The Wife’s Tale: A Personal History

The Finally Fall Book Tag

Who doesn’t love a seasonal tag! I think the Finally Fall tag was created by Alina Melena on YouTube (not 100% sure as the original video no longer exists) and I saw it over on Bookables channel.

1. In fall, the air is crisp and clear: name a book with a vivid setting!
I didn’t like the book a lot, but I won’t deny that Uprooted by Naomi Novik has a very vivid setting and it’s the main thing I remember about it.

2. Nature is beautiful… but also dying: name a book that is beautifully written, but also deals with a heavy topic like loss or grief.
The Places I’ve Cried in Public by Holly Bourne has such good writing that’s powerful and sad and is about a teenage girl trying to understand how her relationship wasn’t OK and it was actually emotionally and sexually abusive.

3. Fall is back to school season: share a non-fiction book that taught you something new.
I work at a university and while my job is all year round, there is a sense on new beginning when the students come back at the end of September. I’ve read a lot of non-fiction thanks to my Read the World Project and I’ve learnt a lot about different cultures and countries. I think The Wife’s Tale: A Personal History by Aida Edemariam was one of the ones where I learnt the most though as I knew nothing about Ethiopia’s history.

4. In order to keep warm, it’s good to spend some time with the people we love: name a fictional family/household/friend-group that you’d like to be a part of.
It’s so easy to say the Weasley’s and while they’ll be an honourable mention, I’m going to say Izzy’s small but awesome family/friend unit from The Exact Opposite of Okay by Laura Steven. I love her relationship with her grandmother and her best friend Ajita and they’d be an awesome, fun and supportive group to be a part of.

5. The colourful leaves are piling up on the ground: show us a pile of fall-coloured spines!
Good job I was at my mum’s when I was drafting this post as I don’t have any TBR books that have autumnal colours on their spine. So all but one of these (A Keeper) I’ve read.

From top to bottom we have:
The Door in the Tree by William Corlett
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Illuminae by Amy Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
A Keeper by Graham Norton
Marvel Comics: The Untold Story by Sean Howe
The Rise of Nine by Pittacus Lore

6. Fall is the perfect time for some storytelling by the fireside: share a book wherein somebody is telling a story.
This was a hard one to think of a book for, I’ve definitely read books that were like a story inside a story, but it took me ages to think of one. In the end I remembered The Murdstone Trilogy by Mal Peet, in that a creature tells a story of a fantasy world.

7. The nights are getting darker: share a dark, creepy read.
It’s been a long time since I’ve read a dark and creepy book. Thinking back, I’ll mention The Strain by Chuck Hogan and Guillermo del Toro. It’s a creepy story with vampires and conspiracy theories and from what I remember there’s some really eerie moments.

8. The days are getting colder: name a short, heart-warming read that could warm up somebody’s cold and rainy day.
I wouldn’t say it’s short or even heart-warming, but it is a lot of fun and it’s set somewhere warm and sunny – Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan. It’s been a while since I’ve read a book I’d call “heart-warming”, but fun contemporary stories are always a good shout on dark nights.

9. Fall (luckily, it’s my favourite season) returns every year: name an old favourite that you’d like to return to soon.
There are so many books I’d like to reread but I think I’m going to go with The Passage and The Twelve by Justin Cronin. I’ve still not read the last book in the trilogy, The City of Mirrors, so I’d love to reread the series and finally finish it and see what happens to this huge cast of characters. I’d also like to revisit The Magician’s House quartet by William Corlett, of which The Door in the Tree is the second book, as that was a childhood favourite series.

10. Fall is the perfect time for cosy reading nights: share your favourite cosy reading “accessories”!
Definitely my blue fuzzy blanket. Well, technically it’s a Slanket (a blanket with sleeves) but I don’t often use the sleeves, instead I just have it on my legs as I read.

11. Spread the autumn appreciation and tag some people!
I think this tag has been around for a while so no doubt a lot of you have done it before but consider yourself tagged if you want!

READ THE WORLD – Ethiopia: The Wife’s Tale: A Personal History by Aida Edemariam

Narrated by Adjoa Andoh.

A hundred years ago, a girl was born in the northern Ethiopian city of Gondar. Before she was ten years old, Yetemegnu was married to a man two decades her senior, an ambitious poet-priest. Over the next century her world changed beyond recognition. She witnessed Fascist invasion and occupation, Allied bombardment and exile from her city, the ascent and fall of Emperor Haile Selassie, revolution and civil war. She endured all these things alongside parenthood, widowhood and the death of children. Aida Edemariam retells the story of her grandmother’s life.

The thing about time and history is it’s very easy to think that things happen so far apart from one another, but The Wife’s Tale proves that really isn’t the case. A lot can happen in one person’s lifetime, from the personal – births, deaths, careers, marriages – to the historical – changes in government, war, revolution, and technological advances. The Wife’s Tale shows how much a person can live through, the good and the bad, and how often moments in history are like a domino effect with problems or solutions can be traced back decades.

Through Yetemegnu’s life you can get an insight in Ethiopian life and culture. She was born in 1916, married at age eight to a priest who was almost thirty and had her first of nine children when she was fourteen. Her marriage wasn’t always a happy one. Never mind the fact she was a child bride (though they didn’t have a sexual relationship until she was a teenager so at least that’s something?), but her husband would sometimes hit her and she was often admonished by family when she wanted to leave.

Religion played a huge part in Yetemegnu’s life and The Wife’s Tale shows how Ethiopian Christianity was (and perhaps still is) a cornerstone to many peoples lives. Yetemegnu prays to Mary, has spiritual dreams and has so much faith in God and his plan. That doesn’t mean she just takes everything life throws at her. When her husband is arrested, she fights for him. When her lands are taken, she learns about the law and goes to the courts to fight for what is hers. When her children are endangered, she does everything in her power to protect them. She is the epitome of a strong matriarch and seeing how her experiences shape her and her actions was fascinating.

As well as learning so much about one woman’s impressive life, The Wife’s Tale covers so much of the history of twentieth century Ethiopia that you can learn so much from it. There’s the rise and fall of an Emperor, the introduction of democracy, the rise of Communism, the deadly famine as well as the fact the country was invaded by Italy in the 1930s.

I feel I learnt so much from The Wife’s Tale and seeing how one person can live through so many national and international events showed just how things are connected and that a lot can happen in one person’s lifetime. The audiobook was really good to as Andoh’s narration really brought Yetemegnu’s voice alive and made the book a lot more engaging than it might’ve been to physically read it. 4/5.