Book Review: Things Fall Apart (1958) by Chinua Achebe*

* - Another one from the archive. More to follow.

A stunning work in its economy: 210 pages, and nary a word wasted. Before reading this book in three hours, I would not have even thought that possible, but this "great novel" actually pulls it off and then some. The story can be summed up somewhat simply - a man overembraces his culture and its pillar-placing of manhood, largely in response to his father's failings in the public sphere of the village. Okonkwo, the protagonist, is a man on the up and up - a regionwide famous wrestler, a furious warrior who has beheaded no less than five enemies, and a self-made man who raised himself from the ashes of his father's incompetence. He bites into his culture with fervor, taking its superstitions, customs, wine ceremonies, bride-prices, mysterious pseudo-mystic gods and costumed departed ancestors, etc., as the marrow of life; there is no other way, and all of his goals in life, yam-related and otherwise, are specifically stone-oriented to this highly complex culture. This same culture, with its rational settlement of disputes and intricate rituals, also features barbaric brutality towards women, a naive and evil superstition regarding twin births, and at times ruthless and nonsensical traditions. A lot of the brilliance of this novels lies in this idea. Achebe's masterpiece is largely considered a response to portrayals of African indigenous peoples such as Conrad's Heart of Darkness - Achebe himself would go on to call Conrad a blatant racist. But the brilliance within the novel is its response to a starkly negative portrayal with a starkly non-positive one. True, the African indigenous cultures are far more sophisticated and rich than Conrad's portrayals of background primitives, but they are not an idiotic portrait of idealism. Okonkwo's culture, and Okonkwo himself, at least on some level the epitome of accomplishment in that culture, is far from perfect, and rears ugly head and beautiful grace with equal aplomb. Achebe does not say "we are actually a great people," he merely says "look at our greatness and our hideousness; we are human, just as you."

The first section of the novel is riddled with simple detail that must be experienced - the roles of women in the culture, the role of spirit and religion and the role of a fastidious, industrious work ethic developed in the fire of a difficult to inhabit land. This first-hand account of an existence is worth the price of admission alone, and Achebe seamlessly weaves vignette narratives, one into another, even incorporating native language into the narrative with simple ease. The novel reads like a first-hand experienced folk tale: simple and memorable, but lacking in fantasy as the horrors and joys are real as can be.

The novel takes it title from lines of a Yeats poem (some of my personal favorites):

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

This is foreboding stuff enough, but the title is a more complicated game that first glance reveals. Yeats's poem is called "The Second Coming," and is read as a apocalyptic foretelling of the fall of Western culture - that somehow the men from the developing world, the non Christians, minorities, indigenous peoples, would be the one to throw the Anglo Saxons from the collective throne and unloose chaos upon the world. So while on the one hand the title refers to Okonkwo's destiny to watch a culture decay through his fingers, it is also a satirical pointing of fingers: whose culture is crashing whose into mere anarchy, again?

Okonkwo is a victor of his culture and also a victim; an accident effectively exiles him from his village where all his success is born. His exile also largely encompasses the line from pre-colonial to colonial, pre-missionary to missionary. So it is not only his life that comes unfurled, but his culture from its roots. The conflicts are both social and brutally emotional; Okonkwo's interactions with his family and loyal friend from the village are some of the more heart-tearing ones I've read. He ultimately returns home, and a dire conflict between tradition and ability to adapt to change are brought to climax; the white man's infiltration into the African culture has been slowly insidious, well-intentioned, misunderstanding and brutal all at once.

It is hard to write without giving things away, so I'll stop here. Achebe's vision is beautiful, stubborn, and above all honest despite its fiction. He paints a skeleton of a culture that was and its downfall and allows the reader to spot the connections with perfect subtlety. This is the rare book that backs its reputation; its message is not a fable, but a real painting of life and the intricacies therein. Simply a transcendent work.