Things Fall Apart

I must have read this years ago in school, and I remember completely not understanding it. It was all yams and palm wine and slow village life, and I was kinda like, “yo where's the plot dude is there gonna be a fight or what” <–teen me

I have since matured but, alas, probably not by much. A classic in post-colonial fiction, this book follows a village in the Igbo region (southeastern Nigeria) during - I think? - the late 19th century. It follows, basically, the “last golden years” before the tide of colonization really started taking hold. It's a deep dive into a specific culture and society; one we feel, as modern day readers, is on the edge of a severe existential threat. The tension is palpable (OMG WHERE ARE THE BRITISH WHERE FIND THEM AND CAST THEM OUT), though I also spent a lot of time wondering what those villages are like NOW and TODAY. What gets preserved? What gets lost? What gets adapted?

Anyway, so maybe the first 60% of the book is just life in the village, and much is made of idiomatic sayings (which were great) and the stuff that ethnographers are into (weddings and death rites and cuisine and such) and then the horror happens: Christian missionaries arrive. Shit gets real, then, and mostly because shit starts to NOT MAKE SENSE anymore. The missionaries and the colonial government don't understand, don't attempt to understand, and it's all pretty horrible.

So I think the best part of this book was Okonkwo, the protagonist. He was so brilliantly etched: driven by a raging insecurity, ruthless in his ambitions, and ultimately a bit of a Fisher King as well (i.e. his fortunes mirror the land's). The sympathy and exactitude of Okonkwo's portrayal was - MWAH. BRILLIANT.

Another striking point was how, when the missionaries arrive, all the village misfits join up: this immediately made me want to read anthropological histories of religious conversion, and why people choose to associate with in- or out-groups and all that.

But yeah, overall, I appreciated this in a clinical way, but didn't connect super deep. For Nigerian stuff (which I have decided I love, seriously, the country of Chiwetel Ejiofor, John Boyega, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, mwah mwah), I guess I like more modern stuff? With Lagos as the MOLTEN CORE OF NAKED CAPITALISM. i.e. Americanah :)

* I made the mistake of reading the feasty scenes when I was really hungry and I was like SOUP AND FUFU AAAGHHH