KIKI

I keep wondering about Kiki throughout the course of the novel. She is the “blackest “character in the novel. This does not refer to her skin color per se but to her actions and how others perceive her. Although Levi is considered the most “urban” character it does not seem to come naturally to him, he tries too hard and it really shows. Kiki does not try to act urban but her actions and words are less polished than other characters’. She makes a reference to being like a maid at the party that Howard and her were hosting, which makes people at the party feel awkward ( I would have too). She uses phrases like “brother” when addressing other African Americans, like the silver jewelry booth owner and talking of getting more “brothers” to come to the party when she speaks to Carl.

I wonder how Kiki must feel in her surroundings in Wellington. She is married to a white British professor and seems to be surrounded by white and intellectual people who are also professors at the university. She, herself is not a professor and I think that she does not always know how to speak to Howard’s colleagues on the same intellectual level and makes herself look more stupid than she really is.
Although there have been references made about her physical appearance like for example that she “carries her weight well” and that she is an attractive woman, Zora has said that her mother is over three hundred pounds and Carl made a sly reference to Kiki’s massive weight gain over the years when he said that he had “married a thin black woman.”With such conflicting views on her physical appearance I am having a very hard time picturing Kiki as “attractively curving.” Although I do not think that this is the sole reason for why Kiki feels awkward in her current social situation, I do think that it is a contributing factor. She is an overweight black woman who can not converse with the other professors on the same intellectual level. She is the odd one out in the group.

Also, Kiki’s friendship with Carlene is hard to pin point. Although both are the wives of men who are technically supposed to be enemies of each, they seem to get along. This in itself is not too uncommon, however; the women’s personalities differ so much. I guess that Kiki is in a venerable place because of Howard’s cheating but I still do not think that the friendship can be so easily explained. Carlene is flaky and unassertive while Kiki is abrupt and untactful. It seems like a weird combination. Carlene moves between topics when in conversation without rhyme or reason and does not seem to be “all there (or maybe it is just me).” At first Kiki finds this behavior odd but soon makes peace with it. This friendship would never work outside a novel. Other than companionship, the two women share nothing (maybe overbearing husbands).

I will try to better understand Kiki over the course of the novel but it is difficult.