running away with her boyfriend Zumji. Their youngest sister Rit takes it upon herself to keep the family together and their home running smoothly. No one is quite sure where Panshak has run off to, but they all hope for his return. As their different narrative threads diverge and recombine, a cohesive picture of what it might be like to live through this event emerges.
As is the case with many pandemic stories, Turaki isn’t interested in exploring the hows and whys of the Grey as much as the now whats. Such a Beautiful Thing to Behold asks readers to consider what we owe each other in times of crisis. Early in the novel, one unexpected moment prompts Zumji to ask, “Was there some hallowed, inexplicable weight to the demand of a dying man? Had he made the mistake of disregarding it before? He had swept an innocent man and his suffering into the ground, where the ugly spectacle unfolded out of sight, because he, Zumji, did not have the stomach to face it.” Confronted with a situation that seems alien to those of us living in relative security today, Zumji is forced to come to terms with what he’s capable of just as the reader is left to wonder what they might do in the same situation. This is a major theme throughout the novel as each character grapples with the actions they take in this new world.
Umar Turaki does a superb job of weaving small moments from different perspectives into a larger picture of the reality of life in Pilam. Scenes that mean one thing when taken from the perspective of one character grow and change in meaning when the same moment is revisited later in the story from a different perspective. The result is a story that is tightly and purposefully plotted.
Turaki also places great emphasis on contrasts, using vivid language to paint a picture of a world in opposition to itself. Sometimes these moments are innocuous like Dunka’s recollection of:
…the way the maize they roasted during harvest would explode in his mouth, filling it with sweet juice and tiny chewy particles. He had dreaded seeing his mother’s stooped figure by the kerosene stove they used sparingly. He remembered how the stove would fill the kitchen with the smell of burned carbon while thunderstorms raged outside.
At other times the contrast is more severe, such as a quiet moment punctuated by violence. These moments are not treated like a big deal, instead they are presented as something that happens all the time. This can feel jarring, almost out of place in such a calm narrative. But, of course, that is the point. For the people of Pilam, random, extreme violence is the norm. The town itself exists in contrast with the rest of the world. From the grisly barricade enclosing Pilam and separating it from the outside world to the vibrant flame tree which acts like a beacon at the center of the dying town, the characters inhabit a world of contrasts.
Such a Beautiful Thing to Behold is, in many ways, another pandemic novel in a sea of pandemic novels. Readers who read a lot of pandemic fiction won’t find anything particularly new here, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to like. The writing is descriptive and lyrical; the story is skillfully structured. The character moments are often poignant. The violence is vivid but measured. Umar Turaki has created a world that feels real and true to the experience of living during a pandemic, yet different enough from our own current situation that it still makes you think.
- Amberlee Venters is a freelance editor and writer living in Northern California.