details the destruction of a culture and thru it a mans whole way of life.

Religion the great destroyer!!

Re-reading this 15 years later, one appreciates the craft of this classic. It’s a story that possesses great emotional weight. The shocks as they come simmer, you expect them – the novel is called things fall apart, the epigraph is the quote of Keats’ poem with the following line: the center cannot hold; still you can’t brace yourself for it. You are drawn into the world, lulled almost by the complexities of the traditions, the language that you sense hints at a culture of rich intensity.

Although you remember the encounter with Europe, with the missionaries, with colonialism, divide and conquer etc.. that is only a part of the novel. The main thrust is drawing out african’s perspective is here and what a perspective.

Picked it up at a 2nd hand shop, had been on my list of should-reads for ages. The storytelling element is great and there’s a nightmarish sensuality to it which reminds me of the Famished Road. The dialogue is stilted and formal, which is a little disconcerting. I’m not sure whether it was translated from Nigerian and that’s the problem, or whether it’s just the style. (I have a feeling Achebe writes in English so think it must just be the style…) Definitely worthwhile though, especially to get a glimpse of how enormously he influenced the other African postcolonialist writers who came after him.

Completed on 17 March 2005.

Achebe’s book startled me with its powerful shaping of a colonial story that, unfortunately, was probably all too common in Africa and Asia. I read Heinemann Press’s Classics in Context: African Writers series edition, and I have to give it a mixed review. It provides a useful, though simplistic. description of the Ibo people. However, it is also surprisingly full of proofing errors.

I had to read this book for a Diversity and Justice course I took over the summer. The book was an interesting first look at the way men judge and penalize one another for their differences.