"I read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe -- forgive me if I'm mispronouncing his name -- because I wanted to get a better understanding of African life in general. Things Fall Apart is widely considered as the -- one of the first and still best novels about African life, and Nigerian life in general. I liked Heart of Darkness, and I also understood that Achebe didn't like Heart of Darkness; so I wanted to understand from his perspective why this book was a response to that.
Okonkwo is a man who is of great respect in his village; and so he essentially takes on a young boy, who eventually ends up killing, and then he -- which offends the -- essentially the gods that they worship. And so he is banned and send into exile for seven years. During the seven years, the evil white settlers come in, set up a government, and clashes ensure from that; and so the rest of the book is about how Okonkwo has this fall from grace when he returns and clashes more and more with the settlers and eventually commits suicide. So it's really about the universal struggle of human nature, and it's Achebe's response to the -- what he felt were the racist undertones of Heart of Darkness.
It was accessible, it really taught me a lot about the culture in general of African culture, and specifically of Nigerian culture. I would recommend Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart to just about anyone that wants to understand how cultures can be unique and universal at the same time. It's a dichotomy that is very -- excuse me -- perplexing, but it's at the same time, at the heart of it all, we're all the same in the sense that we all just want to have a life that's free of stress, of -- that's free of seeing people that we love and know die, and that's free of violence.
I would give Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart five stars out of five stars. I think it's one of the best novels I've read, and I can't say enough good things about it."
RSS feed 
