Things fall apart

Things Fall Apart is a novel by Chinua Achebe, an Nigerian author whose fame is mostly from this book.

In Things Fall Apart, the Nigerian culture is described, and the reader will get to know the country, its origin, its history, and ultimately its culture. The impact of the British on Nigeria is also briefly described.



I think the book is rather interesting, as it really gives me a look into the Nigerian culture. Another remarkable thing are the idioms that Achebe has directly translated from Nigerian to English, and Achebe has changed some grammatical tenses and conjunctions to match the Nigerian language.

The first section of Achebe's debut novel focuses on rituals and traditions of village culture in the 1800s in Umuofia, Nigeria. It is presented through the protagonist, Okonkwo, and his adult years as he becomes a successful member of the village, buoyed by his intense masculinity. The early sections focus on drawn out descriptions of the cultural and religious ceremonies of village life in Nigeria at the time, akin to reading a history book. It is only in the second and third sections, when the story turns to the colonisation of the area by English missionaries, that the reason for the extensive descriptions becomes clear. The novel presents a criticism of the idea of a 'right' moral or socio-cultural ethos, and needs both the transparent descriptions of the history and the manifestations of change through colonisation to present this clearly. Very enjoyable and insightful read.