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fikun's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
joyful24's review against another edition
4.0
reading this book was listening to my father talk about his life before immigration. i could easily see him and his mates living out their lives in this novel. it was realistic fiction, becuase it bought the nigerian of my father's youth (and the nigerian during the present elections) to life in a very sublte way. helon habila writes in a plain fashion. he puts me in the mind of chinua achebe. what you see is what the characters see. what you experience is what the characters experience. what you take from it is what you take from it.
fa_biene's review
3.0
An ambitious and well-written novel.
The short chapters and the fast-paced plot made this book hard to put down.
Themes include the writing of history and the role and responsibility of the historian, war, family and community, politics and - of course - love.
Habila manages to pull together the many different narrative strands spanning decades and countries. These often fade into one another, contain echoes of other chapters and give this thought-provoking novel more depth and nuance. At times, the text felt a bit too constructed, and there could have been more room for ambiguity (Show > tell).
Overall, a good read. (3.5 Stars)
The short chapters and the fast-paced plot made this book hard to put down.
Themes include the writing of history and the role and responsibility of the historian, war, family and community, politics and - of course - love.
Habila manages to pull together the many different narrative strands spanning decades and countries. These often fade into one another, contain echoes of other chapters and give this thought-provoking novel more depth and nuance. At times, the text felt a bit too constructed, and there could have been more room for ambiguity (Show > tell).
Overall, a good read. (3.5 Stars)
hbelle01's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
miss_tricia's review against another edition
3.0
I want to give this four stars, because it seemed like "literature," and smart people like literature, and I'm smart, right? But that's just posturing, if I'm honest. I didn't love Measuring time, but I did truly enjoy it. Measuring Time is well paced (good thing, or the title would be ironic) and filled with interesting characters. The story contains a lot of emotion, but never stoops to sentimentality. And there's both enough grit and enough light to make the book appealing to me at this stage of my life. And the culture the book describes is different enough from my own to make it deeply engrossing. Yay for Habila! Read the book!
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