Things Fall Apart Book Review

What if you left your home for seven years and you came back to something else. A group of people forcing your people to change their way of living including religion. That’s what happens to Okonkwo, the main character of Things Fall Apart. In this appealing book, written by Chinua Achebe, about colonization.

Things Fall Apart takes place in the late 1800s in Nigeria. The Main character, Okonkwo, is one of the many leaders of his tribe. He is known for for his massive strength and violence. All he wanted to do was prove was that he was nothing like his father who was a drunk who owed money to everyone. This became an internal conflict because he was always trying to show that he was fearless by shutting down his emotions except rage. The way he gains his rank in his tribe and how he becomes feared is through wrestling, especially when he beat this undefeated fight know as “the cat” because “he never lands on his feet”(Achebe 27).

    At one point he lost his power due to an accident causing him and exiled by his tribe for seven years. After seven years he comes back with his family to find his people converting to Christianity and his traditions withering. The people to blame for this are the Europeans who came to Nigeria unwelcomed. Even Okonkwo’s son converted to Christianity, angering him so much that he disowned his son.

    I really like how in throughout the book Achebe used many proverbs. To me it kept the book alive and putting something new on each page. I especially liked how he put an explanation of each proverb, so if you didn’t understand what it meant there was an explanation to clear it up. Some of them were new to me such as “She was very heavy with child”(Achebe 128). I looked at the bottom and saw that it said that it meant that she was very pregnant.

    There was one thing that I didn’t like about this book and that was the point of view. I really feel that Achebe should have written the book in first person and be from Okonkwo's point of view rather than it be third person from Achebe’s. I feel that this book was perfectly set up for first person because the main character has much rage and inner conflict, which would make the book so much more interesting because to write a book in that mindset would make the book more pulsive.
    In all honesty I feel that the book was okay; it wasn’t great and it wasn’t awful.I feel the idea was good but the way it was written wasn’t because it got kind of stale at points, but it was kind of interesting because it was about african tribes during colonization, which I haven’t read a fictional book about this topic. I wouldn’t exactly read it again but it’s a book that I recommend to you read once.