About
Author: Doreen Baingana (Uganda)
Genre: Short Stories
Setting
Place: Entebbe, Los Angeles
Time: 1970s – 1980s
My Rating (see what this means)
My Subjective Rating: 3
My ‘Objective’ Rating: 2.6
Introduction
Tropical Fish: Tales for Entebbe by Doreen Baingana follows Christine and her two sisters as they grow up in Uganda. These short stories capture the most innocuous to the most obnoxious events of their lives – from the daze of the first kiss to wasting away from AIDS.
Arguably, none of the situations the sisters are in can be defined as joyful – often the pathetic-ness of their lives is on full display. However, despite this I am unable think of these stories as sorrowful. That’s certainly not because there are happy endings here.
“We finally moved away, swaying and bumping up and down together with each dive in and out of potholes, each swerve to avoid the oncoming cars that headed straight toward us like life. I closed my eyes, willing the noise and heat and sweat to recede to the very back of my mind. The glaring sun hit us all.”
Why then?
Review (Has spoilers)
Reading the endings of each of the stories – I could classify them in 2 broad groups – a Sisyphean acceptance of fate or defiance of it. Just to quote a couple examples –
Sisyphean Acceptance
Sisyphean Defiance
Green Gemstones:
I blurted out to Maama, “Do you miss Taata?”
She looked at me, mildly incredulous. “What’s wrong, Christine?”
“Just asking.”
She shrugged and turned to my niece Nyakato, who had come in. What had passed was gone. Why was I searching through ashes? I had lived off his love for her, like a leech. That should have been enough.
First Kiss:
Christine wiped her tears with the back of her hand and cleaned it on her blouse, smudging it red and brown with lipstick, tears, and dirt. What a mess. Nicholas should see her now. She had better go home; they would all be back, asking for her. Maybe there would still be some cookies left for tea.
A Thank-you Note:
I must scream against death just like I used to with life. I must live even harder.
I displayed my body once and men approved. I will do so again with burning scars, leaking sores, gray skin. This is all I have left: to die loudly, saying, Yes, I have AIDS. Let’s turn around and face it.
Lost in Los Angeles:
We hike up the Altadena hills often, where we drink cheap wine, write and read poems, and shout them out to the smog of Los Angeles. Feather teaches me Pueblo chants and dances. “This is my people’s land, you know,” she says. “All this,” sweeping her arms wide, around.
“Mine too,” I say. What the hell.
Perhaps that’s the reason they left me smiling, not sorrowful. And I can hardly summarize it better than the sweet little poem I came across while researching for this piece –
…One morning, however, legs hurting,
the sun beating down,
again weighing the quick calm of suicide
against this punishment that passed for life,
Sisyphus smiled.
It was the way a gambler smiles
when he finally decides to fold
in order to stay alive
for another game, a smile
so inward it cannot be seen.
The gods sank back
in their airy chairs. Sisyphus sensed
he’d taken something from them,
more on his own than ever now.
– Sisyphus’s Acceptance by Stephen Dunn
Picture & Poetry Credits:
- Cover Picture: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/367254544585096478/
- https://www.poetryinternational.com/en/poets-poems/poems/poem/103-21489_SISYPHUS-S-ACCEPTANCE
- https://existentialcomics.com/comic/29