<p>^ Good point! And if Okonkwo had lived, he might have seen strong-willed Ezinma be one of those women to rise up. Would he have continued to love her as much if she were to defy tradition and fight for greater autonomy for herself and the women of the village? I don’t think he would have handled that well. Okonkwo may wish that Ezinma had been a man, but since she is a woman, I think he would be staunchly opposed to her assuming any male rights and responsibilities.</p>
<p>At one point the men discuss reports (or rumors) of a matriarchal society and are appalled.</p>
<p>As NJTM pointed out, the material in Things Fall Apart is difficult to approach (possibly why we are a small group this time). In a way, the simple writing style belies the great depth of the novel. Being “written with remarkable economy” (as the back cover says) makes it a story that can be read quickly and set aside. Asking “where do I go with this story? why is it important? what made it a worldwide sensation?” is more challenging.</p>
<p>I can see why the novel is taught in schools: it is easy for students to tackle in terms of length, sentence structure, linear plot, etc., yet it is infinitely “plumbable” in terms of theme, irony, spirituality, cultural commentary, and so on.</p>
<p>As for the readability of the novel, where do you fall on question #2?</p>
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<p>Before we began the book, sylvan8798 alerted us to the glossary, and I was sure I would use it, but as it turned out, I didn’t refer to it at all. I was able to pick up most of the vocabulary from context and never felt the need to flip to the back of the book while reading. I thought the African terms definitely added “atmospheric authenticity.” I wondered how much research Chinua Achebe had to do.</p>
<p>There are many teaching guides online for Things Fall Apart. From one: </p>
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<p>I thought the comment about “subverting the colonialist language” was interesting. It made me think of the passage where the villagers poke fun at the missionary interpreter’s misuse of certain words: “Many people laughed at his dialect and the way he used words strangely. Instead of saying ‘myself’ he always said ‘my buttocks.’" </p>
<p>Tell me that’s not Achebe’s way of saying that the white colonialists were a bunch of arses! :)</p>
<p>I followed Things Fall Apart with the second in the trilogy No Longer at Ease. I like this glimpse into the changing roles of the women of the tribe. Here you have Okonkwo’s son Isaac and his wife:</p>
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<p>I think part of the “delicacy” of discussing Things Fall Apart comes from not wanting to be too critical of the culture group in question.</p>
<p>Yet Achebe himself was surely critical because of the way he chose to tell the story.</p>
<p>I thought one of the most hair-raising parts of the book was when the priestess Chielo took Ezinma away in the night. Why did she do that? It was never explained. The characters themselves never wondered, I guess, and it seemingly never would have occurred to them to think it was wrong. </p>
<p>Sometimes we like to romanticize the notion of shamans, but the type of figure that Chielo represented was pretty scary and incomprehensible to me.</p>
<p>^ I had forgotten that Nwoye took the name Isaac when he converted. How fitting!</p>
<p>I had difficulty with names rather than terms or phrases. I needed a list of characters. I also noted that the names of the white colonists seem stereotypically bland, ubiquitous enough to depersonalize the varied men: Smith, Brown, Green, Jones (some of these from No Longer at Ease). It has to be intentional on the part of the author.</p>
<p>I’m quoting No Longer at Ease here but it seems to me the flip side of Things Fall Apart. Author Achebe allows Okonkwo to end his own life in the first novel. BUandBC mentions that the ending bothered her: I didn’t expect him to give up and commit suicide. In No Longer at Ease Achebe touches on books that end with a suicide. In this second book Achebe seems to take issue with whether or not Okonkwo’s suicide makes the book a tragedy or gives it a satisfactory ending for the reader - without ever mentioning his first novel, of course. Okonkwo’s suicide provides an end to the bad stuff, if you will.</p>
<p>Here Okonkwo’s educated grandson during a job interview:</p>
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<p>ignatius, how interesting! I know what he means though - the saddest book I’ve ever read is Anne Tyler’s Celestial Navigation, precisely because our hapless antihero does live on.</p>
<p>I think my Mom said her favorite of the trilogy was the second book, but I haven’t gotten around to getting back to the library to see if they have the other two, but I have to say I am intrigued.</p>
<p>All the imbedded stories and proverbs reminded me a bit of Possession. They kind of take you out of the story, but then you look for connections. I didn’t find as many as I would like on my first pass through. I’m still rereading so that I can make more intelligent contributions to the discussion. What did other people think? Did they do more than just provide atmosphere and give a sense of place?</p>
<p>ignatius, that is a great excerpt from No Longer at Ease – what an interesting way for Achebe to comment on his own work. It’s a thought-provoking idea that the grandson expresses. It does seem like many of the suicides in great literature provide a “tidy” ending to the story. It’s not like that in life though. In the real world, suicide is unequivocal tragedy; for those left behind, it is never resolved.</p>
<p>Re mathmom’s post, here are a few of the stories for those who might have already returned their books to the library: [Stories</a> from Things Fall Apart](<a href=“http://reader.homestead.com/Things_Fall_Apart.html]Stories”>reader.homestead.com)</p>
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<p>I agree – that was a heart-thumping passage. I happened to read it at a time when my children were preparing for far-flung and rather scary adventures. (In a few weeks, I’ll have children on three separate continents.) Consequently, I saw the Ezinma-Chielo journey as a metaphor for the ways in which our children are carried away from us, and the lengths to which we will go to keep them safe. Ekwefi undergoes a harrowing and exhausting run in the darkness, just to stay within sight of her daughter. And the normally hard-hearted Okonkwo follows, up all night and gravely worried, eventually standing guard by the cave and telling his wife, “Go home and sleep…I shall wait here.”</p>
<p>The customs and rituals of these families may seem alien to us, but the overwhelming love for one’s child – that’s universal.</p>
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<p>I’ve been thinking about the stories. For the most part, they are fables—short tales that incorporate myth and legend and use unusual characters (often animals) to convey a very human moral. In a way, that describes Things Fall Apart itself. The fables about Earth & Sky, the Ear & the Mosquito, the Tortoise & the Birds, etc. are contained within the framework of one greater, longer fable with similar themes about the foibles of humanity.</p>
<p>The writing style of Things Fall Apart reads like a fable or parable, with echoes of old stories like the Ant & the Grasshopper or the Prodigal Son. For example: “In his day he was lazy and improvident and was quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow. If any money came his way, and it seldom did, he immediately bought gourds of palm-wine, called round his neighbors and made merry” (p. 4).</p>
<p>The characters are not animals, but they are strange and exotic creatures to the modern reader. And Achebe uses animal metaphors: Amalinze is “the Cat,” Okonkwo is “slippery as a fish” with “eyes red and fierce like the eyes of a rat.” Uzowulu is “a beast” and the weak men are “old hens.” </p>
<p>The people in Okonkwo’s tribe exhibit behavior that is as far-fetched to us as a Mosquito proposing to an Ear or a Tortoise flying–whether it be letting an Oracle run away in the dark with your child, or revering a python as “Our Father,” or putting newborn twins in earthenware pots. But beneath these actions lie greater human truths: the love of a parent for a child, the fear of death, the struggle to come to grips with phenomena we do not understand.</p>
<p>These shared experiences bring a sense of “memento mori” to the novel, i.e., “I was once as you are now, as I am now so you shall be.” In the grand scheme of things, our way of life is as fleeting as that of Umuofia.</p>
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<p>My library had a copy of The African Trilogy, so it made it easy for me to start No Longer at Ease as I finished Things Fall Apart. I plan to start Arrow of God either today or tomorrow. I liked No Longer at Ease. Things fall apart for the grandson Obi as they did for the grandfather Okonkwo but in ways I understood: lack of respect, money trouble, and hooking up with the wrong woman. Therein lies the reason that Things Fall Apart remains important. If I have to choose one of the books and say “read this” I’d pick Things Fall Apart. It allows a glimpse into a time and place now disappeared. In general I did not identify with any character. I’m not sure I felt much sympathy for Okonkwo. His touches of humanity did not overcome his frequent instances of brutality - a brutality frowned on within the context of his tribe. Still, whether I “liked it less” doesn’t matter. I will remember Things Fall Apart longer than I will No Longer at Ease, partly because I’m less comfortable with it, if you will. I do highly recommend reading the second book as it adds a depth to the first that I believe comes in many instances from Achebe’s personal experience. Certainly his background contains similarities. I look forward (surprisingly) to reading the third in the trilogy. The second book added richness to the first. It will be interesting to see what the third book adds.</p>
<p>Proverbs and parables: I liked the parables but loved the proverbs. I think both added dimension to the stories. I wonder if we are losing the art of a good proverb/aphorism uttered at the right time. My mother had a few favorites as she liked Benjamin Franklin - a proverb master.</p>
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<p>I found this to be a touching moment, but overall, I agree with ignatius that I couldn’t fully empathize with Okonkwo’s struggle.</p>
<p>Sorry to be late to the discussion. I also apologize for typos caused by my iPad, which just ate a long post. Urgh!</p>
<p>I wasn’t sure that I liked the book after I finished reading it. Upon further reflection and reading this discussion, I realize that there are many layers and much substance to Achebe’s seemingly ‘simple’ novel. My initial impression was that it followed the pattern of a Greek tragedy with a flawed character. I did not see ‘weakness’ as being Okonkwo’s main flaw; I thought he was guilty of vanity or pride. He was proud to have been more successful than his father; proud to have achieved status within the tribe; proud to have more titles, 3 wives, many children, and material wealth than his father. And it was pride that was Okonkwo’s downfall. (“Pride goeth before the fall.”)</p>
<p>I thought about the 7 Deadly Sins: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Pride. According to a quick search:
Almost every fable or story within the Fall of Okonkwo can be linked to one of the 7 cardinal sins. I also saw these sins as a common link connecting Ibo tribal beliefs and the Christian beliefs.</p>
<p>Okonkwo was guilty of the sin of wrath, which caused him to beat his wife during the week of peace.
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<p>Thinking especially about his success, Okonkwo starts out believing that he is not just lucky, but responsible for his success, and his society agrees: “If ever a man deserved his success, that man was Okonkwo.” But that belief is tested by his exile, and by the changes coming. He’s successful in his traditional society, but can’t translate it when things change.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, those who don’t fit as well into the old culture find a place in the new: Nwoye, outcasts–twins!–and are drawn to Christianity.</p>
<p>Two other things:</p>
<p>It was interesting that “Nwoye’s mother” was always referred to that way, or as his “first wife.” I don’t think we ever learned her name. Maybe that is how Achebe distances this family group, as opposed to Ekwefi and Ezinma?</p>
<p>With the character of Chielo, who was an ordinary “widow with two children,” but moonlighted as the Priestess of Agbala (implying that her decisions there might be somewhat random), Achebe to me was drawing a parallel with the randomness and corruption of the new court messengers and Commissioner. In both cases the characters are at the mercy of decisions that they cannot control.</p>
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<p>I thought it was the misfiring of Okonkwo’s gun that caused his downfall.</p>
<p>With regard to his murder of the court messenger, it seemed to me that he was basically acting in the warlike way he had been taught by his culture.</p>
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But what caused the gun to misfire? Was it bad luck or was it the result of Okonkwo’s transgressions from tribal law? Tribal culture tells us it is likely that Okonkwo’s beating of his wife during the Sacred Week and his killing of Ikemefuna are tribal sins that would cause Okonkwo’s luck and life to change…angry spirits showing Okonkwo who is in charge. I agree with 12rmh18. Okonokwo’s manly pride is what brought about his sins and his eventual downfall.</p>
<p>I also agree with 12rhm18 re the sin of pride. I venture that Okonkwo’s downfall starts when he has a hand in the death of Ikemefuna. Respect Okonkwo earned as a warrior increasingly loses ground to censure by the tribe. After his banishment, he never fully regains his place in tribal society. With regard to the court messenger, Okonkwo alone - among the tribe leaders/warriors - reacts with violence. He already feels resentful and humiliated (loss of respect and pride) by the white men. After he decapitates the court messenger, he realizes that Okonkwo the tribal leader/mighty warrior is no more. He commits suicide because … well, because he’s done and knows it.</p>
<p>At the end of chapter 3 Okonkwo’s father says to him (in blatant foreshadowing):
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<p>I like the comparison of the Deadly Sins with tribal stories (12rhm18). </p>
<p>I also liked (good insight):
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<p>I thought this was a really interesting book. I loved the scenes of daily village life.Liked how the story was told from the point of view of someone who wasn’t fundamentally a good person. One always wonders about the inner workings of dictators, strong men, gangsters, etc.
I so liked his d Enzima. I felt for his son. He seemed to be such a kind person and was so hurt by the death of his friend.</p>
<p>I’m still at the office, but just want to pop in here to say I love the new screen name psychmom gave me. :)</p>