New Yorker Fiction Review #270: "The Case for and Against Love Potions," by Imbolo Mbue

 


Review of the short story from the March 22, 2021 issue of The New Yorker...

"The Case for and Against Love Potions" was an extremely refreshing piece of fiction from a new (to me, anyway) author, especially after a couple weeks of lukewarm material from more well-known authors. 

Set in small village in Cameroon, in the 1980s, "The Case for and Against Love Potions" is told in the first person and uses the "story-within-a-story" method, as though it's being told orally to a character who is sort of "off-screen." From what I can tell with my minimal exposure to African and African-influenced literature, this is a hallmark of the African literary tradition. For whatever reason, maybe just because it's a well-written story, it worked for me and made for an entertaining read. 

Essentially, an unseen character has come to a local "fetish priest" -- the equivalent of a shaman, guru, or medicine man -- and asked for a love potion to help make someone fall in love with her. The fetish priest then tells two quick tales involving love potions, one cautionary the other...the opposite of cautionary...while also slipping in his own personal advice around the sides of both stories. 

This story operates on a few different levels. In the accompanying interview for this story, Imbolo Mbue highlights the sexism inherent in the use of love potions and the very need for them. In this world, it is extremely important that women get married, so important that they feel they have to drug or dupe men into falling (and staying) in love with them using potions. Why, the author asks, do they not make potions that make women feel strong and confident and fulfilled in themselves? Great question, but to me it's interesting that she asks this question when she herself created the world of this story. 

To me what's even more to the point of this story is the idea of "be careful what you wish for," and also of the narrator's view of love as a zero-sum game: somebody wins and somebody loses, all the time. Even, more specifically, somebody wins because somebody loses. A woman uses a love potion to make a man fall in love with her, which steals him away from another woman to whom he was the love of her life. And so on and so on.

This type of layered narrative creates a very dynamic story with, as I mentioned, a lot of stuff in it to unpack; a lot more than I've been able to get to here. I would definitely read another story by this author. Her second novel "How Beautiful We Were" was published just last month if I'm not mistaken.

Wanted to highlight the artwork for this week's story (pictured), which I found pretty amazing as well. The picture is by U.K. artist Hayley Wall

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