From the Bookshelf of James Mustich's 1000 Books to Read Before You Die…

Things Fall Apart (The African Trilogy, #1)

Chinua Achebe

Start date: November 3, 2024

Finish date: November 30, 2024

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What Members Thought

May 08, 2018 Bryan--The Bee’s Knees rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: guardian-read, books-i-read-in-2018, audio-edition, boxall-read

I did not expect to like this book, because I made a lot of assumptions about what was in it. What I found instead is the thing I value most in a book, which is its ability to change or adjust my viewpoint.

Achebe is justly famous for this book, though I knew of him first through his comments about Joseph Conrad. And it seems to me that Things Fall Apart is Achebe's effort to fill the gap created by Conrad and other writers; to tell the individual story of a man who would be considered exotic, o I did not expect to like this book, because I made a lot of assumptions about what was in it. What I found instead is the thing I value most in a book, which is its ability to change or adjust my viewpoint.

Achebe is justly famous for this book, though I knew of him first through his comments about Joseph Conrad. And it seems to me that Things Fall Apart is Achebe's effort to fill the gap created by Conrad and other writers; to tell the individual story of a man who would be considered exotic, or savage, or, perhaps worse, merely backdrop and scenery in a novel written by someone in Conrad's position. In this, the novel succeeds fantastically.

Things Fall Apart ends up being a portrait of such a man--Okonkwo--and of his family and clan. Much of the book is a close look at the life in an Ibo village, using Okonkwo's experiences as a fulcrum on which to balance the narrative and the ethnographic detail equally. Since the book spans pre-colonial and colonial periods in Nigeria, many of the details about this way of life are thrown into sharp relief when missionary and colonial authorities confront indigenous ways.

I mentioned before that I had expected certain things from this book (and also that I expected to dislike it)--and the thumbnail description I just gave is not substantially different from what I thought I would find going into the novel. What is different, and what really makes it all work, for me, is the characterization of Okonkwo. Had Achebe made him a martyr or a saint, I may not even have been able to finish the book. It is impossible for me to say that Okonkwo is a good or a bad man--or even a typical one. But he is fully realized, with aspects that I find both disturbing and admirable. There was never a moment when I felt like Achebe was trying to make me like him or his people. He never qualifies or excuses, which made the changes after the missionaries came all the more upsetting.

I thought that Things Fall Apart would be a novel that I was supposed to like but would not. Instead I thought it was excellent.
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Mar 31, 2020 Kaleigh✨ Howard rated it liked it

This book is so hard to rate and review because here’s the thing, it has some great messages. It gives a voice to African tribes in a time when only white men published books about them, it discusses the clashes of cultures, the horribleness that was colonization and imperialism, women’s rights, and a whole load of other things. The prose is also really beautiful at times, but it is still a super easy and quick read. All that said, I think it’s a great book, just one that tends to not be that en ...more

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Feb 05, 2022 Matt rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

Last time I read Thing Fall Apart was in 9th grade and I probably spark noted it, so I remembered very little. I didn’t remeber that Okonkwo was such an unlikeable protagonist or that ending. It really is such a great but infuriating ending. God, I hate that district commissioner. The first 2/3 of the novel feel very anthropological. Achebe really dives into Igbo culture and religion prior to European imperialism. It is really only the last 50 pages or so that things start falling apart. What I ...more

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