'finally' read this book theth Anniversary Edition THANK YOU for the book Loretta!!! I'm sorry it took me so long to read it!!!!
Interesting timing for me, too, having just read "NW" by Zadie Smith, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and a couple of
James Baldwin books recentlyplus, yesterday was Martin Luther King's day.
African identity, nationalism, decolonization, racism, sexism, competing cultural systems, languages and dialogue, social political issues have been in my space!!
I didn't know what to expect.
"may be Africa's bestloved novel, . . For so many readers around the world, it is Chinua Achebe who opened up the magic casements of African fiction" by Kwame Anthony Appiah.
After I read this book joining thousands and thousands of others around the world feeling disturbed amp conflicted when I read lines like this:
"I will not have a son who cannot hold up his head in the gathering of the clan.
I would sooner strangle him with my own hands, And if you stand staring at me like that, he swore, Amadiora will break your head for you".
I wanted to 'also' read more about Kwame Anthony Appiah, Who taught philosophy and African American studies at Yale and Harvard, He helped give me a broader understanding of this book,
He studied ethics around the world, Things he had to say about "kindness to strangers", made sense to me,
It is not for 'us' to save the poor and starving, but up to their own governments.
Nationstates must assume responsibility for their citizens,
In "Things Fall Apart", western culture is portrayed as arrogant and ethnocentric, Their culture was vulnerable to the western civilization,
With so much sadness and tragedy in his culture, growing up as he did in.
. China Achebe who wrote in English, was amazing!!!!!
He continues to have influence on other African novelists today.
. inspiring writers around the world, Readers too!
Never too late to read "Things Fall Apart" El relato tiene un claro carácter documental.
Un narrador aséptico, aunque con licencia para poetizar, nos detalla la vida tribal en el África occidental de finales del siglo XIX utilizando como elemento “novelizador” la vida de Okonkwo, gran guerrero y hombre prominente de la tribu que asiste al desmoronamiento de su vida en el contexto del total y brutal desmoronamiento del mundo en el que vive.
Lo primero y lo que más llama la atención es la forma cruda en la que la novela rompe con esa visión un tanto paternalista del buen salvaje viviendo en el paraíso, todo concordia y felicidad.
La sociedad que describe Achebe no tiene nada de salvaje y sí muchas razones para su reprobación.
Fuertemente jeraraquizada, la sociedad estaba sujeta a estrictos ritos y tradiciones basados en un sinfín de supersticiones y costumbres ancestrales que muchas veces eran de dudosa eficacia y con frecuencia claramente censurables.
Hasta el más respetuoso con la diferenciación cultural no puede sino llevarse las manos a la cabeza ante costumbres como la de sacrificar a los nacimientos gemelares o que ciertos delitos sean compensados con la entrega de familiares, generalmente jóvenes, al miembro damnificado de la tribu, y que a veces acababan siendo sacrificados en beneficio de la comunidad de acogida, o el estado de esclavitud en el que vivían las mujeres o el trascendental papel que jugaban sacerdotes, sacerdotisas, hechiceros o adivinadores en la observancia de las estrictas normas de cumplimiento establecidas casi para cada acto por cotidiano que este sea.
Tampoco reinaba la fraternidad en las relaciones intertribales, no siendo raras las guerras en las que los mejores guerreros se
vanagloriaban de las cabezas cortadas que llevaban a sus casas como trofeos y que llegaban a ser utilizadas como recipientes para sus bebidas.
Y aun así, las tribus llevaban siglos manteniendo una armonía social solo alterada por algunos pocos individuos incapaces de atenerse a las normas o de prosperar en ellas.
Estos miembros marginales fueron los débiles eslabones de la cadena que misioneros y colonizadores rompieron mediante su evangelización iniciando así el desmoronamiento social de sus tribus.
Aunque no pueda decir que la novela me haya seducido literariamente hablando, es indudable que es una narración muy interesante por su contenido.
Más allá de todo lo dicho sobre el choque cultural quiero terminar haciendo mención de esos pequeños y espléndidos cuentos que el autor va intercalando en la historia a modo de fábulas morales que eran transmitidos oralmente de padres a hijos.
A real tour de force but a plain tale simply told, Achebe illustrates and explains rather than judges and provides a moving and very human story of change and disintegration.
Set in Nigeria in the nineteenth century it tells the story of Okonkwo and his family and community.
He is a man tied to his culture and tradition and fighting to be different to his father.
He is strong and proud and unable to show his feelings, His courage and rashness get him into trouble with his community and traditions, The book also charts the coming of Christian missionaries to the area and the effects they had especially in attrating those who were outcast and of low status.
Okonwko's fate is tragic and is representative of the destruction of his culture,
I have been puzzled to read some of the negative reviews that just don't seem to get it saying it is too alien, too simple, badly written and so on.
Part of Achebe's genius is that he tells the tale like all good writers he explains when he has too and creates nuanced characters.
The white missionaries are not unthinking or onedimensional just convinced they are right, Okonwko is also nuanced unable to show the feelings he clearly has especially to his daughter and so eager to be strong and to lead that he is unable to be compassionate like his peers.
Achebe does not judge he charts the decline of a culture, He is not saying one side is entirely good or bad and there are elements to shock the treatment of twins and areas of great strength.
The brilliance is in the capturing of a period of change and cataclysm in the Ibo culture but it is also a simple father/son relationship story.
Achebe powerfully shows that like many of the greatest authors, he has the ability to put complex ideas across simply.
How to attempt a balanced review of Things Fall Apart:
, The book is serious. Themes and issues dealt in the book are far more serious than many other books written by the contemporary authors of Achebe.
. The colonial abstract takes an altogether different turn as Achebe explores that colonisers not only colonised the land and properties but also the minds and hearts of the native people.
. Racism has been dealt very aptly and also religious hypocrisy different churches for the people who have converted.
. The plot might seem relaxed and lazy almost if you ignore the themes and issues, However, the plot is more than enough to keep the 'readers' engaged,
DO I recommend the book yes, of course!,