CHINUA ACHEBE'S "AFRICAN TRILOGY"

Thoughts on No Longer at Ease and Arrow of God, the second and third volumes of Chinua Achebe’s "African Trilogy":

"Let them come and see men and women and children who knew how to live, whose joy of life had not yet been killed by those who claimed to teach other nations how to live."
From No Longer At Ease, p. 57.

In a book about a young Nigerian man who starts the story full of hope as a new university graduate freshly returned to his homeland from England and ends as a victim of "the good life", that line struck me as painfully heartbreaking. Obi Okonkwo, grandson of the main character of Things Fall Apart: A Novel, despite his education, is woefully unprepared for the real world, and once his optimism for the future is cracked it doesn’t take long for his ethics to fail also. One could easily insert a soapbox lecture concerning present-time corporate America here, but I’ll save that for some other day. Suffice it to say there are a lot of parallels just begging to be drawn. Not to mention the obvious political one that could be hinted at in the opening quote.

No Longer at Ease was a quick read and I enjoyed it very much. Comparing it to Things Fall Apart (see my review here), it was interesting to see life from the perspective of one of the Ibo people who was assimilating into the European Christian way of life. The picture is not pretty.

Arrow of God returns the central point of view to village life, albeit one that is already in mid-transformation. Chief Priest Ezeulu battles to continue Ibo traditions, but the White Man’s influence slowly whittles away his power in the community until the inevitable end.

Both of these simple but beautifully crafted novels made me sad. Not "depressed" sad, but more akin to "why do people suck so much" sad. I know. Not a very scholarly description, but there you have it. And hopefully the feelings I’m taking away from Achebe’s "African Trilogy" will stay in my mind as I watch the leaders of my own country and help me make better decisions regarding who I want at the helm of this strong and potentially dangerous nation. There I go getting all political again. I think I need to give Mr. Achebe’s writings a rest before I find myself picketing on the streets! :-)

Lezlie

THINGS FALL APART

by Chinua Achebe



I was about ten chapters into Things Fall Apart when it occurred to me. I was enjoying the book, but I felt like I was missing some serious points. The sparse writing had temporarily lulled me into skimming the surface. I hopped on Google and found myself a fabulous study guide that supplied questions to ponder as I continued reading and a resource website that explored Post-Colonial Literature from various parts of the world. Suddenly I was reading a book that went from "quaint" to "powerful".

On the off chance that it’s not completely obvious, I lack a college education in literature. While I often am tempted to remedy that, I am also acutely aware that years of required reading being laid out for me would probably not produce the desired effect, because, quite frankly, I want to read what I want to read when I want to read it. Therefore, I am doing my best to educate myself while indulging in my wide-ranging tastes. Hence, the occasional forays into the world of online study tools. In this case, I was extremely pleased that I did. I think that I would have picked up on more of the themes once I had gotten into the coming of the missionaries, but I’m not sure I would have fully appreciated the entire first section of the book where Achebe describes many of the intricacies of tribal life. I ended up becoming so engrossed that I immediately went out and purchased the two books about the main character’s descendants, Arrow of God and No Longer at Ease, which I plan on reading right away.

Ultimately, I had a hard time drumming up a lot of sympathy for Okonkwo, the main character. Even in the light of his own culture he was a jerk. But I did understand his feelings at the end. And I felt terrible for the Ibo people as their world began changing before their eyes. While the Ibo traditions look harsh and primitive to Western sensibilities, it worked for them and had beauty and nobility despite its flaws. While I have no desire to live in a tribal culture, I find myself envying certain aspects of a simpler life. And every time I read about things like this coming of the missionaries or the displacement of the Native Americans and the like, I always think to myself, “And what makes our way of life so much better? Why do we think we are so superior?” Granted, leaving babies out in the woods to die because of superstitious beliefs is abhorrent on every level, but why do we feel the need to wipe out every aspect of life that doesn’t look like ours? And as I sit in my mid-western suburban home pondering these questions, American troops sit in Iraq. I’m not getting political here. This is a book blog. I’m just saying there’s a lot to think about.

Lezlie