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Abdi85
Veteran Poster
Username: Abdi85
Post Number: 57
Registered: 04-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, June 17, 2006 - 06:10 am: | 
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Ok people I don't understand why Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe hasn't been given a fair shake on this forum. To me this is THE African novel and puts so many issues into one jam packed, lyrical, and timeless story about the human spirit/condition. His other novels are amazing too, my fav being Anthills of the Savannah. Come on people what did you think about this amazing book? |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 2299
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, June 17, 2006 - 10:15 am: |
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I posted something about it on 5/11.
Obviously nobody has read it but you and me. Instead of waiting for the inevitable silence, why don't we just start discussing it.
Then maybe lurkers will chime in and then maybe others who haven't read it will want to. |
Jackie
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Jackie
Post Number: 199
Registered: 04-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, June 17, 2006 - 12:42 pm: |
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LOL Chris. I read Things Fall Apart a long while ago and enjoyed it but I need to do a reread. |
Abdi85
Veteran Poster
Username: Abdi85
Post Number: 59
Registered: 04-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, June 18, 2006 - 08:47 am: |
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Ok chrishayden there is alot to cover, first off just to throw it out there, what did you think of novel? Both of the story and its overall message and impact?
I know its a chessy place to begin but I'm tired as hell and it also gives us a chance to start somewhere. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 2303
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, June 19, 2006 - 12:11 pm: |
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The first part I think was an excellent examination/survey or what have you of pre colonial Igbo culture--Achebe showed us the good and the bad of it--
The second part made my blood boil when it showed how the English came in and ran game on the Igbo--now one might tend to say, "So what? I read roots" but putting it into its historical context--it was published in 1958--it had to be brave and shocking during a time when the colonial powers were thinking that their system was a great benefit to the Africans.
I liked it. I am reading the other two in the trilogy--Man of the People and Arrow of God?--I don't like Man of the People so much--but the story it tells is no doubt truthful and therefore ugly.
Re people not reading it--realize it is an African novel--most Africans in America will avoid it like the plague.
They don't like Africa and don't like to be reminded that they are from there. Too many of those cartoons in their minds with the missionaries in the pots, and Tarzan movies, and such. |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 1058
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, June 19, 2006 - 03:00 pm: |
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I'll have to re-read it soon. It did not sit well with me when I read it the first time in high school. That was a time for me of emerging racial identity/awareness/pride--and anger. I do not feel my White teachers knew how to approach these feelings in me and the handful of other Black students in class, nor with the ignorance of too many of the White students.
Maybe that will be a good follow-up to the book of non-fiction I am reading now, "Leopold's Ghost," about Belgian's actions in the Congo. I must read this in small doses, but I have not become as overwhelmed with anger as I might have in my younger days. |
Jackie
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Jackie
Post Number: 203
Registered: 04-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, June 19, 2006 - 03:34 pm: |
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Yvettep, I don't blame you about being overwhelmed with anger regarding the atrocitites in the Congo by Belgian. Although I haven't read Leopold's Ghost (which I'm going to buy now) I did conduct some research on the Congo. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 2313
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, June 19, 2006 - 04:06 pm: |
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Yvettep and Jackie:
You'll still feel some anger--I read this a couple months ago and still got pretty pissed even though I didn't read anything I didn't know. |
Abdi85
Veteran Poster
Username: Abdi85
Post Number: 61
Registered: 04-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, June 19, 2006 - 10:40 pm: |
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For me everything about this story just clicked. The characters (mainly Okonkwo), his pyschology (fear of becoming like his father) painted a picture of this complex human being, that we couldn't love but not hate either. I think Okonkwo is one of Mr Achebe's greatest achievements, he forces the reader to look at this character not as an archetype but as man caught up in the circumstances of his time and place.
Chrishayden, the english really pissed me off too. I think that was his intention. During the first half of the novel we get to know Igbo society really intricately and see that its a socially advanced culture and soceity, very layered, deep and rich with history and tradition. The english just come and classify them as savages and nothing more. To know that and the people's utter confusion as to what was going on was heartbreaking. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 2316
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 20, 2006 - 12:20 pm: |
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To me Okonkwo seemed trapped--trapped into his own expectations and a society's expectations in a situation where those expectations were no longer valid or changing--
It is a dilemma that faces all people in society's undergoing a rapid change--the end of it was tragic too, in that he could not find a place for himself in the new world-- |
Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1293
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 20, 2006 - 12:23 pm: |
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damn chris hayden, I read the darn book! LOL! I also responded to your post.
I liked particularly the prose. It was plain and succinct, but lyrical and supple in meaning.
I think what is important about the book, as CH has suggested, though stated differently, is the nature of pre-colonial igbo culture. Rather than describe it as good or bad, however, I think it is best to say that Achebe affirms the humanity of African people; this humanity, of course, comprises the good and the bad, the ugly and the beautiful. All rendered beautifully in the novel.
This I think, is significant, for this book emerged during the post-protest novel period. Heretofore, we must remember, many black american writers focused on protest novels. Achebe and Baldwin engaged this question of race, but without making race the primary subject of the narrative, differently from an Ellison or a Wright (even though Ellison seemed to be Wright's literary opposite).
In this sense, Achebe was not concerned about making Africans perfect, to counter white stereotypes, or solely victims of white racism, which limits black life to racism. Instead, he tried to create complex, three dimensioned characters . . .
Zora Neale Hurston and others did this before, but many claimed Hurston in particular, as apolitical.
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Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1294
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 20, 2006 - 12:25 pm: |
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Good Pt, Chris Hayden. I think Achebe is trying to say that cultures must change with the times. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 2320
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 20, 2006 - 02:47 pm: |
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Well done, Yukio. We all know you are a RIGHTEOUS Black Man-- |
Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1297
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, June 23, 2006 - 09:24 am: |
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Thank you, my Lord. |
Thumper
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Thumper
Post Number: 463
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, July 04, 2006 - 03:17 pm: |
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Hello All,
Who dogged out Things Fall Apart? I loved that book! I agree with Yukio statements. Achebe did with the novel what ALL excellent storytellers must do, he must be able to SEE. While all writers are human and their truth are subjected to their own opinions, Achebe was able to bring certain points of views to the front and he did it so beautifully. And while some of these opinions were controversial at the time, hell they still are, but Achebe made the story timeless. |
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