Things Fall Apart is written by Chinua Achebe and is the
first book in The African Trilogy. It is
told from the perspective of a Nigerian Tribe as Christianity is thrust upon
their world in the late 19th Century.
I knew that this book was one that was critically acclaimed
and perhaps that made me go into it with certain expectations. With that being said, I definitely wouldn’t
want to read this book again for many reasons.
Let’s start with talking about the good aspects of the
book. At the time that it was written,
Chinua Achebe led the charge with showing a Nigerian perspective of the
Imperialist takeover of West Africa of the late 9th century. As far as the book itself, I have to praise
Chinua for taking an overall view in the description of life. He manages to portray both the good and bad
of the tribes that the reader follows throughout the story, and still shows a
predominantly unbiased approach to the missionaries and their dealings.
My biggest complaint about this book is the telling of
it. It told from an omnipotent narrative,
that predominantly follows the life of Okonkwo, a revered Nigerian
warrior. The book can most be related to
thinking within one’s mind. When you are
thinking about something such as ice cream, and then you describe it in detail
and then it makes you think about food in general such as pizza, and then you
think about Italy and then you try to remember what you were originally
thinking about and you go back to the flavor of the ice cream. Part one of the book was the worst about
this. The book was jumping around so
much. It would topic jump and then back
track and retell part of the story and then jump again, and then go back to the
same story later. It was quite annoying
to read, and disrupted the flow of the book quite extensively.
I also wished for more descriptions. I don’t know why I have encountered so many
book recently that completely left off the physical descriptors of the
people. It is hard to become immersed
within a story if the author fails to paint the full picture for you. I had to look up pictures of 1890s era
Nigerian tribal members to try to get a feel for what was going on at the time,
and to try to bring the characters to life for me.
My other problem in connecting with this book was that Part
One took up almost 60% of the book being about the indigenous people, daily
life, and beliefs, and then Part Two is in his mother’s village and the Christian
missionaries are coming into their life, and the Part Three is very abrupt with
Christianity thrust upon them.
After all that, the end was very dissatisfying and left me
saying… “Wait, what?” I don’t want to spoil it, but I feel that the
end of the book went against Okonkwo’s nature as a warrior and in his belief
that he would do such a thing.
Overall I give the book 2 out of 5 stars. I love the attempt that was made. I wish this book had better flow. It was a painful read for me to get through
it. I did love Okonkwo’s daughter, and
it would be interesting to hear a book told from her point of view. I get that it was nice to see something from
this perspective and I can appreciate the subject material. The bottom line for me is that if you strip
that away and just look at this as a story, it is severely lacking in star
quality. It is a good read if you are
interested in classics, historical fiction, Nigeria, British imperialism of
west Africa, Christianity, Indigenous beliefs in Africa, the Igbos, etc.
