Things Fall Apart

1959 novel set in an Igbo (or, as it's rendered here, Ibo) village, both before and after the coming of Christian missionaries and colonial rulers. I found it an interesting and rewarding glimpse into a culture largely unfamiliar to me, as it brings this place and its people and its customs to vivid, and very human, life. I'm sort of struck by how, despite the differences in time, place and culture, the main character, Okonkwo feels so recognizable to me as a particular, familiar type of man. One who, in modern American culture, we might describe as "poisoned by toxic masculinity." Despite which, one feels real sympathy for him, and the ending of his story is incredibly poignant on any number of levels. Achebe doesn't shrink from show more depicting Okonkwo's violent nature or the way the customs of his people can be terribly cruel, but he also makes your heart ache at what is coming for them. And Okonkwo sees what is coming for them. show less

The first three-quarters of Things Fall Apart is immersed in the clan culture of eastern Nigeria (we don't actually learn the specific setting - the events of the novel can presumably be transferred to any sub-Saharan pre- and post-colonial setting). The society that Achebe describes can be brutally violent and superstitious, and the protagonist, or anti-hero, Okonkwo is so single-minded and angry that it's difficult to sympathize with him. I think that Achebe chose to show the clan society with all of its flaws to counter any nationalist or tribal tendency to romanticize an idyllic past. Despite these flaws, there is a well-defined system of ethics in place that is necessary to keeping the society intact. Things do indeed fall apart show more when the British colonial administrators and missionaries arrive on the scene.

Achebe doesn't place judgment on either culture; the point is that whenever two systems collide and contend for power, tragedy is unavoidable.

Revised 2.3.12

After another reading, what strikes me is the juxtaposition of the two cultures. The Western reader is shocked by some of the extremes of the tribal culture, but they make sense in context. They make no sense at all when confronted with British, imperial, Christian forces.

Revised 3/26/18

What makes this novel so brilliant is that it is unflinching. The animistic cultural traditions of the Igbo are treated matter-of-factly, with the contact with European Christians laying bare the internal tensions of the tribe. Achebe avoids value judgments here. In fact, it is Okonkwo's inability to really critique his own culture to be his downfall. He is a true believer; he cannot adapt. The Christians are just as rigid in their dogma - but they have the guns, germs and steel on their side. show less

Okonkwo is an Igbo man whose greatest desire is to be the successful man his father wasn't. Tragically for Okonkwo, the rules for success change during his lifetime with the arrival of British colonial government and the influence of Christian missionaries.

Achebe gives the reader an insider's perspective on the culture of Umuofia, Okonkwo's Nigerian village. Viewed from the inside, one can discern the source of many of the traditions and values of Okonkwo's world. The life and stability of the community takes precedence over individual rights, and men take precedence over women and children. In Umuofia, an entire village bears the weight of guilt for one man's crime, and it is considered just to execute an innocent man as payment for show more this collective guilt. Under such circumstances a clash with Western/European culture is inevitable.

Achebe's novel addresses universal themes of family, generational conflict, fear of failure, fear of change, friendship, religion, and social conflict. It's a must-read for anyone preparing to live and work in a cross cultural setting. show less

This is an extraordinary book in its ability to narrate both a story of cultural dissonance and an overarching tale about the human condition. Achebe's novel broaches the subject of morality, but demonstrates that even the concept of "evil" is subject to a cultural interpretive context.

Okonkwo, the book's tragic hero, is an emblem of tradition, but also represents how tradition can be subject to the inner turmoil of the human soul. While the Ibo people must face the threat of European missionaries, Okonkwo must confront the threat of his own misplaced hubris. Achebe is a sympathetic voice, but is unafraid to reveal the flaws of his characters as a commentary upon our own imperfect existence.

This is probably one of the best introductions show more to African fiction, precisely because the story does not limit itself to the African context. The author's investigation of tragedy is pragmatic, yet emotionally stimulating without being romanticized. It is a book that will help the western reader more easily understand not only Nigerian tribal culture, but the power of ideas and their institutions. show less

The book starts off with what seems at first to be vignettes of Nigerian life in a village, stories strung together by its inhabitants. Part II quickens the pace and the hero emerges more clearly, not as a saviour but as a tragic hero who seems to live in the past. Part III delivers the final blow and what was a snippet of a life suddenly become the emblem of an entire nation, indeed of an entire continent. Masterful and unforgettable.

Okonkwo’s father was not industrious, or manly, or wise, or wealthy. He was everything that Okonkwo swore that he would not be. And he wasn’t. From a very early age he established himself as a great wrestler, warrior, farmer of yams, and keeper of the traditions of his clan. Admittedly he was hard on his wives and his children. But no harder than he was with himself. His pride was easily offended and he feared even the hint of his father’s fecklessness. For a time his rise is unstoppable. But events, or his actions, or fate, or his chi conspire against him and he finds himself falling in the eyes of others and more importantly in his own eyes. Worse, the world in which he found his worth is itself changing out of all recognition show more with the appearance of white men and the white man's god.

This is a deceptively simple story, subtly told and curiously worked. Story threads recur in successive chapters, sometimes in successive paragraphs, but altered. It’s as though narrative itself is unstable in Okonkwo’s world. And ultimately the point of view shifts at the very end to the white district commissioner contemplating writing his memoir of his time in Africa in which, he muses, Okonkwo may merit part of one paragraph. Or he may simply be a detail that will need to be cut out.

Such narrative sophistication presented as a simple folk history of an unlucky man is what warrants the continued praise that this novel receives. I’m very glad that I finally took the opportunity to read it.

Highly recommended. show less

I found this a smooth, good read. Absorbing, well-paced, engrossing and not at all long--novella length. Sad to say, I don't as a rule expect good reads in those books upheld as modern classics, but this pulled me in. Someone who saw me reading it told me they found the style "Romper Room" and some reviews seem to echo that. I didn't feel that way. I'd call the style "spare"--which befits a writer who when asked which writers he admired and who influenced him named Hemingway along with Conrad and Graham Greene. And I loved how Achebe wove in folk tales and sayings and Ibo customs into the narrative. Things Fall Apart is considered a classic in African literature, and according to the introduction, Achebe wrote it to rehabilitate and show more counter what he called "the tarnished image of Africa," to give human dimension to the colonized.

The first part gives us a nuanced and detailed picture of life in a pre-colonial Ibo village during the late Victorian era. To Achebe's credit, he doesn't present that life as idyllic and his central character, Okonkwu, who embodies the tribal values, is deeply flawed. Okonkwu equates manliness with violence, and has used violence on his own family. In an interview after the text, Achebe said his "sympathies were not entirely with Okonkwu." Achebe presents the ills that the colonists brought to the traditional village society--the division between families, the imposition of foreign rule, the corruption and brutality endemic in the system which even destroys an entire village in reprisal for the death of one white missionary.

But Achebe also depicts what attracted people to the Christian missionaries beyond the schools and the hospitals, the trade. Among the first and most fervent converts are Oknokwu's own son Nwoye, bitter that his father killed his childhood friend who had tried to flee his fate as a human sacrifice, a pregnant woman who had lost several children because of the practice of twin infanticide, and two people from a taboo caste who find their first respect and equal treatment among the Christians. Frankly--and I know this is as un-PC as un-PC can be--but given Achebe's depiction of the brutal, superstitious, misogynist tribal culture, I was finding it very hard to see its destruction as tragic. Although, given all the different iterations I've seen and read of the "Dances With Wolves" motif, I did appreciate Achebe's willingness to show the unattractive side of a traditional culture.

At the same time Oknokwu's friend Obierika says "the white man... has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart." And just as Oknokwu upheld that old center, when it falls apart he does too. And whatever ambivalence I might have felt for his fate and the values he stood for, few contemporary readers can read that last paragraph from the point of view of the white colonizing District Commissioner without disquiet or miss Achebe's sharp and bitter irony. show less