The plot of this novel, which details the effects of government corruption, is not particularly new or surprising. What makes this treatment of such a topic more noteworthy is its telling through the African voice. Some readers will have a hard time with the pidgin English dialogue in this book, but beyond these difficulties the writing is clever and witty, tweaking traditional English turns of phrase with a more local sense of humour. The linguistic play works well to establish what is also notable about the plot: rather than being a simple story of a corrupt government, the novel works to show that it is not such mass entities that really affect the individual, but other single individuals who, knowingly or not, carry out the aims of the mass. Achebe thus shows that the problems of Africa are not just remnants of colonial oppression to be blamed on England, from whom many of the characters have taken the best she has to offer in terms of education and society, but the problems of Africans dealing with their own relationship to whatever powers might be. This point was fairly well illustrated by the penultimate chapter, but Achebe decides to spell it out more blatantly in the final chapter, which spoils the subtlety a bit; however, the book could not have legitimately ended without dealing with what becomes of the characters left behind in the last chapter, and so this can easily be forgiven, especially since many readers will find the shifts in narrative perspective a bit confusing at first. ( )

indulge me, please. this is a masterpiece, really. that's what I say. this book deserves all the praise that it gets. just read it.

Among his later works is ANTHILLS OF THE SAVANNAH (1987), a polyvocal text with multiple narrators. The story is set in an imaginary West African state where Sam, a Sandhurst-trained military officer, has become President. Chris Oriko and Ikem Osodi, his friends, die when resisting brutal abuse of power. A military coup eliminates Sam. Beatrice Okah - Chris's London-educated girl friend - is entrusted with her community of women to return the political sanity.

oh, and of course I *LOVED* the Igbo-English creole scattered throughout. I loved getting to figure out the patterns and realizing what they were saying.

notes/observations:

page 51---
"[...] the most awful thing about power is not that it corrupts absolutely but that it makes people so utterly boring, so predictable, and... just plain uninteresting."

page 88---
"It simply dawned on me two mornings ago that a novelist must listen to his characters who after all are created to wear the shoe and point the writer where it pinches."

"One of the things you told me was that my attitude to women was too respectful."

page 89---
"The original oppression of Woman was based on crude denigration. She caused Man to fall. So she became a scape goat. No, not a scapegoat which might be blameless but a culprit richly deserving of whatever suffering Man chose thereafter to heap on her. That is Woman in the Book of Genesis. Out here, our ancestors, without the benefit of hearing about the Old Testament, made the very same story differing only in local color. [....] Whatever the detail of Woman's provocation, the Sky finally moved away in anger, and God with it.

Well, that kind of candid chauvinism might be OK for the rugged taste of the Old Testament. The New Testament required a more enlightened, more refined, more loving even, strategy---ostensibly, that is. So the idea came to Man to turn his spouse into the very Mother o God, to picker her up from right under his foot where she'd been since Creation and carry her reverently to a nice, corner pedestal. Up there, her feet completely off the ground she will be just as irrelevant to the practical decisions of running the world as she was in her bad old days. The only difference is that now Man will suffer no guilt feelings; he can sit back and congratulate himself on his generosity and gentlemanliness...."

this is so very Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

page 114---
"Because it is only the story can continue beyond the war and the warrior. It is the story that outlives the sound of war-drums and the exploits of brave fighters. It is the story, not the others, that saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into the spikes of the cactus fence. The story is our escort; without it, we are blind. Does the blind man own his escort? No, neither do we the story; rather it is the story that owns us and directs us..."

this is very Homer. this is the ancient Greek concept of Kleos, the glory and honour that a warrior fight so valiantly for---not to gain rewards in this world so much, but that their story, and therefore their memory, will live on after their death. the story is everything. the story guides the people.

page 126---
"Shut your mouth. Who tell you say we de make small quarrel?"

"Madam, I no need for somebody to tell me when man and woman make small quarrel. When yo see the woman eye begin de flash like ambulance you go know..."

page 187---
"...but more so by far than Yours Sincerely who, don't forget, is one of the troika of proprietors who own Kanga itself!"

ah! glorious! a reference to Gogol's Dead Souls! wherein Gogol made a direct and famous comparison of the Russian state to a troika, travelling with such speed and purpose that other countries simply had to get out of its way... nevermind that inside that troika sat ensconced a thief and idiot. here, Achebe goes even further. Oriko, being at one time under the impression that the Kangan state was directly under his influence, realizes that he is not even a thief in the troika! no, he is but one of the three horses pulling it. ;)

he even put in a naming ceremony on page 206.

and again, one of the most perfect endings of a book I've read. 5! ( )

This my fifth Achebe, and may well be my favourite (though it’s a long time since I read some of the others). It follows a few weeks in the lives of former school friends (Sam, Ikem and Chris) in the fictional country of Kangan, who have seen their country gain independence from the British and who have gone on to important positions in the new administration (leader, newspaper editor and Minister of Information respectively). However, Sam’s exposure to power precipitates a transformation into a brutal dictator, as the power games played by his underlings leave him increasingly isolated and paranoid as supreme ruler. Chris and Ikem are best placed to observe their former friend’s transformation, and also worst placed to suffer its consequences.
I read this almost cover-to-cover in one sitting. Making the three main protagonists former school friends means that we are constantly exposed to their more human sides. Referring to the dictator as Sam, rather than ‘His Excellency’ is a constant reminder that he is a man, not a monster, and that there are forces surrounding him which explain his transformation. Achebe explores these forces, which include colonial influence, ethnic tension within his own country and the increased isolation that power thrusts upon him. The book does get overly didactic on occasions, reproducing and essay and seminar by Ikem explaining his position, but these are relatively short, and don’t get in the way of the narrative too much. Overall though, this was right up there with ‘Things Fall Apart’ as one of Achebe’s finest works.

I liked this book, though not so much as the first one by Achebe - 'Things fall apart'. That definitely was the author's masterpiece and I was expecting something comparable when I sat down with this one.
Anthills of Savannah is a story of a nation facing the political conundrum of a new found independence. After years of ruling, a country of course finds itself unable to take charge of a freedom, which it severely struggled to obtain. It is almost like you wait for exams to get over and when they are finally over you do not know how to manage the free time since you have been so focused on seeing them through that your head is heavily blocked up with that.
Achebe describes this confusion through the lives of three political leaders and through alternation of narration tries to give a wholesome picture. However at times, the different narrators do not seem too different but appear as one. In that he has failed to give multitude to his thought.
The book is dark, almost inadvertantly it appears, because it starts off with satire and winds up being a serious story.
So overall I suppose, though it is worth its while, you may see a lot of confusion in the book. ( )

Anthills of the Savannah is perhaps the best post-colonial African based novel I have ever read.
In Chris, the hero, we are taken through the corridors of power and on life on the run following a "fall from grace to grass" to use some words from the book.
The book attempts to show the evils of power (corrupts absolutely as Lord Acton, a British historian of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, would have put it) especially when entrusted to an elite who think they know best what the masses want. A very sad and tragic writing of African leaders who lead into oblivion and nothingness...