The West London Book Group discuss Waiting for an Angel by Helon Habila

Our reading group was fascinated by this novel and it provoked a lively discussion not only about its merits but also about the wider human rights context in Africa.

The powerful evocation of brutality and fear in Abacha’s Nigeria drew general praise in our group. The prison scenes, the vivid police pursuit and the crackdown on demonstrators all struck us as gripping writing which made Nigeria’s suffering very real for anyone unfamiliar with the country’s politics.

The complex, episodic structure of the narrative, which works as a series of flashbacks, did not undermine the book’s impact, in our view.
Some readers did however wish for more clarity about the north-south tensions in Nigeria, which are touched on in the book but not explored in any great detail. They felt the author should have tackled this important theme – after all, the novel has the feel of a docu-drama and sometimes refers to real people.

Readers agreed that it was a refreshingly modern African novel, which did not seek to blame colonialism for Nigeria’s endemic corruption and brutality under Abacha.

Alice’s rejection of Lomba and the dashing of his hopes – mirroring the wider sense of hopelessness in Nigeria – is one of the finest moments of characterisation, we agreed.

In contrast, the touching power of Lomba’s verse in the Muftau-Janice relationship symbolises the importance of writing in changing attitudes and ultimately – one hopes – a country’s politics. On that level, the book is also a powerful homage to outspoken dissidents.
The repression described in the book today invites comparisons with Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.

About the group

Lauren Godfrey’s vision when he founded the West London Book Group was not just to get people together who like to read, but to further his interest in civil society.  A trade union official-cum-law student from Western Australia, Lauren chose a central meeting place – the Troubadour pub in Earls Court – for the group and put a notice in Time Out and then waited to see who would turn up.

The sense of life in London is highly atomised (Cf Atomised by Michel Hollecbecq – a book read by the group) and a book group gives a social outlet in a vein distinct from the traditional night drinking in a pub.  The idea for this group was to give busy people an intellectually stimulating means to meet other like minded individuals.  As we generally reading shorter fiction - though not as a strict rule – participation in the Group does not adversely impact member’s scarce time.

The group is deliberately loosely structured and new members are always welcomed.  There is no guilt attached to not finishing a book or missing a meeting.  Regulars have no special status above intermittent attendees.

You can never tell how many people are going to come to the meeting – there’s a core of five or six die-hards, all non-British – plus a floating group of semi-regulars and new people. Some come once and never return (is it something we said?). It’s also a mixed-sex group, with more or less equal numbers of men and women. The average age is about 30.

Book choice was originally random – what’s on the best-seller list, what’s won a literary prize, what has someone read that he or she liked – but is now somewhat more structured. We tend to choose books from month to month instead of establishing the year’s list in advance.  We’ve never argued about book choice – the group is very adventurous, even agreeing to a 764-page novel in translation for one session (though not everyone got through it).

Because we’re a mixture of nationalities, we had the idea of members introducing books from their own countries – in translation, where relevant –which involves presenting the book and its author to the group and then kicking off the discussion. Thus Natalie from Germany introduced Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader, Lauren introduced  Peter Carey’s Bliss, Cathy introduced a Norwegian book, The Half Brother, by Lars Saabye Christensen, and Alessandra is introducing Scascia’s The Day of the Owl at our July meeting. Americans are strongly represented in the group, and that’s led to the group reading Vernon God Little and Middlesex.

This mixture of nationalities adds to the richness of the discussion because the person introducing the book can provide a context for it and explain cultural nuances that might otherwise escape the group.

Sometimes people don’t finish the book, but come to the meetings anyway simply to hear what the others have to say – the standard of discussion is very high and group members are well read, adding to the richness of the debate.

And it’s fun. At some unmarked point in the evening discussion of the book tapers off and we move onto more general subjects.

As the night wanders on we often find ourselves returning to the themes of the book or even past books.  And then off onto more esoteric discussions of life, love, death, religion, politics or even existential notions of human freedom … no topic is taboo!