Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe has been on my 'to-read' pile for quite a while. I can now file it away under the 'things wot I have read' category. And for the second successive book, I found that after a slow start, it got a lot better. A short book, split into three parts, the first of which is easily the longest, yet was also the least affecting part of the book. It did admittedly contribute to the story in terms of setting the scene and describing the culture and society of the people, but I didn't connect to it the way I expected to, having heard a lot of good things about the book. I wasn't enchanted by the prose and sucked into the world, like I was with Ben Okri, and neither did I feel the author's love for the characters present in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
What it did have though, was anger, coursing through the book, quietly at first but moving towards a sucker punch at the end. In the second and third parts of the book, the pace quickens and a lot happens very quickly, even if more time has actually passed. The fury of the protagonist, and perhaps, by extension, the author, as he struggles to deal with what has become of his way of life and his people is prominent. Punches aren't pulled, but it is the matter of fact telling, rather than any deliberate attempts to tug at the heartstrings which gives the book a real sadness to it and opens up a whole host of perhaps unanswerable questions.
A tale of morality on more than one level, the interaction of the white men on traditional African society is realised from the perspective of a traditional villager. The lack of understanding on both sides, neither treating the other with respect or as 'civilised' is only going to come to a head in the end. The cleverness and the ruthlessness of the missionaries also meant that it could onyl really end one way. Although I feel that it perhaps the book lacked a little in terms of finesse, it was an undeniably effective and powerful read.
Book number: 16
Title: Things Fall Apart
Author: Chinua Achebe
Category: Books that have been sat on my bookshelf for too long
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