Things Fall Apart (The African Trilogy, #1) in The Roundtable

Sep 22, 2010 Zadignose added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century

This is a good book that I didn't quite know was good until I started to approach the end. The beginning serves as context for the end, and the end gives perspective and purpose to the beginning.

I started out with some qualms about the book, and I never quite put them to rest. The book does largely take a position of... distance... explaining the culture and the central protagonist from a point of view that differentiates itself from what is being presented/described.

The narrative voice lets th This is a good book that I didn't quite know was good until I started to approach the end. The beginning serves as context for the end, and the end gives perspective and purpose to the beginning.

I started out with some qualms about the book, and I never quite put them to rest. The book does largely take a position of... distance... explaining the culture and the central protagonist from a point of view that differentiates itself from what is being presented/described.

The narrative voice lets the reader see (though not very bluntly or especially obviously), "I know you don't fully understand or support the behavior and beliefs of this person and these people, and neither do I, necessarily, but I'm still going to tell you how it was. They believed many things that you and I know aren't true, they were at times brutal and superstitious, more so than you and I, but I want you to know them and understand them a little more. Because YOUR mistake (white westerner) was in not understanding them."

In other words, the book makes "the other" less "other", but still clearly "other." And it reminds us that the missionaries and colonists who abused these others did so partly due to a failure of cultural understanding, and partly due to a failure to see the humanity of the other.

Fair enough.

It does not suggest that the people should not have been converted or that their culture should not have been compelled to reform, only that the way history progressed was a tragedy caused by ignorant cold-heartedness. The book does not deny the bad side to the traditional culture, nor does it conceal or apologize. It does look upon it with a curious, interested--if somewhat distanced--sympathy.

One thing that I liked, though, is that it provoked inquisitive thought without necessarily providing easy answers. It also entered into ethical grey areas.

Another thing that I liked, which gave the book life and some of its "novel" qualities is the inclusion of some material that is inessential. It didn't do so quite enough, perhaps, but it includes such little details as "She had, it was true, her moments of depression when she would snap at everybody like an angry dog. These moods would descend on her suddenly and for no apparent reason. But they were very rare and short-lived." This little tangent on Okonkwo's daughter Ezinma, which is presented long after we've gotten to know her, and which is never illustrated, does not serve any narrative purpose, does not lead to any further development, and is not related to any thesis, but it gives life to a character and a sense of living among a people. There are inclusions like this. There are, on the other hand, many other details such as the description of the preparation of foods, the exchange of aphorisms, or the execution of rituals, which are different in nature because they serve a sociological purpose. They record a culture rather than creating an individual life. There's room for that too, but I like more the little quirks and inventions of what is unique, aberrant, and fictive rather than what is sociological.

It is a strange thing, and I'm not sure how to respond to it yet, to recognize that with Okonkwo as the central character, it is actually the people around him, his father, his daughter, his friends, supporters, and enemies, who are more human and more interesting than the man around whom the novel is spun... at least until the climax. ...more

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Jan 12, 2009 El rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books-list, 20th-centurylit-late

This is the story of what happens when the white man comes along with Christianity under his belt to convert a Nigerian clan.

Okonkwo is a highly successful and powerful man in Umuofia, a village near the River Niger. His father was considered a lazy man with an extensive list of debts; Okonkwo worked hard to overcome his father's mistakes and strove to be different, ultimately rising to very high status in his village. During a funeral a traumatic accident occurs which causes Okonkwo to be exile ...more

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Sep 06, 2024 Wendy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books, culture-clash, blooms-western-canon, 2024

In Things Fall Apart, the author portrays a traditional Ibo community before and after British colonization, but does so without judgement or commentary (the expected "colonizing bad" message so ubiquitous these days). As such, the effect is one of nuance that highlights the paradoxical complications of Westernization. The first half of the book paints a society with very close familial and community bonds, connections to the immediate environment of dry and rainy seasons, and to a spiritual rea ...more

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Feb 03, 2009 Irene rated it really liked it

I first read this book decades ago as a young high school student and loved it. This story of a Nigerian village being transformed by their initial encounter with British missionaries bent on colonizing the native population is told with a sympathetic bent for the male Nigerians. As a young teen, I was fascinated by the tribal traditions and heartbroken for the loss of this way of life. This time, I was struck by the similarities between the tribal leadership and the Europeans: their shared use ...more

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Jun 14, 2009 Petra rated it liked it

I found the first half of this book to be slow and the story doesn't move along much at all. The main character, Okonkwo, bullies his way through his family and is a respected member of the Clan.
The second half of the book focuses on Okonkwo's Clan, their cultures, the coming of the Missionaries, the clash of cultures. The story becomes quite fascinating. Okonkwo still plays a large role but the focus is now on the Clan; not him.
The book is powerfully written (the second half, at least) and the ...more

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Jan 29, 2016 Pamela rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: boxall-1001-read, guardian-1000-read

This is an interesting story of conflicts and contrasts - between parents and children, the coloniser and the colonised, the ancient tribal ways and the Christian religion. Through the eyes of Okonkwo, we see his Nigerian tribe begin to fracture and fall apart, leading to violence and tragedy.

This is a subtle and well thought out story, raising questions about how we cope with change, the nature of humanity, and the ripples caused when two cultures collide. Okonkwo is not always a sympathetic c ...more

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Jan 29, 2016 Sera rated it really liked it

Shelves: audio, library, 1001-books, literary-fiction, series

Published in 1958, the novel provides an interesting reflection of the issues that Nigeria would face once it became an independent and was no longer subject to British rule. Achebe does a nice job of showing the difficulty of balancing local tradition and custom versus assimilation with the rest of the world by focusing on an unlikely protagonist in the book, Okonkwo, and his attempts to stand up to the changes that the white man brings to Nigeria.

I found this book to be very interesting, and I ...more

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Mar 20, 2013 Heather(Gibby) rated it really liked it

Shelves: 1001-to-read, august-15-challenge

An excellent novel which shows life in pre-colonial Nigeria and the challenges that the introduction of Christianity to their way of life. I listened as an audiobook, so it was a bit difficult to differentiate the different character's names. The main character is a respected patriarch in his clan, there is quite a bit of violence in the story. Their way of life is threated as missionaries start to convert the clan members. There is not a lot of plot in this book, it is more about culture and th ...more

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Mar 23, 2018 Elise rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, 1950s, historical, read-in-2018

A gracefully written, immersive look into the beginning of the end for pre-colonial Igbo society. Achebe incorporates traditional stories, proverbs, and practices into his narrative with enough explanation to keep an outsider from feeling lost. Even if the Igbo way of life is new to the reader, the protagonist Okonkwo is familiar: his strength, violence, arrogance, and stubborn independence make him akin to a hypermasculine epic hero like Achilles, and of course there's no place anymore for anyo ...more

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Apr 03, 2013 Lauren rated it really liked it

This book starts off slowly, and simply. Lots of talk about yams. Around 50 pages in, I googled foo foo and, despite not liking yams, decided that I would have to make them some time soon.

Then things build and build and about 2/3 of the way through, I was reading with a pronounced feeling of dread. Somehow you know this story, and you know how it will end. You'll rack your brain to try to figure out how it could have ended better in an alternate universe, but you will not be able to come up wit ...more

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