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The major concern of the modern young woman is her ambition and how society dictates how her life should be. The
challenge of having to live a male centered world where the chauvinistic impressions are loud and the fear of marriage have become strident. Marriage; a natural thing to do have become something of deep thought and great confusion, here love is questioned in marriage and independence is in a wild battle with love. The novel; Suspended Destiny by Majovo Amarie is a story of love, marriage, fear and fate. It can be likened to a story of love lost, love regained. The story which is set in 21st century Nigeria revolves around an eighteen year old Millicent who falls head over heels in love with a resident doctor named Rodney and the grandeur of passion, love and above all strength and youthful exuberance became the hallmark of their love relationship. The need to make it an healthy one later became the concern of the female partner but after a while her insecurities about Rodney’s friends and other relationships with any female becomes an issue to grapple with. Another problem that rears its ugly head in the course of their relationship is her desire to be a financially independent woman, an enigma in her chosen field; the legal profession and her vocation; a novelist. She therefore sees a marriage proposition by her lover as a threat to her live long dreams of achievement and decides to abandon her relationship for her dreams bringing about what the American playwright Steven Dietz calls “willful slaughter of hope”. The emotional trauma caused by this separation which according to Shakespeare was openly expressed by the man as “the unkindest cut of all “while the woman endured and shed her tears in secret . The realization of Rodney’s incompatibility with other promising spouses and Millicent’s irritation of other promising husbands makes them to realize that they were fated to be together. there is no doubt that the synergy of true love that they had for one another was etched in God’s own book of true lovers and true companions.The story which had 20 chapters with an epilogue is as unpredictable as love itself; a journey of unpredictable stops, emotional escape routes until there is a dead end of fate.
The writer’s narrative style is brilliant as she uses the omnipresent narrative but constructively allows the characters to express their innate desires, through this she creates her sub-themes, such as gender discrimination , unrequited love, tolerance in marriage to mention a few. The suspended voice of one’s true self and reason ensues in characters to show either confusion or to expose their pretence to readers. The author’s good grasp of psychology, law, sociology, medicine and more importantly “marriagetology” is one that plaudits should be given to.The novella can be fairly likened to James Joyce’s Portrait of a Youngman as an Artist as both Stephen Dedalus in the aforementioned and Millicent in Suspended Destiny seek freedom in order to become an artist. The production of Millicent’s bestselling novel did come after her separation from her “distraction” as she feels that her marriage might be bondage. The author‘s creation of the ideal marriage and the harmony to be experienced can be found in the lives of two different generations of couples, the family of Lawrence, Maureen and their children( Millicent’s sister family) and Mr. Dayo and Kate Adebayo (Rodney’s parents)who have been able to create an enabling environment for mutual understanding, and have been able to manage their occupational with their marital life without hitches is a purposeful counter of the pessimistic ideas of Millicent and her stereotypes in the world outside the novel. Amidst the noteworthy commendation of the novel, it exhibits shortcomings in some areas such as its narrative verisimilitude. The plausibility of an able bodied Nigerian man clinging on to his emotional past so much that no other love relationship works is questionable. On Millicent’s part, the plausibility of being unmarried and not being in a relationship for fourteen years without criticism from family, peers and society is an issue that will be in the courtrooms of literary critics for a long time. In defence of what critics would dole out against Majovo’s Suspended Destiny, it is important to posit that love is unpredictable. “The world is full of puzzles, even God in the seventh heaven may not have solved all the mysteries of the creation (love is one of these puzzles). This may be why he conceals his face” (apologies to the 1978 Nobel laureate Isaac B. Singer; author of Short Friday).
Another irredeemable flaw of the author is that it seems she was mandated to write in a certain number of pages. Some chapters too short and instead of the author to fully explore some narrative incidences she quickly runs through it. A good example is Millicent acquisition of her LLB and PHD but the problems faced especially in aspects of her sexual or marital life was not broached by the author’s omnipresent narration. The presence of few typographical errors shows that the editing was not hundred percent.
The book Suspended Destiny can be said to be a novel with ample research on the psychological and sociological dialectics of love and marriage in the modern world. Suspended Destiny which is her first published literary work can be said to be great start.
Published: March 06, 2009