I started this book in the summer when my then-roommate Jessica lent it to me. But I must have gotten distracted by other books, because I set it aside at some point and then never got back to it. After finishing Persuasion last month, which I admit had been a bit of a chore for me, I felt like I needed something I could read quickly. So when I was cleaning my room and found Things Fall Apart sitting half-read on the floor in my reading corner, I decided now was a good time to finish it completely.The story is of a man named Okonkwo, a member of the Umuofia clan in what is now Nigeria. The story, absent most direct references to western civilization, was difficult for me to place in time until the second half, when Christian missionaries appeared in the villages, and even then I could only narrow it down to about a hundred-year period. The society described in the story is one that is foreign to me, and something that has drawn me into so many very different books is finding the common threads of human experience while at the same time trying to understand that which is very different from my own experience. That's what I most enjoyed about reading this book.
There is no real narrative in Things Fall Apart, at least not that I can pick out. Although Okonkwo and his family lie at the center, there are frequently discontinuities in character, theme, and even chronology from one chapter to the next. But gradually what seems to be a series of vignettes comes together into a wider story of one man living a life amid changes that eventually culminate in tragedy.
I enjoyed the book during the read, but it wasn't until the last two pages that I decided that I really, really liked it. There's an abrupt change in the narrative voice in those last two pages that for some reason really struck me, a shift in the perspective that suddenly highlights the perspective in which the entire preceding narrative had been written and which created a contrast that shook me a little bit. It's subtle, but for some reason it really grabbed my attention and left me thinking after I had finished. I like books that leave me thinking like that.
3 comments:
Isn't this book interesting? It's the kind of book that when I see it on my bookshelf, I'm likely to reach up and touch its spine. I really enjoyed it and it made me think a lot, as you said. It's been quite awhile since I've read it, but it's stuck with me.
I heard Mr. Achebe speak about 15 years ago. He's an interesting man. I can't say I loved the book. It was very well-written, but also troubling for a modern reader. I found it depressing at the time.
I understand that this book was written to be a response to Heart of Darkness, from the African point of view. That's something I found very interesting about it.
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