Dissecting a line from Ancestor Stones

So far I really like Ancestor Stones by Aminatta Forna. I like the different perspectives that each chapter are written from and I'm excited to get to know how the characters fit together and what their story will be.

One quote that has kept me thinking is this one from page 21. Asana is describing the new job that her father has and their new village. At this point she is talking about the people who are beginning to arrive in the new village. She mentions the blacksmith, the carpenter, te herbalist, the coffee harvestors and growers. Then she says this and I am still wondering what the significance is:

"A big man casts a long shadow and many people build their lives in the shade."

At first I thought she was talking about the blacksmith, but then I realized that she could be talking about any of the others who joined the village. Then as I'm writing this I wonder if maybe it's her father. He is supposed to be the leader of the village and maybe she is talking about his shadow or governance over these people. This seems to make sense to me. In order for his business to grow and flourish, he needs all of the other villagers, especially the workers to harvest and plant.

I never thought I would think so much about one line in a novel, but it's good to identify these challenging lines because they can hold so much information. It just takes a little time and a little thought, and for me, the chance to write a little, because it is then that I can begin to really understand something.

Xala

Literally meaning the curse, the reader who knows this term would be much more enlightened going into reading this short novel than the reader who doesn't know.

As I began reading Xala, I was shocked at the content. From announcements in class, I knew that this novel was about polygamy, but I never would have guessed that it would have been about the impotence of a man with several wives.
When I began looking for more information on Xala for this class, the first thing that came up on a Google search is the Wikipedia page that tells about the movie of Xala. Talking to another student in the class, we decided that it would be interesting to watch because now we know the content, which we both decided is quite uncommon and would probably make an interesting film.

I decided to look at the author of Xala, Ousmane Sembène. Wikipedia says that he grew up in Senegal, learned three languages (French, Arabic, and Wolof) and served in the French army, among other things.

It was interesting for me to learn about Sembène so that I could understand more about him as an author. When I know more about an author, it helps gives validity to his work and helps me to better understand when there may be significant information in a work. For instance, in Xala, it is important for me to know about his experience with the languages of Senegal and his experience in the army for me to understand why some scenes are more important than they seem at face value. One particular scene was the one where Rama is pulled over by a police officer and she speaks to the officer in Wolof while Pathe speaks to him in French.