Had the choice to read this or communist manifesto by karl mark. Karl is not about a bag so i wasnt gonna read that broke ass book lmao. This was definitely the right choice. Unexpectedly a lot of woman respection in this but whatever. I'll follow whatever the sigma gods tell me to follow. So respect woman, i guess. Only criticism is that there wasnt a sexy man on every chapter. only 2 images wtf.

0.5 stars, generously

Two things can be true:

1. There is a deep and true harm in colonialism and how Christianity specifically influenced this harm. More works of fiction should address this from the perspective of those who are victims of it, as well as showing the changes taking place and how they have negative impacts
2. I absolutely hated this book because of how overtly sexist it was, and I will not forgive the author for it, even if it falls under another culture. There is no excuse to beat your wife or children or shoot at your wife because she made you mildly miffed. The over-present misogyny, where he beats his sons for “acting like women,” is mad that his favorite child happened to be a girl, and talk of controlling women, AS WELL AS HOW WOMEN ARE TREATED AS FOOLISH AND AS PROPERTY is completely unforgivable to me. Nothing could have redeemed this book for me on that point alone.

Furthermore, on the second point, Okonkwo is not a man driven to violence due to difficult circumstances. He is a man deemed to be too violent in a group of men that openly bemoan how “cowardly” their sons have become and cheer for war. He kills people solely to not be seen as weak. I could have forgiven his violence if it was the result of a breaking point, but it’s not. It’s his first response. And half of his conversations are just complaining about his wives or his children, as if he is not their father.

Finally, on a writing scale (and this could be the fault of the translator, so it comes last), the writing is 90% tell, 10% show. We skip over several years, and some side characters introduced have little impact because there’s no way to actually get to know them. Most of the chapters in Part One are entirely unrelated to each other, which is not the biggest flaw, but in conjunction with everything else, yeah. I don’t understand why people praise this book so much. There are certainly better novels about the damage of Christian colonialism

I've often been disappointed that I was never assigned to read this at a level or at uni; having now read this I suspect my tutors chose 'season of migration to the north' by tayeb salih over this when creating the postcolonial module we did, possibly just because 'season of migration...' is lesser known, although we did read some of achebe's theoretical work and his debate with thiong'o on using english vs using indigenous african languages in writing and literature.

still, things fall apart is unambiguously foundational and I'm glad I finally got around to it. considered, powerful; the last few lines in particular are wildly frustrating and nauseating. from a quick scroll in the goodreads reviews (I know...) it's clear that people consider okonkwo, quick to anger, uncompromising, and violent, as not exactly a 'likable' protagonist... but I think pursuing likeability as a line of thought when talking about this novel is pretty pointless. okonkwo is an focalizer through which achebe can illustrate the impacts of the colonial invasion and the insidious colonial missionary work, and through which he can show a culture being destroyed to such an extent that it becomes unrecognisable and its former great men cannot function within it any longer. he's also a refusal to marginalise or trivialise african perspectives, as so many other novels and writers at the time (especially/mostly english-language writers) did. I do regret a bit that I'm not studying it though, I think I'll have to put a bit more thought into it, especially into the episode where the priestess briefly absconds with ezinma. it interested me but I wasn't sure exactly what to make of it. I also think it's subtler than it gets credit for; saw complaints about the simplicity of the prose, but I find them to be a bit ridiculous.

0.5 stars, generously

Two things can be true:

1. There is a deep and true harm in colonialism and how Christianity specifically influenced this harm. More works of fiction should address this from the perspective of those who are victims of it, as well as showing the changes taking place and how they have negative impacts
2. I absolutely hated this book because of how overtly sexist it was, and I will not forgive the author for it, even if it falls under another culture. There is no excuse to beat your wife or children or shoot at your wife because she made you mildly miffed. The over-present misogyny, where he beats his sons for “acting like women,” is mad that his favorite child happened to be a girl, and talk of controlling women, AS WELL AS HOW WOMEN ARE TREATED AS FOOLISH AND AS PROPERTY is completely unforgivable to me. Nothing could have redeemed this book for me on that point alone.

Furthermore, on the second point, Okonkwo is not a man driven to violence due to difficult circumstances. He is a man deemed to be too violent in a group of men that openly bemoan how “cowardly” their sons have become and cheer for war. He kills people solely to not be seen as weak. I could have forgiven his violence if it was the result of a breaking point, but it’s not. It’s his first response. And half of his conversations are just complaining about his wives or his children, as if he is not their father.

Finally, on a writing scale (and this could be the fault of the translator, so it comes last), the writing is 90% tell, 10% show. We skip over several years, and some side characters introduced have little impact because there’s no way to actually get to know them. Most of the chapters in Part One are entirely unrelated to each other, which is not the biggest flaw, but in conjunction with everything else, yeah. I don’t understand why people praise this book so much. There are certainly better novels about the damage of Christian colonialism