Chekhov's Mistress
Things Fall Apart
Reading coverage of last night’s tribute to Chinua Achebe, I’m reminded how devastating Things Fall Apart is. Named from the Yeats poem, “The Second Coming,” reading Things Fall Apart your heart gets wrenched between the brutality of an old way of life and the subjugation of the new. If ever there was a case of literature as a window into a culture, as the opportunity to let understanding seep into your consciousness, then this novel is it.
David Ulin says …”‘Things Fall Apart’ is not just the starting point of an African literature, but also of a modern African literature: contemporary, hybrid, global in its implications, influenced by everything, and richer in its evocation of the world.’ I’m wondering why though, I stopped there. Achebe’s novel did not prompt me to go looking for more African literature (and mind you, I was Not force-fed the book in high school). Besides African Psycho and Things Fall Apart I’ve read nothing of African literature and that despite what seems like a rich and newly popular literature finding its way into America. I don’t know if it’s too painful – Things Fall Apart is wincingly painful at times – or maybe, despite the ‘understanding’ we gain from books such as this, things aren’t getting much better (see, for instance, this clip from Dear Mandela), as though I have a sense that the story told in Things Fall Apart has to be retold and retold while we as a society gasp and say “Oh my God” but then all of this keeps happening again. I know I’ve leapt from not venturing into African literature to global complacency and American Hegemony, but what I’m really wondering is this: I’m wondering if a novel on its 50th anniversary that millions have read manages to accomplish anything, or should it.
comments
I think the only thing it could have accomplished is it allowed many people to make sense of why some things happen in the way they do. By some things, I mean the transition between “brutality of an old way of life and the subjugation of the new”. I think the book also paved the way for many (non South African) African authors.
It’s a great novel, though. The power of it lies in it’s honesty and simplicity.
– Parth (02/29 at 10:56 AM)
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About this Post
- Posted by: Bud Parr
- Date: February 28, 2008
- Filed Under:
Wise Men Fish Here: Literature
- Comments:1
- Links to this Post: Technorati
