Reading hurts

The Fishermen
by Chigozie Obioma
 
I read this literally. It was grim and gruesome and unrelentingly ugly, narrated from the eyes of a boy fascinated with a train wreck, attention drawn perpetually to the scars and stains of lives out of harmony with nature. I hated it and couldn't stop reading it--I needed to know where the suspicion and the fear and the hatred would end...or if it ever would.

it was simply the tale of four brothers, Ikenna, Boja, Obembe, and Ben; cursed by a madman into fear that might devolve into madness. They should have stayed the best of brothers--should have linked arms and fought together--but they didn't know how to love each other as men. The father never taught them--they had to teach themselves.

For all the suffering of the story, the author's uncanny gift with language made me wonder what he might be capable of with a different sort of story. From the first few pages, visuals like "tots of feathers from a richly-plumed bird", "a locomotive train treading tracks of hope, with black coal in its heart and a loud elaphantine toot", "a veil spooled over his all-seeing eyes". Mr. Obioma's people are sparsely drawn but you recognize them from someone in your past, always.

All that aside, I knew at the end that I should NOT have read it literally. Literally it is a well-told tale, unleavened like heavy bread, slow to dissolve and giving you heartburn. 
But the author says,
The Fishermen first came to me as a tribute to my many brothers, and a wake-up call to a dwindling nation-- Nigeria. Then it grew into something much more than that: it felt necessary.

I see that now--it's more than a gritty story; more than a parable; more than madness. It's a road that a nation is walking...a hard road...and it's not coming to an end.

p.s. I could be wrong about everything I just wrote.