The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born
“The man could…talk about the irony of it all, of people being given power because they were good at shouting against the enslaving things of Europe, and of the same people using the same power for chasing after the same enslaving things.” – Ayi Kwei Armah, The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born
We’re watching The Morning Show, which I had been resisting since I thought it was a comedy. Oh nononono. It is not. It is well-written, well-acted, and even though people are going to say it’s “timely” (cue the news footage of Harvey Weinstein), this is a story for the ages. Because it’s a story about power and the slick ways that people maneuver around it.
At the end of Season 1, someone recites a line from John Milton’s poem ‘Lycidas’; it’s directed toward Jennifer Aniston’s character. “Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil.” If you know someone “famous” — even just someone who seems to constantly garner attention, who has “it” — you know what that means. There’s often something “different” about these people. Are they more deserving of power (social, financial, etc.), or is it that non-famous people simply can’t help bestowing power on them? Chicken, egg?
This month I pulled out this 1969 novel by Ghanaian writer Ayi Kwei Armah called The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born — apparently it’s often grouped with Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart as crucial post-colonial literature. It’s set between Passion Week 1965 and the overthrow of Ghana’s first president, Kwane Nkrumah, in 1966. Its protagonist, simply called “the man,” wants more — as is human tendency. But when confronted with a bribe that would bring him more power, the man waffles. “How was it possible for a man to control himself, when the admiration of the world, the pride of his family and his own secret happiness, at least for the moment, all demanded that he lose control of himself and behave like someone he has not and would never be? Money. Power.” Can he obtain power if he stoops, or is power unable to glom onto him?
This is an incredibly rich novel. And it’s the sort of story you might see Jennifer Aniston’s character reporting on, while oblivious to the ways it might mirror her own story.
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