Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

I couldn't put this book down but I don't know that I like it, either. The characters and their circumstances were so alien to me that I had to know more. I suppose that's because Things Fall Apart is set in Nigeria during the 1880s and the characters are all apart of the Ibo culture. I found the anthropological type tidbits more interesting than the story line itself. While this is a work of fiction, of course, this book is arguably the most wide read dipiction of African life that has been written by an African instead of someone looking in from the outside.

Spoilers, kind of.

When the book opens, the reader is introduced to Okonkwo and his family, which consists of three wives and their children. Okonkwo was born to one of the biggest failures in his village and ended up winning his own fame first through wrestling, and then through hard work and the accumulation of yams, which was both one of the village's main dietary staples and a way to show status. Unfortunately, Okonkwo's determination is as much a flaw as it is a strength. The plot follows him as he struggles with his masculinity, upholding his reputation, incurring the wrath of the clan accidentallys, exhile, and a return to a village completely changed by Christian missionaries.

The most interesting part of the book to me was the subplot of Okonkwo's favorite child, Enzima, the girl with the spirit of a boy. Enzima is believed to be an ogbanje child, a child who is locked into a cycle where they are born, die shortly after, and are reincarnated to torture their parents with the loss of a child again and again. Enzima's mother, Ekwifi, has gone through the loss of many a child at this point and Enzima is her only surviving child. Even though Enzima is ten at the opening of the book, her frequent bouts of illness have her mother convinced the daughter she loves and spoils so much is an evil trickster out to break her heart again. Even though she is Okonkwo's favorite as well and is the only one that can calm him when his temper flares, she shares her secrets and with her mother. There are endearing scenes were Ekwifi hides Enzima so that she can eat eggs (which are their greatest delicacy) without being caught and reprimanded, ect.

The second and third sections of the book were primarily about what happened to the Ibo group when they were introduced to the white missionaries, and then the self serving District Commissioner and his government. While I believe in God, I think it's important to point out that even the most loving and well intentioned missionaries introducing monotheism to a group like this could be considered an extremely destructive act in some ways given that theheir culture was built around polytheism with a hierarchy of gods, polygamy, and agriculture. The first missionary, Mr. Brown, has a man willing to learn about their culture and compromise. The second missionary was full of wrath and heavy handed, expecting complete assimilation to his ways and beliefs immediatley. The thing that got me the most about him was that he kicked some of Mr. Brown's flock out of the church because they couldn't yet grasp the concept of the Trinity. I think that's a hard enough concept to wrap one's head around without a language barrier between you and the person doing the explaining, but for two men speaking different languages, interpreter or not, I'm sure that would be almost impossible.

I wasn't pleased with the ending, but at the same time I don't know how Okonkwo's story could have ended any other way.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Apparently, I am the only English major I know that has made it this far along without reading this book, so I suppose it’s about time I got around to it. If you haven’t read it, I should warn you that this contains spoilers.

Heart of Darkness is a long short story about a man named Marlow whose career as a boatman mirrors Conrad’s own. It opens with Marlow recounting a past trip down the River Congo to several other men on a ship called the Nellie. The text is told with a strange combination of English liberalism and racism that would later enrage the famous Nigerian author Chinua Achebe to speak out against Conrad, fifty years after his death.

While this book is well written and reeled me in, I still found it hard to swallow. Specific scenes, like Marlow finding some shade under a tree and then realizing the people sitting around him were not doing the same, but instead propping their emaciated bodies up against the trunks as they waited to die, were understandably disturbing. The thing that upset me the most was the character Kurtz. Everyone from the company was in awe of this man who had been sent not only to procure ivory but also to be a missionary who desired to better the lives of the natives. Some missionary… After running out of materials to trade with, he procured his ivory by raiding the villages with his guns. Furthermore, he did not bring God to the natives. Instead, he let them believe that he was some kind of god himself after he won them over by showing off the firepower his guns made possible to him. When Marlow and others from the company went to relieve him from his station that had run out of materials, he had the natives attack the company’s ship so that they would turn away because he did not wish to leave a place where he was held highly to return to a place where he was merely a man.

The story was exciting, though, minus the seemingly unending period where Marlow was waiting for rivets to mend his ship so that they could set off. Extinguishing fires! Sharing a ship with thirty starving cannibals! Dodging whizzing arrows! I can’t quite imagine than any combination of yoga or breathing exercises would get me through that trip.

My one disappointment with the book that had nothing to do with morals or the stripping of humanity from the natives of the Congo was that the reader does not get to hear much from Kurtz until he is on his death bed, fever dreaming. This man who “enlarges minds” and is known as a Voice above all other things, who seems to impart wisdom to everyone around him gives the reader none. Instead, what we see is an obsessive and flawed character through Marlow’s fixation with him. We see his hypocrisy but never get to understand why the other men of the company (minus the irked Manager) were so inspired by him, making their adoration slightly less than believable.