Great African Reads discussion

This thread is for discussions of our Sept/Oct 2024 read of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe - Notice that there may be SPOILERS (Find the no-spoiler thread here)
- Feel free to discuss anything you like about the book here: Here's a few questions to get you started:
How did you like the characters? The plot? The style? The portrayal of characters and their surroundings?

Finished this a few days ago. I thought the writing was simple but eloquent, read quickly for me.
The end of part 1 was a surprise. I am impressed by Achebe managing to make Okonkwo a sympathetic character. I did feel sad for him when he was outcast and of course the very end was tragic. I think many reviews see him as an unlikeable hateful brute but I thought Achebe shows us more than that and I appreciate that there is no glorifying of him or the culture which is itself also brutal in ways. He is an interesting choice of main character.

Jen wrote: "Finished this a few days ago. I thought the writing was simple but eloquent, read quickly for me.
The end of part 1 was a surprise. I am impressed by Achebe managing to make Okonkwo a sympathetic c..."

Good comments. While it is hard to read how he treats his wives and have an ounce of sympathy for him, it is clear that the culture in which he was raised made the man.

I also find very interesting Achebe making these two very distinct parts of the whole story. It feels like two portraits side by side that prompt me to compare them and contemplate the definition of barbarism and different ways it can be seen.

Chinua Achebe is hugely effective in providing a comprehensive description of Igbo's pre-colonial culture, inclusive of its most violent sides, and yet conveying a sense of sympathy for a man who has grown up in that world and is unable to adjust to its crumbling down. Twin murdering, Usu outcasting, children taken and later killed as spoils of war, as well as the systemic tolerance dor domestic and gender violence, deeply challenge our sense of humanity, yet Chinua Achebe skillfully lead us to acknowledge and feel as even more distructive the blatant disrespect of the colonial authorities, the ambiguity of religious missionaries, and the opportunistic meanness of their local enablers.

on a more individual level, it is also the story of a man grown up in the culture of toxic masculinity, who is finally crushed by his own fear of being perceived as weak. This will make him unable to understand and gain his father's love first, and his son's later; to save himself from the anguish an pain of killing the boy who called him a father, and finally to understand the futility of resisting in arms against a far more poweful enemy. The comparison of his death with the funeral of Ezeudu is telling in this sense: he never understood the destructive nature of his fear of the feminine, nor did it ever realized where the real bravery lies and why for the wiser ones "Mother is supreme"

Yes! Excellent summaries, Antonio- thank you for sharing. I couldn't put it to words so well as you but I come away with the same understandings from this book. I also appreciate you reminded me of that important aspect in the story of the 'adopted' boy who he grew fond of. And that is an interesting point about the contrast between the one funeral and Okonkwo's death.

Thank you for your nice words Jen R 😀

A question for the group: are you also moved like me by the ogbanje notion? do you see it more as a form of conforting thought for parents who lost a child who is not meant to remain, or as a source of anguish and pain for parents who fears their child is one of them?

Antonio wrote: "A question for the group: are you also moved like me by the ogbanje notion? do you see it more as a form of conforting thought for parents who lost a child who is not meant to remain, or as a sourc..."

Oh that's an interesting question. I do find the ogbanje phenomenon very interesting. I first learned of it from Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi and I was excited to see it from a different angle in this book. In Emezi's book, there seemed emphasis on suffering and disconnection, and the story is told in first-person, so we see the world through the eyes of the ogbanje person, but it is a very different world and life experience than that in Things Fall Apart... So, in reading this story, what really stood out to me was that the ogbanje girl was shown as very loved and valued. I can't remember all that was said about them in general though in Achebe's book. But was it that parents really may continue to fight to successfully give birth even after it's been determined they are dealing with the challenges of ogbanje?
I can imagine both things being true. I can imagine the comfort of an explanation for otherwise senseless loss; but also in dreading the possibility of such loss, ogbanje could also bring anguish. Maybe it's a lesser anguish when one can find/put meaning in it.
What do you think?

This is also my take, Jen R.: I guess the "engine" of this belief is the appeasement it might give to the parent's grief and sense of guilt, and the need to provide meaning to something otherwise unacceptable. However it is a two edged sword, and I can hardly imagine the anguish of a parent believing their child my be an ogbanje. Yorubas similarly believe some children are actually spirits called Abiku who belong to another dimension and pledged before birth to return to it. They may change their mind, though, but the other world will continue to try and lure them, making they constantly swing in and out the world we call real. Ben Okri's The Famished Road builds on this aspect of the belief and, telling the story through the eyes of an Abiku child, offers an astonishing masterpiece of magic realism. Twins Seven Seven, a late Nigerian artist, believed to be an Abiku himself, and this is reflected very clearly in the otherworldy dimension if his art.

Antonio wrote: "This is also my take, Jen R.: I guess the "engine" of this belief is the appeasement it might give to the parent's grief and sense of guilt, and the need to provide meaning to something otherwise u..."

Interesting- I hadn't heard of Abiku. But I also like finding parallels between different cultures and in different creative works.