Things Fall Apart: A Novel

It is amazing how a novel first published in 1959 about a Nigerian village, pre-colonization, still has relevance today. Talk about transcending time as well as cultures! Chinua Achebe is a magnificent story teller. I love authors who have the ability to transport me to worlds that seem so different from my own.

Okonkwo was a man that was obsessed with masculinity and the "power" of being masculine. Although I could see how harsh, abusive, and unyielding Okonkwo was towards his family, oddly I felt sympathy for the man. He was the product of his environment and culture. Apparently his callousness was worsened because of his fear that he should become like his father ----- a man with no title, in his culture, the equivalent of being a woman.

How many of us struggle to balance the new with the old? And how often do we question or all out resist changing times.... be it attitudes or ideas, advancements in technology, religion, policies, music, etc. Most of us reach a certain age where we would prefer our traditions be left alone. In some instances there should be no room for compromise, but in other instances perhaps there truly is improvement/advancement to be gained.

Okonkwo's struggle is exactly that. He strives to leave behind a proud legacy. However, he makes bad decisions along the way. The more he tries to make things right the more it seems that misfortune comes his way. He's angered and confused about the changes that come upon his village but that combined with his pigheaded demeanor make for a disastrous result. It's a good book to take up beyond school required reading. Achebee gives his readers a great deal to consider.

My son had a senior project to do over the summer, he had to read this entire book and the first day back to school, he had a test on it, my son does not do well on reading, he can read great, but he has trouble remembering what he read, so I thought if he listened to it being read to him, he could follow along better, well he did, and he done well on his test and essay, I would recommend this product to anyone with similiar problems as my son has with reading.......

My son needed this book for school and we received in time for school. Great service!

At 180 pages, Things Fall Apart possesses the requisite brevity to urge a reader along. And, thank goodness for this, for had I not been sure I would finish the book in one day, I might well have let it sit for longer. Achebe's opening chapters are childlike in their simplicity. A sing-song narrative meanders from one social event to another with no clear direction perceptible. Indeed, the ostensible insignificance of it all remains unchallenged for nearly two-thirds of the book. It is then, however, that the protagonist Okonkwo is banished from his village for an accidental transgression. It is during this absense that European missionaries come to call. And things, with alacrity, begin to fall apart.

As the social cohesion of the Ibo dissolves, I recognized the artfulness of Achebe's approach. Though Ibo customs could be violent and harshly uncompromising, the author deftly portrays the comfort and security that timeless tradition brings. The threshold event encountered, the sing-song narrative quickly transforms into a tragic account of confrontation and loss. The abrupt transition from seclusion to exposure is the hinge on which the book swings. Deceptively powerful, Things Fall Apart is a quick read that will leave the reader far more reflective than initially presumed. 5 stars.

We had to read this for high school (I think it was grade 10, which would make it a ridiculously long time ago), but I loved this book from the first time I picked it up. A richly descriptive story of tribal conflict and the arrival of the white man in traditional non-Christian Africa. Although we, in the modern world, may deride Okonkwo for denouncing progress and advancement, he is a very sympathetic character whose ideals and traditions one must respect deeply. This is a beautiful tragedy of coming of age, in a sense, for the African tribesman, and should be mandatory reading. It's a fantastic book, and you won't regret picking it up.