By: Chinua Achebe Publisher: Anchor Books Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Anchor Books Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 209 Publication Date: 2000-06
Product Description: Okonowo is the greatest warrior alive. His fame has spread like a bushfire in West Africa and he is one of the most powerful men of his clan. But he also has a fiery temper. Determined not to be like his father, he refuses to show weakness to anyone - even if the only way he can master his feelings is with his fists. When outsiders threaten the traditions of his clan, Okonowo takes violent action. Will the great man's dangerous pride eventually destroy him?
Amazon.com Review: One of Chinua Achebe's many achievements in his acclaimed first novel, Things Fall Apart, is his relentlessly unsentimental rendering of Nigerian tribal life before and after the coming of colonialism. First published in 1958, just two years before Nigeria declared independence from Great Britain, the book eschews the obvious temptation of depicting pre-colonial life as a kind of Eden. Instead, Achebe sketches a world in which violence, war, and suffering exist, but are balanced by a strong sense of tradition, ritual, and social coherence. His Ibo protagonist, Okonkwo, is a self-made man. The son of a charming ne'er-do-well, he has worked all his life to overcome his father's weakness and has arrived, finally, at great prosperity and even greater reputation among his fellows in the village of Umuofia. Okonkwo is a champion wrestler, a prosperous farmer, husband to three wives and father to several children. He is also a man who exhibits flaws well-known in Greek tragedy:
Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children. Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Okonkwo's fear was greater than these. It was not external but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father.
And yet Achebe manages to make this cruel man deeply sympathetic. He is fond of his eldest daughter, and also of Ikemefuna, a young boy sent from another village as compensation for the wrongful death of a young woman from Umuofia. He even begins to feel pride in his eldest son, in whom he has too often seen his own father. Unfortunately, a series of tragic events tests the mettle of this strong man, and it is his fear of weakness that ultimately undoes him.
Achebe does not introduce the theme of colonialism until the last 50 pages or so. By then, Okonkwo has lost everything and been driven into exile. And yet, within the traditions of his culture, he still has hope of redemption. The arrival of missionaries in Umuofia, however, followed by representatives of the colonial government, completely disrupts Ibo culture, and in the chasm between old ways and new, Okonkwo is lost forever. Deceptively simple in its prose, Things Fall Apart packs a powerful punch as Achebe holds up the ruin of one proud man to stand for the destruction of an entire culture. --Alix Wilber
Good Read I read this book for the first time in high school I loved it. I found it to be detailed and I felt like I was in the village and I knew the people. The ending is extremely sad.
Erm.... I absolutely HATED reading this book. I respect it as a very popular piece of literature, but in truth I spent more time sounding out all of the names in this then actually reading it!
Things Fall Apart It's rare to find a book that can be at once so severe and so touching. This is a fantastic and emotionally charged book of a view of Africa that is not always revealed to the world in such a way in suh honest color. While Achebe clearly cares for the culture, he is not afraid to hide what is true about it. The result is a deeply moving look into the way of people and how they relate themselves to the rest of world as it changes.
Terrific This is a transcendant book about the culture, mores, and primitively beautiful ways of a place and people most of us will never get a chance to experience first-hand. The prose is terse and close, but worlds of emotion -- agony, love and surprise -- shine through at every turn. Above all, perhaps, the story is wildly interesting.
What makes fiction important I know this is the classic debate of all time when it comes to literature: Is it about beautifully written prose (THE STORY OF EDGAR SAWTELLE, incidentally, is a good example of this problem) or does it tell a compelling story? (yet the prose itself is not its strong point).
It seems that many works of fiction these days are of the former and unfortunately, not enough of the latter. I recently re-read this book along with another classic, JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN, after a discussion I had with a friend about this very subject. As a middle-aged person, I often look back at the books that made a difference in my life and much of the time, it's not about the author's writing style. Achebe's is a plain, straightforward style, but it's what he is conveying that is so striking about this story. (I am a bit miffed at the "English" teachers and the like who are downing this book!) Bottom line: I was left with a lasting impression that stayed with me. I can't say that many books do this today.
All I can say is pick up this read and decide for yourselves. Bottom line, this story is just as relevant today as it was so many years ago when it first appeared. These issues are universal and the world today is replete with similar conflicts. It's unfortunate to have to go back in time to find classic works of fiction, but sometimes there are exceptions. Check out--SIM0N LAZARUS, a word of mouth wonder more should know about.
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