Things Fall Apart
by Chinua Achebe
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Book Reviews of Things Fall Apart
Book Review: PBRK at 34ºSouth
Summary: 5 Stars
The main thrust of Things Fall Apart is that with the arrival of the two pronged partnership of Christianity and the Colonial administration indigenous African polity entered a new phase of cultural conflict.
In Part 1 and Part 2 of Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe masterly sketched the village Umofia and its people and Okonkwo, the main actor, prior to the arrival of the Christian missionary as a time of cultural groupings of indigenous peoples ensconced by their traditions and taboos. The author's portrayal of life's economies of separation of duties, family relations and strong men sharing the invigorating cola nut and the eternal responsibility of the head of the family to be the provider for his house and hearth is a classical masterpiece. In all pre-modern civilizations a marriage is a bonding between clans and family groups - Achebe handled these subjects with style and insight and finesse. The funeral scene and clamor and mystique around a person of title are vividly described. Self-exile in case of breaking a tribal taboo is an age-old cultural "right thing to do" whether it is a Moses the Jew or the Greek philosopher or Okonkwo.
Chinua Achebe is through his storytelling describing the overlapping and socio-spatial configurations of a highly developed cultural tradition and economy of life. Bophelo is a difficult word to translate directly into English but it means something like "abundant and healthy and fulfilling life." Bophelo is conceived as residing in a series of social organisms that constitute society with encompassing social relationships - the person as embedded in the family hierarchy and simultaneously in a socially constructed geographic space. Okonkwo's homestead is located in a specific village as part of a wider kinsmen-group. The village is sustained by an overriding communal spirituality and beliefs. Okonkwo's personal identity, his being and his wellbeing is inextricably bound up with a particular social and geographic space. Chinua Achebe is masterly defining context of Okonkwo's identity and social location. The machismo Okonkwo's life is dominated by anger and apprehension, especially when his oldest son is intrinsically attracted to poetry and storytelling and he wished his daughter to be a boy.
In Part 3 of Things Fall Apart we see "a clash of civilizations". In the story of Okonkwo his whole world starts crumbling when his eldest son Nwoye is extricated from his father's Bophelo. It is not the faith of the Christians but the poetry of the new religion that has captivated Nwoye. Not only his eldest son but also other of his village are proselytes of the new faith and the new order. And this is where things fell apart.
Things Fall Apart is a master piece in the age-old tradition of story telling in the African lore.
Book Review: A strong novel despite a highly unlikeable main character
Summary: 4 Stars
Things Fall Apart is a remarkably simple straight forward told story about a hard and rough man living in a remote village in Africa. The story begins years before missionaries enter the landscape and begin to change the culture and customs of the land. The novel tells us of life before and after the missionaries came.
Although the novel is mostly about rituals, beliefs and history around this important period in Africa, it chooses to follow a very strong and unlikable character as its main focus. His name is Okonkwo. He came from a lazy father who he hated and is spite of that laziness and hatred of his father, Okonkwo becomes a hard working and ambitious leader in the clan of his village.
Okonkwo is not a good man. He beats his wife and kids regularly. He is a beast with a fierce temper but he is also a very respected throughout the village.
On a night of grieving Okonkwo accidentally shoots another clan member and is cast out for seven years with his family to his mother's homeland. Then the missionaries begin coming into the village during his absence. Okonkwo later disowns his son when he becomes friendly with the missionaries, who Okonkwo despises.
He returns back to his old village to find nothing is the same. The white man and his religion have changed everything. This isn't a book about flowery description and at times is very skeletal in its description but it moves along briskly with its story. There is never any emotional attachment that we develop with any of these characters. The characters seem to be mere vessels to carry the ideas and themes of the novel which really is about the vast differences between cultures and the connections that can unite or divide us.
I found the novel very good because it made me think about these ideas. At times I wondered how anyone could believe such things and there are some odd cultural practices, but then I realized that these people might also think my beliefs just as strange as theirs. The book is simple and interesting.
It is no masterpiece though. I believe the main problem with the book lies with the main character Okonkwo himself. I felt no pity in his demise even if some understanding remained for his firm beliefs and his fight to hold on to what he felt sacred.
Even with great ideas and cultural beliefs, I can't think a book is great unless I feel some connection to the characters and with Things Fall Apart I just couldn't. I just couldn't stand Okonkwo.
Don't get me wrong, I still highly recommend the book for the interesting ideas that one can dissect and discuss. I felt it would have had a stronger main character it could have been much stronger and might even have lifted it to a level of greatness.
Grade : B+
Book Review: Marvelous Eye-Opening Depiction of African Tribe [70][T]
Summary: 5 Stars
This book merges the African spirit of Alexander McCall Smith ("Lady's Detective Agency" series)with the prophetic rhapsody of Paolo Coelho ("The Alchemist") or Yann Martel("Life of Pi"). But, unlike the other books, this twists and turns you through a tangled web of the seemingly simple African natives (and their beliefs) and the white man's interpretation and treatment of the same when confronted by "progress."
Okonkwo, the main character -- whose manliness would be a leader in a hunter/gatherer world, or in the world of his farming land for annual survival -- is someone you admire and dislike. His strength is his weakness. He physicality conquers all challenges delivered to him. But, coming with his masculine heroics is a personality which commonly beats his spouse(s) and children.
His "heathen culture's" worshipping of many gods and honoring men with polygamist rewards may appear unforgivable to some - especially conservative Christian moralists. But, as this book succinctly and proficiently explains in narrative fashion how these people honor and worship their social mores, an anthropological analysis compels us to understand that these people hold the basic Judeo-Christian ethic, and have a strong justiciable system which actually surpasses many of those in our own "civilized" society.
The "golden rule" is the glue in which the village controls the behavior and morals of the inhabitants. The greatest example is the accidental death of a boy caused by the protagonist. Trial? No need. Blame? Not really. Penalty? Absolutely. Seven years of exile from the tribal clan - even though all understand he was not at fault. While gone, friends tilled his land and delivered his land's profits to he and tenant farmers. Amount of time for this application of justice: two days. And, we have always been taught that our civilized society depicts justiciable efficiency. In contrast, a British judicial ceremony involves the protagonist being heisted and hoodwinked by surreptitious deceit.
This book awakened an understanding of the tribe better than any other novel that I have read. The ending, which I will not covey as to do so would ruin the novel's effect, ties it all together.
I loved the style of writing. Short, choppy, and full of prophecies. African prophecy often reminds me of American Indian prophecy. Awkward in syntax, their prophecies poignantly and poetically describe solutions to what we perceive to be new issues. But, the appropriate application of a tribally carried prophecy for hundreds of years only tells us that the issue is not new and that resolution of the same is well known.
I can see why this book is highly regarded and can further understand why many colleges or universities require this novel for reading.
Book Review: Greek tragedy, African style
Summary: 3 Stars
This is another classic example of "what in the world are you thinking assigning this to high school kids?" It's a pretty durned fine book, and there is much therein upon which to reflect, but I'm guessing the adolescent and recently-postadolescent crowd is going to feel a book like this is being rammed down their throats. And they're probably right. Thankfully, I'm a year or so too old to have been assigned this in school, and I picked up a copy vaguely remembering classmates below me had had to read it. Perhaps my lack of memory about much of my high school and college days is a good thing, because I went into this novel without any preconceptions. I also went into it having read a few books from Heinemann's African Writers Series over the past few months, so I have something of a grasp on what African novelists were doing in the late fifties. (Not a bad idea, actually, since the "storytelling" nature of such tales can be jarring to someone who's used to modern American lit-- for example, your typical high school student.) All this being the case, Things Fall Apart, considered by many western critics to be the premier work of African literature of this century, may be quite deserving of its laurels.
Okonkwo is a tribal elder in Umuofia, a large village in southern Nigeria. He's the very essence of a self-made man, having inherited nothing from his father. Of course, events can't just go on day to day as we want them to, and a series of stumbling blocks face Okonkwo after he is given the care of a teenager the village has taken as a spoil of war.
The book is compared to classical Greek tragedy, and there are certainly elements of it here. However (remembering recent reading in Abel), to cast this as a true Greek tragedy would force a reading that says the tribal gods sent Christian missionaries to Umuofia in order to punish Okonkwo for various transgressions. I'm about halfway to accepting that this is what Achebe was after, actually. Otherwise, one is forced to read this in kind of the same way as the old joke whose punchine is "Job, something about you just sporks me off."
One way or the other, the writing is fluid, easy, and captivating, and the storytelling style is one I've always been drawn to (as opposed to the missionaries-- one white person, at the very end of the book, thinks to himself that one of the most annoying things about the tribe is their "superfluity"). I liked this one, surely more than my schoolmates who were assigned it. Those of you who were, and hated it, might want to try cleansing your palates with something by, say, Cyprian Ekwensi, or a different, lesser-known book by Achebe (A Man of the People would be a good start). Then tackle this one again. It's worth it.
Book Review: Concerning "Things Fall Apart"
Summary: 4 Stars
When I first began to read "Things Fall Apart" for a history assignment, I was skeptical. My first impression of the book, from the back summary and the first page, was that it was a book about barbaric peasants who got destroyed by the white man... at the time, I was sort of sick of hearing how white people destroyed some other people culture. Then I read the book. I was surprised that reading about the culture of some small villages in remote Africa could be interesting! I found myself reading and thinking about the Ibo people: their daily habits, their lifestyle, their religion, and the way they looked at life. I found that they possessed great respect, devotion to the village, and worshiped tradition. Tradition seemed to dictate every aspect of there life, for example, when Okonkwo accidentally shoots someone at a ritual, tradition has him exiled for seven years, and has his house burnt down and all his positions along with it. The book specifically states that his fellow villagers did not have any grudge towards him, but that it was just their "duty" to do that, because of tradition. The slow integration of the white man, his government, his lifestyle, and his religion is seen in this book. When we first encounter the peaceful white man, it is a missionary, who blatantly tells them all in that all of their gods are false, that they are evil, and that they are all uncivilized and must convert to worship the one true god. Some of the rejects of the village convert because it is the first time they are being welcomed somewhere. But most of the villagers just think he is crazy, so they let him stay on the outskirts of their village, in the "Evil Forest." The evil forest is an evil place where the bad spirits are. The evil forest is feared by the villagers, and they think that the white man will die because he is going to live there. When they see that he has not died, and has set up a church there, some of them immediately convert, while the others are amazed, but the others do not believe that they should do anything about it, but that the gods will do with him as they will. The white man continues to preach, and the congregation of his church slowly gets bigger. In the end, more white people come, a government is created, military personnel are brought in, and when the villagers finally realize that they are being destroyed, but it is too late for them to do anything about it. I think that the slow, sneaky, and backstabbing integration of the white mans way in this book shows that imperialism is very harmful. It completely destroyed cultures, people, and the respect and tradition those people had. All in all, read this book if you want to be pleasantly surprised about the "barbaric peasants."