Things Fall Apart — A Novel About The Tough Nigerian Life
Alright, I think I’ve stumbled across another one of those books which are considered, “one of the great works of literature”. Of course, I always love the challenge of trying to grope my way through the book, and it’s always interesting to see how the novel ends up.
This one — quite unique and special, for many reasons (will discuss below) and presents a different way of representing ideas. By this, I mean he doesn’t strangle you with words you’ve never heard of, the language is smooth and clean, but his other aspects are quite delightful and simply want you to keep progressing. Today I’m talking about Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart”.
This book, I guess, you can categorise it as a tragedy, but that is only when you consider the Part 2 and 3 of the book. It is situated in Nigeria, in the villages of Umuofia. Part 1 is building understanding of the surroundings and some of the social customs that would have occurred in the Umuofia. It does also mention the main characters and some backstories. Our main character here is Okonkwo, one of the leading man of his village. In Umuofia, there is no such thing as a “king” or “queen”, rather it is led by different titles of status, leaders of the village and the village elders. Okonkwo rises to this fame, but how does he do it …. let me outline it.
Okonkwo’s father, Unoka, was not the type of person who was the most successful. As a debtor and a musician, he always kept borrowing cowries which but never returning them. He had a family, a wife and a few children, but, Unoka, he simply in his mud bed, and whenever he accumulated enough money, rather than helping his family, he would spend it on some palm-wine, ignoring his family. Unoka died not paying his debts to lots of people in the village. We never do know if his sons had to pay them the cowries back … eventually.
Anyways, Okonkwo is driven madly by his father’s lack of manliness, his cowardice, and his failure to act. Okonkwo had to support himself from a young age, growing his own farm, and feeling the pain of the fluctuating weather destroying his yam crops. Yam was a common food in Nigeria, along with Fufu. But with hard work, and the support of Unoka’s successful companions, he slowly rose, and built his own compound, and supported not only himself but his mother, and his sisters. Okonkwo not only farms successfully, but he gains strength, always winning in wrestling matches, and impressing the woman of Umuofia.
There are some things I like about Part 1, about how we can simply view the Nigerian life without any disturbances. One interesting thing is that how the Oracle decides who will live, and who will be mutilated. For example, all the twins in the village, or discarded, killed, and buried in the “Evil Forest” of the village. Sickly ill people, suicide people are all buried in the Evil Forest. The Oracle was the words of the mighty god Agbala. There’s quite a lot, so let me get down to when the whites suddenly arrive and other major events. This is where the chaos begins. In a funeral ceremony, Okonkwo is yielding a rifle, to shoot to the sky as celebration, but he accidentally fires a young boy, a clansman, unintentionally. And off he goes, seven years of exile.
Okonkwo is now in his mother land, depressed, of what he has lost, and has to build his foundations. His great expansive obi and other farms, burnt down, “…. not out of hate” but because of the strict tradition. Seven years have gone, but Umuofia has changed. White missionaries arrive, spread their word, deceive the people and convert many. The church was built over the Evil Forest. No one died. It simply kept growing. Many Nigerians were convinced of this new religion, and defied culture and previous religion to attend church. Even one of Okonkwo sons leaves his family to join the Christian faith. Enraged, Okonkwo tries to gather the people, but it simply doesn’t work … and the book is nearly done.
I’ll leave the ending to you … this book is really captivating and engaging as a reader in the third-person omniscient perspective.
