One of the reasons I enjoy reading great historical fiction is that it illuminates periods of the past that I was totally unaware of. Most of my understanding of the events surrounding WWII are centred around an American and English perspective. So prior to Mengiste's “The Shadow King” I had no knowledge of Mussolini's 1935 invasion of Ethiopia, one of the last sovereign African countries at that time. As Mengiste has explained in interviews, the Second Italo-Ethiopian War is well documented but there are few written historical accounts of Ethiopian women's active involvement in defending the country through these battles. This novel provides a different framing of this period by insisting on the prominence and importance of these women. The author introduces us to this era by focusing on the story of Hirut, an orphaned girl who becomes a maid to Kidane who is an officer in Emperor Haile Selassie's army and his strong-willed wife Aster. As the invasion begins the balance of their lives is totally upended and their relationships alter in accordance with the joint will to fight to maintain Ethiopia's independence. The result is a dramatic story filled with bloody battles and the emotional journeys of individuals whose lives are fundamentally changed by these larger events.
The difficulty with some historical novels is that they are so steeped in a narrative of the past it's a challenge to enter as a reader if you aren't equipped with a knowledge about it. This was definitely why I found it hard to finish reading “Wolf Hall” on the first go and why it took supplementary reading for me to better understand the events and drama being portrayed. The same was true for Mengiste's novel. Frequently throughout the story I found myself entrenched in scenes of conflict I struggled to understand so it was difficult to emotionally invest in the outcome. I fully accept this is a problem of my own ignorance about the series of historical events being portrayed. Like with Mantel's fiction, I think the payoff gained from really concentrating and reading additional material is worth it because “The Shadow King” is undoubtably an impressive work of fiction. I'm equally sure that reading this novel a second time will yield a lot more pleasure because I'd be able to focus more on the development of the characters, the links between them and the symbolic resonance of the story more than working so hard to follow what was actually happening. However, this means that at the moment this is a novel I admired more than really enjoyed.
Where this book shined the most for me were in private moments where a character like Hirut realises she is trapped in events much larger than herself. There's a sudden understanding that this entangled political conflict has irreparably changed her in a way that runs counter to her own natural development and she must radically redefine herself in order to survive. But there are different strategies for making this happen. In the case of Aster, she takes a stand against her own husband and insists she can play an active leading role in defending their country. In the case of the cook, she cannily flies under the radar by refusing to divulge her name or make her identity known. It's moving how Mengiste shows the way identity is distorted and reformed by the trauma of war. I also found it powerful how the characters aspired to shape the narrative of history while the conflict was still in progress through the photographs being taken and the news which was portioned out to the rest of the world. It's compelling how Mengiste portrays an evolving sense of national identity when a country struggles to maintain its independence and how that country's true character resides in the collective will of its people rather than a figurehead like Selassie who fled into exile. This novel shows that the truth of a nation is found more often in what its citizens' sacrifice rather than the spoils of war.
