Things Fall Apart

Rating:
Summary: More than meets the eye
Review: Every time I read this book, I find things I hadn't seen before. It's deceptively simple. I read it in college, and filed it away mentally for years. Beyond the vivid (and interesting) descriptions of West African village life, it hadn't made much of an impression.

I'm a college professor now, and last year for the first time I assigned this novel to my students. Much to my surprise, they LOVED it. We talked about the book for a week. The following semester I assigned it again, and had similarly excellent results.

I've read it three times now, and keep finding subtleties: symbols, hidden meanings, shades of things to come. As a teacher, I think the trick is: 1) save the book until the students are about 20 years old, so they're mature enough to really dig into it, and 2) don't tell them much about the book - just let them encounter it on their own, fresh and new, and see what happens.

Rating:
Summary: Get out the no-doze
Review: Insomniacs unite! This book is better than sleeping pills because no matter how boring, confusing, or inane it happens to be, it can't kill you. (like Elvis) "Things Fall Apart" will not react with any other medication, cause constipation, or male impotence. Once your problem is solved, you can use your copy of "Things Fall Apart" for many other exciting uses, including lining the birdcage, picking up doggy doo, wrapping small presents, and placing pages in greeting cards to confuse your friends. In fact, "Things Fall Apart" is great for many things, the least of which is reading (That is, if you don't have poblems sleeping, of course.)

Rating:
Summary: Slow Moving for Too Long
Review: Most of the book is devoted to setting the stage for the final fifth (if you like lengthy descriptions of primitive African tribeswomen preparing meals you're going to love this novel). On the other hand, when someone blandly points out that European influences in Africa destroyed a way of life that perhaps didn't need to be destroyed, you will know from reading this book precisely what that way of life was like. It's a sort of African "Gone With the Wind." Achebe makes no judgments; he simply tells what happened. And he leaves it to you, the reader, to supply your own sense of devastation. I just wish we could have been treated to a little more plot in the first four-fifths of the book. A lot of kids are assigned this book in high school, and I can see why they go stir-crazy trying to sit still and read it. That they are eventually rewarded by a brilliant ending must be, for them, scant recompense for their toils.

Rating:
Summary: Achievement Kills
Review: Things Fall Apart tells the story of Okonkwo's life. The book gives an excellent feel for the life of an Ibo tribesman in the Nigerian bush. The reader learns of customs and taboos; how families relate and power is wielded; and how society deals with taboo violations. The impact of British Colonial rule also makes an appearance in this tale--leading to a conclusion which gasps with intensity.

But if this were all the book had to recommend it, one could easily ignore it as a mere window into the bygone lifestyle of a culture most of us can safely pay no attention to. Few of us will ever travel to occupied Biafra to eat yams and see the colorful clothing. The closest most of us will ever come to this environment is the Nigerian taxi driver who whisks us to the airport or hotel.

Okonkwo begins his life in shame. His father fails to provide well for the family. For the rest of his life, Okonkwo sets out to demonstrate to the world that he can do better. He works tirelessly, he accumulates degrees and initiation. He affords wives and children.

But, he finds little pleasure in this life. Angry, violent, he distances himself from the family who might have succored him. Still, driven by shame, he keeps working hard, trying to show the world that he is a force to be reckoned with. More yams! More wealth! Lead the village to battle! Stand firm & strong.

Although his compatriots admire him, he fails to connect with them. Rather than allowing friendships to deepen, to find support and connection, Okonkwo continues to achieve, to compete, trying to surpass those who would have loved to be his allies.

This isolation, born out shame, leads to Okonkwo's demise. Achievement never leads to the community, to the connections and sharing, which allows shame to heal. Okonkwo was never able to feel a part of his community, and it cost him his life.

Isolation and shame are rampant in twentieth century western culture. The message we experience repeatedly tells us that our achievement will lead us to power and to happiness. The reality, as disclosed in Okonkwo's story, is that achievement does not create connection. Only the willingness to be vulnerable, to let another see into one's private spaces, will build the community and connection which can heal shame.

Rating:
Summary: Not Much To It
Review: As an effective story, "Things Fall Apart" frankly just doesn't work.

A friend of mine sent me this book stating "Chinua will take you there." Where? After 200 pages, even after spending the whole book trying to develop the main character and make the reader feel for him, unfortunately I didn't feel for him like I was wanting too. Its almost like a good script with bad actors. Which takes us to the storyline- potentially potent stuff, especially considering it is based upon the colonization of Africa, but it could have been much more effective. Instead it sounds to me like an angst-ridden tirade, a thinly veiled emotional attack. Unlike Dee Brown's excellent book on the European invasion of America, "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" where we could really feel the plight of the indigenes as well as see the crimes of the invaders, in "Things Fall Apart" we are left with only a fleeting shock that doesn't stick because the story dooesn't stick (which in my opinion is a huge loss of an opportunity to tell the bigger story about the ugly conquest of Africa).

While this book is an excellent insight into the daily life of an African tribesman, Chinu's angst, which is easily discerned, seems really juvenile to me. Getting angry at the evildoers is a story as human existence, and its getting really, really trite. People kill people in Yugoslavia too, white people. Am I excited about reading the next book about that? Are you?

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant work by Africa's most important writer
Review: Things Fall Apart is the sort of book that teaches you something different regardless of the number of times you read it. It's opened a lot of western (and indeed, some African) eyes, to the ancient traditions of Africans, which for political and economic reasons have long been denigrated by the western media. Things Fall Apart shows for all to see that in ancient African societies, there existed Order were the west spoke of Chaos, Poetry were the west spoke of 'disjointed, grunting sounds' eg in Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' , and sophisticated political organization (as seen in the age-grade system, Umuofia's Council Of Elders and the ancient judicial system of the egwugwu), were the west reported 'savage barbarity of a kind not much higher than that of monkeys'

Rating:
Summary: Things Fall Apart, like this story, Part 2
Review: All right, I ran out of time to finish the review, so I continue now. This book was long and drawn out to an unnecessary point. It was kind of like reading the J.R. Tolkien where the Counsel of Elron (sorry, I have forgotten the spelling over time) takes up the first half of the book. This book takes 20-some chapters to get to the information that is the basis of the book. Moving on to grammar, the sentences appear short and choppy, or long and winding, kind of like Dickens, but without the literary intelligence. The lingo (African Words) was well defined, however, the constant switching back and forth between the lingo and English definitions was distracting, and frankly irritating. As previously mentioned, the ending (which was so beyond depressing) seemed to make a better epilogue to me. It would have been far better organized to have the last chapter or two as an epilogue, and it would have, in my opinion, made a far better ending. In my way, the story could have ended in a higher note by temporarily defeating the encroaching religion.

Rating:
Summary: Things fall apart and come back together as more whole
Review: I read this book during the early 70's as a requirement for an anthropology class. It has stayed with me all these years. I mark reading it as the beginning of my adult life, as it helped me to question and challenge beliefs that shaped my world view. I highly recommend it to anyone ready to open their minds and hearts to the rough truths of religion and politics....I was glad to see that Barbara Kingsolver used it as a reference (and recommended reading) for her novel, The Poisonwood Bible. They would make an excellent duet of a read.

Rating:
Summary: ...The falcon cannot hear the falconer
Review: 'Things Fall Apart' is absolutely beautiful. I don't think I've ever been so moved by such simple, perfect writing. The story is engaging, and the book lacks the pretension so prevelant in most 'works of literature.'

A truly amazing book.

Rating:
Summary: "... things fall apart; the centre cannot hold ..."
Review: This book is very rich in culture, Ibo culture or just African culture. It is a book about [Ogbuefi] Okonkwo, a renowned young elder in the village of Umuofia, just before the brink of British colonialism and export-Christian indoctrination to the "Empire" in the second half of the 19th century. It is a book about an African society for which oral tradition, tribal culture and ritual were very meaningful. A society in which there was no established "chief" and yet with an unwritten order of rank and file among the tribesmen and their women, made to function "smoothly" through a complicated network of elders and fellow tribesmen with "tribal ties" and "ties of tribal blood" to each other. There were conflicts and inter-tribal war, but so also was there peace. There was ritual murder, contact to the Spirit World and ghosts were alive. Everyone outside the village and who didn't belong to the tribe was a "foreigner" and journeying out of Umuofia was called "going abroad". Elders met frequently to exercise their oratory powers of Ibo speech and parables and even to "gossip" about the customs of some of their neighbours, villages nearby. I remember an interesting portion of the book where all the elders talk about the weaknesses of their neighbours' traditions and then they all marvel as one of them informs them:

".. and have you heard? In certain cultures, the family's children belong to the wife and not the husband!" ... And then they all laugh as one of them answers:".. you might as well say that, in those cultures, the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the children!.." [Laughter]

The book is full of ibo parables, idiomatic sayings and African fables of spirits and the power of magic and wizardry. There is a fable about one "Nnandi", alone in the forest who was always "cooking and eating", with rain falling and the sun shining.

Okonkwo is a big, strong and powerful man. He is also a wrestler and about the only one who ever floored the renowned "Amalinze The Cat". Okonkwo is an interesting personality who loathes anything to do with weakness and cowardice; for that is why he has no kind memories of his own father, a lazy ne'ver-do-well as he sees him. He is a successful and rich man with 3 wives, whose fields are always ploughed, his barns full and is very respected in the village of Umuofia and "abroad" as a courageous warrior in war. He was the first many times to bring back chopped-off heads of enemies from war! He is one giant of a man and rules his household with a heavy iron hand. His own kids are afraid of him. His wives are afraid of him. He is a domestic dictator who can growl like a lazy lion about anything anytime he chooses, though not always without reason! He actually lives in fear of failure and losing honour and place in his society, that is why he is so hard and really scared. He lives in fear of resembling his weak father.

Okonkwo's tragedy begins with his own eldest son, Nwoye, in whom he sees a mirror-image of his lazy father. Perhaps to fill in for this vacuum, he takes a particular liking for Ikemefuna, his "adoptive" son. The tragedy intensifies when the "Oracle Of The Hills And Caves" -- a spirit medium -- decrees that Okonkwo slaughter his son for sacrifice in a religious, tribal ritual. Because he doesn't want to be branded or seen by others as a coward, he does it, though with a heavy heart. Ikemefuna is killed. The consequences of this ritual killing make him banned for, I think, "seven rains and seven harvests" - something like seven years.

When Okonkwo returns to Umuofia, he finds that things have drastically changed and that there are white men manning things and attempting to run everything. There are missionaries on the scene proclaiming a new religion, saying there is only one one God, who once sent His son to die for everyone's sins. At this, I remember one in a gathered audience answering back very seriously at the translator and his preaching white man:

" Wait a moment! You say God has a son, who is his wife then?"

Okonkwo finds many Umuofians - including his own eldest son -- converting to Christianity and this burns him with anger. Nevertheless, he remains "distant" in his approach to these alien influences -- or to those driving them -- until the day of confrontation comes, when a forbidden meeting takes place and all the men of Umuofia meet to discuss the strange culture "invading" their village. A non-Umuofian black messenger of the white man -- sent by the white man to inform the gathered armed men of Umuofia to disperse -- answers Okonkwo, who had jumped forward and asked him with contempt what he wanted there,:

" This meeting is illegal. The white man, whose power you know too well, has ordered it to stop!"

At that moment, Okonkwo, burning with anger and hatred, drew his machete in a flash and used it and slew the white man's messenger, cut off the messenger's head from its uniformed body. But then Okonkwo -- fearful of the powerful white man's vengeance and revenge -- disappears and soon hangs himself with a rope. As a suicide case, cutting his body down was a traditional taboo, for whoever did it without performing a medicineman's ritual was surely bound to face the wrath of the vengeful tribal spirits. Who was gonna cut him down from that rope now? The other elders and his friends gathered and discussed ...

And yet the author sympathetically portrays Okonkwo as a strong and prototypical African tribesman with his own manly problems and excesses of that age -- a heroic warrior who has no war to fight and is more at war with himself.

Professor Achebe's books are all very good and I think I've read most of them. They are historical [even a little prophetic, like "A Man Of The People" published just before Nigerian's first military coup -- I think -- in January 1966]. His books chronicle the different stages of change in his Ibo society -- but also in Nigeria and Africa, as a whole -- through the last 100 and more years. In this regard, this story of Okonkwo's tragedy at the time of the European partition of Africa is continued in Professor Achebe's second book, "No Longer At Ease", which tells the modern-day "good life" and easy survival of Obi Okonkwo, Okonkwo's intelligent, principled, "bourgeois" and well-educated grandson living at the brink of Nigeria's independence as a middle-class, well-paid civil servant. There were very, very few of his kind: black, well-educated, "been-to", owning a car, etc. But then the sad fall! An intellectual young man's tragedy! It would be helpful to read this book, too.

Thumbs up to all of Prof. Achebe's books[!] I have been reading them from the time I was 13 [and that's more than a decade ago now]! Interesting! This is real "African" literature!! I guarantee you!!!