Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out   

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   

The darkness drops again; but now I know   

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

The Second Coming - William Butler Yeats

Things Fall Apart is one of those classics that you know you should read, but somehow never did. It is considered the archetypal modern African novel - it was the first truly popular work to break through the monopoly of white voices talking about Africa - and give Africans themselves a voice. Since the arrival of European colonialism, novels about Africa tended to be rather in the vein of H. Rider Haggard: native Africans were “uncivilized savages,” needing to be governed by the (occasionally) benevolent white saviors. In this book, Achebe pushes back against that paternalism and condescension to portray traditional African culture as a fully realized, civilized social system. True, it had its flaws - and Achebe doesn’t sugar coat them - but so do ALL cultures, our own as much as any. (And seriously, we still have a hell of a lot of “white savior complex” in our beliefs.) 

The book follows the life of Okonkwo, a leader in his tribe. Okonkwo’s life and style are a reaction against his own father, who was a lazy no-goodnik sort, who got into debt, neglected his family, and showed cowardice. In contrast, Okonkwo is determined to be hard working and wealthy. And he does achieve wealth and status as a result of his hard work. In that sense, he is admirable. However, he has a dark side as well. He feels his father was “feminine” rather than “masculine.” Weak rather than strong. And Okonkwo views strength and masculinity as connected with violence and anger. He hates his father’s idleness - but also his father’s gentleness. A passage from early in the book is illustrative:

Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children. Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Okonkwo’s fear was greater than these. It was not external but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father. 

In this, of course, is the seed of Okonkwo’s eventual destruction. (That shouldn’t be a spoiler - I mean, the book is called Things Fall Apart because things...fall apart.) His fear of appearing weak starts a sequence of bad luck or karma or whatever you want to call it. A young boy, who has been taken as payment for a murder committed by another tribe is given to Okonkwo to care for. Later, when the oracle decides that the boy should die, Okonkwo is warned by the eldest man in the tribe to avoid having anything to do with the killing. Unfortunately, Okonkwo fears being seen as weak (that is, womanly), and ends up striking the death blow. 

From there, things start to go to pieces. Okonkwo loses the respect of his eldest son, who was attached to the victim. His favorite daughter becomes gravely ill. And finally, at the funeral for the eldest man, his gun explodes during the salute, and kills the deceased’s son. By the law of the tribe, he is exiled for seven years to appease the gods. 

While Okonkwo is away, the white missionaries arrive, and proceed to set up British rule, a church, and attempt to dismantle elements of the tribal culture. The clash eventually becomes bloody, and things really go to hell from there. 

The novel is fairly short, and moves at a fast pace. Achebe does a great job of portraying the culture of a particular part of Nigeria in a way that explains things enough for an outsider to follow, while never getting bogged down in explanation. As I noted above, Achebe doesn’t use a soft focus, but strives for neutrality and accuracy. Thus, the culture is, like Okonkwo himself, complicated and nuanced. Like any culture, its best parts are admirable and serve to regulate human behavior in a way that benefits everyone. At its worst, though, it is misogynistic and obsessed with avenging insults. The missionaries are right in rescuing abandoned twins. (A practice that makes sense from a Darwinian point of view - in a situation of scarcity.) But they are all too often interested in imposing their culture rather than finding common ground. Even there, there is a contrast between the first missionary, who did a lot of listening, and the second, who was determined to win even if it took violence to “subdue the natives.” 

Similarly, though, in a clash of cultures, flexibility is needed on both sides. Okonkwo is as rigid as the British, and makes things worse rather than better. Since he cannot bend, he is broken. When he asserts his (toxic) masculinity, he alienates his family and his neighbors. As over 100 years of time has proven, the Europeans haven’t fared that much better in the long run. Colonialism has left immense damage, contributing to two world wars, enormous expenditures, and a legacy of failed states left behind and abandoned. 

I want to mention one more thing in the book that I thought was a really fantastic conversation. It takes place between Mr. Brown (the original, decent missionary) and Akunna, a leader in the tribe. Mr. Brown is trying to convert Akunna to monotheism, yet it turns out that they aren’t as far apart as Mr. Brown thinks. Akunna explains that he does indeed believe in a one god who is greater than all. However, just as Mr. Brown is a messenger from his religion, or the bureaucrats represent the queen, the lesser gods are the messengers and representatives of the high god Chukwa. In each case, the work is done through delegation. I was struck by how much this resembled the story of the centurion in the Gospel of Matthew:

When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. ⁶ “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”

Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”

The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.

Mr. Brown tries to argue with Akunna. But Jesus marveled at the centurion’s faith. It is a totally different response to a similar situation. I suspect Jesus would have been a heck of a lot different than the European missionaries. I also suspect that said missionaries never noticed the warning in this story: many are going to come from cultures all over the world and take their place at the great feast. But those who are so sure they alone have the truth are going to be tossed outside. 

In this way, Things Fall Apart is an excellent example of the beauty of stories that show a different point of view. As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (one of my favorites) points out, our white, Euro-American view of Africa has been and continues to be dominated by one single story: a white European story. Achebe and his literary heirs have contributed a chorus of other voices, new stories, from new (and old) perspectives. It is a beautiful thing.