Theory of Flight (full summary)
THE THEORY OF FLIGHT is a beautiful narrative, memorable and innovative,
and a well-structured story. The author is Zimbabwean by birth, but has studied
and worked in other countries. We can see that there are many Zimbabwean
historical references in the book, but are not names so as to not label their
history as theirs only.
The title of the novel is also that of the name of a sculpture in three pieces
featured late in the text; possibly, the phrase indicates that people who tend to
take themselves as earthbound and limited organisms need the reminder that
the imagination can fly far beyond the restrictions of an individual’s
circumstances.
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,In her short prologue, the writer mentions the “ways of living, remembering,
seeing, knowing and dying” that bring about the existence of the novel’s
central character, Imogen Zula Nyoni (Genie), describing her life as illustrating
“a culmination of genealogies, histories, teleologies, epistemologies and
epidemiologies”. The listed processes allude to the titled of the sections in the
main narrative. These are (in order) “Genealogy” (part 1), “History” (part 2),
“The present” (part 3), “Teleology” (part 4) and “Epidemiology – love in the time
of HIV” (part 5) (all Book I), followed by Book II, with only two sections:
“Epistemology” (part 1) and “Revelations” (part 2).
Because Ndlovu introduces the many characters of her story one by one, and
because she has placed a list of characters (with brief descriptions of their
identities and social roles) at the beginning of the text, careful readers will not
have problems following the complex webs of these lives. Even relatively minor
characters are described in detail.
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, Book I’s part 1 has only one chapter, titled “Genesis”. The first “beginning”
mentioned here is Genie’s, naturally; it is described as being “like all our
beginnings – beautiful and golden”, though the miraculous nature of her birth
is explained in a magical sense, as she is born from her mother’s body as a “shiny
golden egg” which takes a few years to hatch. Imogen Zula Nyoni (Genie) is the
daughter of Elizabeth Nyoni (mother) and Golide Gumede (father). Elizabeth is
a country and western singer who dresses in rainbow-coloured outfits and wears
a blonde wig described as “golden” to underline her aspiration to follow in the
steps of Dolly Parton and make her name in Nashville, USA, whilst Golide
Gumede is a natural leader who from childhood has been fascinated by
aeroplanes; he was sent to the USSR to study aeronautical engineering, and
returned to fight bravely and in the Zimbabwean liberation war. Genie’s
conception is the result of instant, almost fatelike, attraction and enduring love
and loyalty between her parents, who are initially able to spend only nine hours
together before Golide rejoins the liberation forces and Elizabeth goes to make
a home for them in Golide’s ancestral village on Beauford Estate. They see their
respective dreams – his of building an aeroplane and Elizabeth’s of being taken
to Nashville, Tennessee – as quite compatible, for Golide intend to build the
flying machine that will transport them across the Atlantic.
In his early adulthood, Golide worked to charm poor black countrywomen into
buying the Western fripperies he peddled for his employer, a Greek travelling
salesman. As he was an adventurous young man, the work brought him his
lifelong love of travel and his initial encounter with Prudence Ngoma, whom he
loved and married, and with whom he had Golide and his younger sister,
Minenhle. Unfortunately, Baines had so much of a desire to travel that, when he
discovered that his little son was an albino and unable to travel in the open-
topped vehicle Baines had bought to take his family with him as he moved, he
sent his pregnant wife and son back to the village. Although Baines faithfully
sent family support home, Prudence turned against him for not appreciating
their son’s beauty, and decided that she would bring up her children as a single
mother with the one ideal of building character.
While still taking part in the liberation war after his initial encounter with
Elizabeth, Golide (a war name which he keeps all his life) decides that the flying
machine he is going to build for Elizabeth will be a giant pair of silver wings. Not
only will this get her to Nashville, but it will also show that African people can
do as much as others. To begin with he will shoots down the a Vickers Viscount –
that regularly flies across the Zambezi river near the Victoria Falls so that he
has a model to work from. As he waits to take the shot, Golide witnesses an
inspirational event:
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