Friday, January 1, 2016

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe | Book Review

Things Fall Apart (The African Trilogy, #1)

Flashback Friday Review!

I read Things Fall Apart in high school, for class, and I actually really enjoyed it.  I don't remember which year I read it, but I do remember really enjoying all my English/Literature classes in high school.  I must have had one great teacher after another.  

Fast forward many years, and I finally read the follow-up book, No Longer at Ease.  I really enjoyed it too!  Look for that review next week.  But for continuity's sake, I'd like to let you know that I gave Things Fall Apart 5 of 5 stars on Goodreads, and to give you the book's synopsis (so that we're caught up and all):

Things Fall Apart tells two overlapping, intertwining stories, both of which center around Okonkwo, a "strong man" of an Ibo village in Nigeria.  The first of these stories traces Okonkwo's fall from grace with the tribal world in which he lives, and in its classical purity of line and economical beauty it provides us with a powerful fable about the immemorial conflict between the individual and society.

The second story, which is as modern as the first is ancient, and which elevates the book to a tragic plane, concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo's world through the arrival of aggressive, proselytizing European missionaries.  These twin dramas are perfectly harmonized, and they are modulated by an awareness capable of encompassing at once the life of nature, human history, and the mysterious compulsions of the soul.  Things Fall Apart is the most illuminating and permanent monument we have to the modern African experience as seen from within.

*I own my copy of Things Fall Apart.

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