Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe - Episode 1 - Meet Nigeria's Most Famous Author , Teacher and Philosopher!
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Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe - Episode 1 - Meet Nigeria\'s Most Famous Author , Teacher and Philosopher!
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Hi, I\\u2019m Christy Shriver and we\\u2019re\\xa0here\\xa0to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us.\\xa0
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And I\\u2019m Garry Shriver, and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast.\\xa0 I am very excited\\xa0this\\xa0series on\\xa0Nigerian author\\xa0Chinua Achebe\\xa0and his first\\xa0groundbreaking book-\\xa0Things Fall Apart\\xa0first\\xa0published in 1958.\\xa0 There are not many books that have had the kind of\\xa0positive\\xa0worldwide\\xa0impact that this book has had, and the reasons are numerous.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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The reasons are numerous.\\xa0 I first met Dr. Achebe\\u2019s work\\xa0late\\xa0as an adult.\\xa0 I was teaching English at Bolton High School here in Memphis,\\xa0and we had just started the IB program\\xa0or the International Baccalaureate program, a college prep curriculum acknowledged around the world.\\xa0 In the IB program\\xa0students\\xa0must read works\\xa0from English language writers from around the\\xa0entire English speaking\\xa0world, not just from the UK or the US\\xa0which is what had been traditional for me up to that point in my education even as a teacher.\\xa0 His was the first book I read\\xa0from an African writer, and it was impactful for so many reasons, some personal, others academic.\\xa0\\xa0I became like many readers of his work, all of a sudden aware of new way of thinking about Africa\\xa0or aware of a way I had perhaps thought about Africa, albeit completely unawares.\\xa0\\xa0I have mentioned before that my parents were missionaries and I was raised mostly in Brazil, but for a time\\xa0we lived in Zimbabwe, Africa.\\xa0 My time in Zimbabwe was my first experience with the continent of Africa.\\xa0\\xa0My time in Africa had\\xa0made a strong impression on me.\\xa0 We lived in a missionary compound in what they called back then\\xa0\\u201cthe bush\\u201d\\xa0which means we didn\\u2019t live in a village or a town;\\xa0we\\xa0just\\xa0lived\\xa0in the interior.\\xa0\\xa0I had never seen a place like the interior of Zimbabwe.\\xa0 We lived about 30 minutes away from the town of Gweru.\\xa0\\xa0The first essay I wrote in college was called, \\u201cThe African Sunset\\u201d\\xa0and it was about how overwhelming just the physical landscape was.\\xa0 As a 13 year old girl, I would run down the\\xa0twin-stripped back\\xa0road for a couple of miles every day.\\xa0 I still remember many times on my way home, I would look out across the Savannah and just stare\\xa0at\\xa0the beautiful sky- the many colors against the savannah.\\xa0\\xa0Since those days, I\\u2019ve always loved Africa.\\xa0
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But Christy, Nigeria is not Zimbabwe\\xa0nor located anywhere near it on the African continent- correct?\\xa0
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That is absolutely correct- and what a horrible misconception for people that think of Africa\\xa0as\\xa0one place- nothing could be farther from the truth.\\xa0\\xa0And you are also absolutely correct in assuming that the landscapes of Zimbabwe are NOT the landscapes of Nigeria- just as the landscapes of\\xa0Tennessee are not the landscapes of Florida or Minnesota.\\xa0\\xa0There are 54\\xa0independent\\xa0countries in Africa.\\xa0 Compare that to North America where we only have\\xa023.\\xa0 Nigeria is in West Africa-\\xa0it is farther north as well- although you have to remember- much Africa is in the Southern Hemisphere.\\xa0 Nigeria is in the Northern hemisphere, like the United States of Europe, but\\xa0Zimbabwe\\xa0is in the Southern Hemisphere- it\\u2019s also farther away from the equator than Nigeria so it\\xa0has a much more moderate climate than Nigeria.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Another big difference is that Nigeria is on the coast\\xa0while Zimbabwe is totally landlocked.\\xa0\\xa0
Exactly,\\xa0\\xa0if you think of Africa like an upside down\\xa0capital L, think of Nigeria at the bend\\xa0next to the Atlantic ocean,\\xa0where as\\xa0Zimbabwe is way down at the bottom- the second\\xa0country\\xa0to the bottom from South Africa.\\xa0 They are far from each other,\\xa0but I will say Nigeria, like Zimbabwe has savannahs with all of the amazing wildlife like elephants, hippopotamuses,\\xa0crocodiles and cheetahs!!\\xa0 Nigeria just has more variety of climates than Zimbabwe does\\xa0including a tropical forest that has gorillas.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Another difference from our reality\\xa0here in North America and an even\\xa0more complex reality\\xa0than climate\\xa0and biodiversity is language. While the majority of people in North America speak either English, French or Spanish\\xa0as their first\\xa0and\\xa0heart language.\\xa0 That is not the case in Africa.\\xa0\\xa0In Africa, there are more than 2000 distinct languages.\\xa0 Africa has a third of the world\\u2019s languages with less than a seventh of the world\\u2019s population.\\xa0\\xa0Of course Arabic is the most widely spoken language in Africa, but after Arabic, English is the second most widely spoken language.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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However, what we need to understand is that\\xa0English\\xa0is often not a person\\u2019s first language.\\xa0 Many times\\xa0African\\xa0students will learn one language at home\\xa0as\\xa0in the case of Achebe,\\xa0that would be\\xa0Igbo, but English\\xa0is\\xa0the language of school and commerce-\\xa0it\\u2019s what we call a\\xa0trade language.\\xa0\\xa0It is not the language of indigenous stories, of traditional music, of the people.\\xa0
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An important point,\\xa0English has become a trade language for a lot of the world.\\xa0\\xa0Even though over 1.5 billion people on planet earth speak English, only 400 million speak it as a first language.\\xa0\\xa0
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\\xa0That\\u2019s why, even in Brazil, where I grew up,\\xa0most students will study English as a second language as early as elementary school because most international business will be conducted in English.\\xa0\\xa0It\\u2019s also why when Achebe first chose to write his books in English instead of\\xa0Ibgo\\xa0there was push back.\\xa0 Was his choice to write in English a betrayal?\\xa0 You could see it that way, but that\\u2019s not now\\xa0he looked at it.\\xa0 He wanted to his book to be for the world, and so it had to be in a global language.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Well, it certainly accomplished that goal,\\xa0but\\xa0the\\xa0diversity of cultures\\xa0undoubted has created\\xa0unique challenges\\xa0for\\xa0the continent of Africa\\xa0as well as a richness of cultural thought\\xa0and perspective- all of which can be seen specifically in the history and culture of Nigeria.\\xa0\\xa0
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True, but before we leave my personal experiences I wanted to bring up one other thing about my life;\\xa0I told you I had lived in Zimbabwe as a child, but\\xa0I also wanted to mention that\\xa0my mother\\xa0was\\xa0a missionary to Nigeria\\xa0early in the life of the\\xa0of the country.\\xa0 Nigeria became independent in 1960. My mother was an elementary school teacher there\\xa0in\\xa01968.\\xa0\\xa0When I read Things Fall Apart, although it takes place much earlier,\\xa0Achebe references clashes with the missionaries\\xa0and their portrayal is not necessarily.\\xa0 At first I didn\\u2019t like that because it felt he was personally aggressing my mother- judging and condemning her.\\xa0 Her little school was also in the bush outside\\xa0a town called Oshogbo.\\xa0\\xa0From my perspective as a child of a missionary, I knew that my mother had no desire to gain financially from the people she served.\\xa0 She did not view herself as a colonizer.\\xa0\\xa0She loved the people.\\xa0 The missionaries in her mission learned the local languages.\\xa0\\xa0They had a hospital where they provided medicines and much needed services to local people.\\xa0\\xa0My initial gut reaction was to oppose\\xa0Achebe\\u2019s portrayal\\xa0to say- you\\u2019ve got\\xa0my mother\\xa0all wrong.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0But, of course,\\xa0that is not\\xa0Achebe\\u2019s\\xa0way-and he makes it hard to argue with him.\\xa0\\xa0His own grandfather was an orphan saved by missionaries, so he understands that reality.\\xa0 But he also saw his people- beyond the physical loss of patrimony-\\xa0lose their confidence\\xa0and culture.\\xa0 He saw his people\\xa0see themselves as inferior\\xa0through\\xa0financial coercion\\xa0of Westerners- not just missionaries, but missionaries cannot be excluded from this group.\\xa0\\xa0Some of it not\\xa0indirectly linked to hierarchies and exclusions of people within his own Igbo system- something he illustrates in the book.\\xa0\\xa0Achebe leads\\xa0readers\\xa0to understand things are not\\xa0simple.\\xa0 It is\\xa0also\\xa0not about any one person.\\xa0 It is not even about anyone being a good person or being a bad person. It\\u2019s not about any one group of people.\\xa0\\xa0He is not out to villainize the person of my mother.\\xa0 He\\u2019s not out to glamorize the character of Okonkwo.\\xa0 He wants to tell the story of his people told from his point of view-\\xa0a\\xa0point of view from within.\\xa0\\xa0The story of Nigeria, like the story of humanity is messy.\\xa0\\xa0It is a human story.\\xa0\\xa0And the more I read the speeches and non-fiction writings of Achebe\\xa0as well as the many who have come after him, the more I realize it is humanity that Achebe seeks to express above all else- something I want to get into in a different episode when we talk about his writings\\xa0on\\xa0Joseph Conrad.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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And\\xa0It\\u2019s an important story for the world to understand.\\xa0The book is more relevant today than it was\\xa0when he wrote it\\xa0because technology is shrinking the world but it still has many different languages, worldviews, religions, and value systems.\\xa0 Also, we are more aware than ever\\xa0of\\xa0the tragedies and aggressive nature\\xa0of\\xa0human\\xa0history.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0The book seems to\\xa0resonate\\xa0because he addresses\\xa0where on a worldwide scale,\\xa0and\\xa0has an informed central vision on\\xa0how we should proceed forward\\xa0if\\xa0something close to peace and mutual respect are ever going to exist.\\xa0
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I think\\xa0that is why when Achebe\\xa0finally\\xa0succeeded in\\xa0publishing\\xa0his book\\xa0(it literally took\\xa0something of a miracle),\\xa0it became an instant success- selling millions and\\xa0has\\xa0since been\\xa0translated in over 50 languages\\xa0worldwide.\\xa0\\xa0There is something universal\\xa0in all of his writings\\xa0that\\xa0resonates\\xa0intuitively in the heart of every person who reads\\xa0it\\xa0even though the\\xa0Igbo\\xa0culture\\xa0is\\xa0new and\\xa0maybe even mysterious.\\xa0\\xa0Things Fall Apart\\xa0was\\xa0the first book written by an African to be introduced into the English curriculum\\xa0-even on the continent of Africa.\\xa0\\xa0
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Since\\xa0my initial introduction, I have\\xa0watched him lecture on many\\xa0YouTube\\xa0videos.\\xa0 His persona\\xa0later in life\\xa0reminds me of Elie Wiesel\\u2019s in many ways.\\xa0\\xa0Like Wiesel, he\\xa0was\\xa0a\\xa0soft-spoken man.\\xa0 He\\xa0exuded kindness,\\xa0gentleness\\xa0and wisdom- after many years of war and conflict in his country, he\\xa0understood peace and purpose in a special way-\\xa0in fact,\\xa0listening to him\\xa0lecture in some ways reduces some of the world\\u2019s most complicated problems to\\xa0a\\xa0resolvable\\xa0hope found in humility and forgiveness.\\xa0
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And that is the legacy of the entire story of Nigeria- where we\\xa0must\\xa0start as we give context to the book\\xa0Things Fall Apart\\xa0and to the life of Achebe.\\xa0American historian John Patton says\\xa0and I quote, \\u201cNigeria\\xa0must be the most complicated country in the world.\\u201d\\xa0\\xa0And I don\\u2019t know if anyone tries to argue differently.\\xa0\\xa0There are 520 different languages spoken there.\\xa0 There are 100 different ethnic groups.\\xa0 Nigeria is the ONLY country in the world whose population is split 50/50 equally between Muslims and Christians- neither has a clear majority.\\xa0 Those facts alone\\xa0create challenges unparalleled anywhere else on earth.\\xa0 But beyond that, we must not overlook the incredibly\\xa0tectonic\\xa0impact of the British empire as it altered and changed the lives of the millions living not just in Nigeria but all of Africa.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Hence- Things Fall Apart- Achebe was not\\xa0the first writer to write about Africa, but he was\\xa0one of the first to publish in English from an African perspective-\\xa0and his voice was\\xa0an important one.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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As we\\u2019ve mentioned many times before, history is recorded by\\xa0those who write it down, and in West Africa, where Nigeria is located, history had been written primarily by\\xa0the British\\xa0soldiers\\xa0themselves.\\xa0 And so, of course, this perspective was always skewed leaving out the perspective of the indigenous people.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Isn\\u2019t that always the case?\\xa0
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Well, pretty much, but not always.\\xa0 In India for example, the atrocities of colonialism were\\xa0much better recorded by Indian nationals,\\xa0and so\\xa0they have a higher profile\\xa0and\\xa0we\\xa0have much more knowledge of\\xa0what happened in India as opposed to\\xa0the things that happened in West Africa, for example.\\xa0
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Well, the story\\xa0Things Fall Apart\\xa0takes place sometime during the final decade of the 1900s in a little village of the Igbo people.\\xa0\\xa0What do we need to know to get to that place?\\xa0 Tell us about Europe\\u2019s interaction with that area as well as the people themselves.\\xa0
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Well, that\\u2019s a very tall order.\\xa0 But let\\u2019s start with the\\xa0make up\\xa0of the land itself.\\xa0 So, Nigeria really is culturally divided- today 50% of it is Muslim, 50% of it is Christian.\\xa0 There is a reason for this and it very much has to do with Europe.\\xa0 The African slave trade started early- 1500s even.\\xa0 But Europeans did not really go into the continent.\\xa0 They only went to the coast and bought slaves.\\xa0 The Africans didn\\u2019t want them in the continent so they fought them out but also, Europeans strangely kept dying when they went into the interior.\\xa0 For centuries they assumed it was the climate; that the heat was killing them.\\xa0 But in fact, it was malaria, a disease you get from a mosquito- they just didn\\u2019t know that in the 19th\\xa0century.\\xa0 In 1808 , Britain abolished slavery, notice that\\u2019s almost 60 years before the United States, but Britain still wanted African resources- in Nigeria\\u2019s case back then it was palm oil.\\xa0 Today, Nigeria\\u2019s largest revenue source is its oil, but that wouldn\\u2019t be discovered until the 1950s.\\xa0 Anyway, after the abolition of slavery the relationship between Britain and Nigeria went from extracting people from the continent to its natural resources and this was still done through mercantilism- today what we understand as mercantile colonization.\\xa0 Still, it was still physically difficult for the British to go themselves into the continent.\\xa0 This all changed when two technologies emerged- one was the steam boat, and the other was quinine.\\xa0 Quinine was a medicine that treats malaria.\\xa0 This changed the reality.\\xa0 And the British companies began to colonize the land- why pay and compete for resources when you can just go take them for yourself essentially is the idea.\\xa0 In Nigeria\\u2019s case, this dirty work was done by a company called the British Niger Company today known today as Unilever.\\xa0 The story of what happened there is too much to get into here, but it\\u2019s bloody and crooked, as you might imagine. The. British didn\\u2019t actually revoke the charter of the British Niger Company until the year 1900- this is the year that the British Government actually began to openly colonize Nigeria- this is the outside context where we drop the book.\\xa0
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What about the part of Nigeria where Okonkwo lived specifically.\\xa0
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Okonkwo\\u2019s village is an Igbo village.\\xa0 Now we must remember that Nigeria is not just one place, and the Nigerian people are not just one people.\\xa0 The easiest way perhaps for us to understand this in the Americas is to think of the indigenous people on the American continent.\\xa0 The Cherokee are not the\\xa0Arrapaho\\xa0who are not the Sioux who are not the Iroquois who are not the Hawaiian- every nation has its own unique culture, a language, a way of life.\\xa0 Some nations are warriors; some are farmers.\\xa0 In the case of Nigeria, the Northern nations were Muslim and highly organized.\\xa0 They were ruled by Emir\\u2019s and these were connected.\\xa0 When the British colonized Northern Nigeria they asserted indirect control- an easier and less-messy way to colonize.\\xa0 They controlled the Emir, the emir controlled the people- so the average person was not as aware of the arrangement.\\xa0 Local people had less contact with white Europeans.\\xa0 In the South, that was not the reality- especially with the Igbo people;.\\xa0 The Igbo people historically were very democratic by tradition.\\xa0 There is a famous saying, \\u201cThe Igbo knows no king\\u201d.\\xa0 They believed strongly that every free born person had a right to have a say in the running of his society.\\xa0 The British had a much more difficult time subduing a nation with this kind of de-centralized structure.\\xa0 Also, as we see in the book, the Igbo as well as the other Southern tribes were animistic.\\xa0 They had many gods, not unlike the Hawaiians we talked about last week.\\xa0 We see that in\\xa0Things Fall Apart\\xa0as well.\\xa0 I know we\\u2019re going to talk about the religion in another episode as well as the relationship with missionaries, but I want say- this was a problem for the British.\\xa0 There were millions of people all speaking different languages, 500 to be exact, they had no central government and no common religion.\\xa0 So, the British came in as teachers, both secular and religious.\\xa0 And in teaching English and Christianity they were successful.\\xa0 The two most important legacies today of the British are the English language and the Christian religion.\\xa0 And here is one of life\\u2019s interesting ironies- today there are more people that speak English in Nigeria than speak English in Britain.\\xa0 Also, there are more Christians in Nigeria than in Britain and even more surprisingly, Nigeria sends out more Christian missionaries around the world than almost any other nation, in spite of its financial challenges.\\xa0 The largest Evangelical church in Europe is a Nigerian church.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Things Fall Apart\\xa0is the beginning of this colonial period.\\xa0 Some\\xa0European\\xa0books make it sound like it was a mostly peaceful thing,\\xa0and the British were well-received.\\xa0
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Yes- that would be the soldiers accounts.\\xa0 But that is absolutely NOT the case.\\xa0 It was bloody and intensely violent.\\xa0 Whole villages in some cases were wiped out- every person murdered, every structure burned and even every tree flattened.\\xa0 After the initial war\\xa0of conquest, there was a secondary wave of indigenous people fighting back\\xa0called the\\xa0Ekumeku\\xa0movement.\\xa0 This means the silent ones.\\xa0 They went around at night as guerilla warriors starting in the early 1800s with the Royal Niger Company all\\xa0the\\xa0way through 1915.\\xa0 Also, I might add, often the British would hire warrior nations of the North to come down and subdue Southern nations.\\xa0 So, you can see this does not unite a people\\xa0in any way.\\xa0\\xa0It also breeds a culture of corruption.\\xa0\\xa0There should be little wonder that six years after Nigeria won\\xa0its\\xa0independence from the British it plunged into a bloody civil war\\xa0that cost the Igbo alone 3 million lives.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Well, although that\\u2019s not the context of this book, Achebe has other books that\\xa0express\\xa0that\\xa0continuing\\xa0story\\xa0using fiction as the\\xa0tool of language, but he even wrote\\xa0a personal memory\\xa0about\\xa0the civil war years called\\xa0There was a Country.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Yes and worth reading.\\xa0 Let me just add this one thing before we leave the history side of things, although Nigeria has many challenges, some natural, some imported from the colonial experience, it is important to note that the Nigerian story today is in some ways a qualified success and something the world should pay attention to.\\xa0 By the end of the century there will be \\xbe of a billion Nigerians.\\xa0 Today 2/3 of the population is under thirty.\\xa0 It is a young country in every way.\\xa0 The people there are as different as you can imagine, but they do share one belief- they have a desire to preserve their country.\\xa0 They know they did not create their own borders, but today those borders are sacrosanct.\\xa0 They know they have cultural and religious differences that have caused more violence than we can ever understand in the West, but today they have innovations to cope with these problems- a federal affirmative action system for example to ensure that no ethnic group is favored above other groups and a presidency that must alternate between one being a Christian to the next being a Muslim and back and forth.\\xa0 All of these are aimed at forming peace and keeping it.\\xa0 So, we must respect and understand the history we are reading, but also the promise of the Nigerian Project which the country has purchased at so high a price.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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So, going back in time, not to the story but\\xa0to Achebe\\u2019s life;\\xa0he was born in 1930.\\xa0 His parents, and this should make more sense now,\\xa0were deeply Christian\\xa0and raised\\xa0Achebe\\xa0as a Christian.\\xa0\\xa0In fact his first name was a British name, Albert- Albert\\xa0Chinualumogwu\\xa0Achebe- we\\u2019ll talk more about that next week.\\xa0\\xa0He read the Bible daily; attended church services, all the things\\xa0Christian\\xa0children do.\\xa0 However, he was also very much interested in his\\xa0Igbo tradition and that included religion.\\xa0\\xa0His little village, as a child, was half Christian and half\\xa0traditional in their beliefs.\\xa0 Achebe\\u2019s father, a Christian minister, ensured that his son attended\\xa0English and Anglican schools, but the village life was all around him.\\xa0 He enjoyed traditional festivals and heard all of the tales and stories of the Igbo.\\xa0 His mother, although a Christian,\\xa0told him\\xa0 many stories, proverbs and traditions\\xa0that had been handed down through the oral tradition.\\xa0 So, Achebe grew up a child of\\xa0two\\xa0worlds- an Igbo world and the colonial world.\\xa0\\xa0Because he was such an incredibly bright student, he was identified\\xa0as a student capable of working for the British empire and received scholarships to attend the prestigious\\xa0University College (now the University of Ibadan)\\xa0as a medical student.\\xa0\\xa0He hated studying medicine, and instead changed his course of study to\\xa0English literature.\\xa0\\xa0That was no small decision because it caused him to lose all of his scholarships.\\xa0 For that degree\\xa0\\xa0he and his family had to pay out of pocket.\\xa0 It was during those years that he started to write.\\xa0\\xa0One of the biggest influence on Achebe\\u2019s writing career was his reading of Joseph Conrad\\u2019s famous novel\\xa0about Africa-\\xa0Heart of Darkness.\\xa0\\xa0He had read it even as a child.\\xa0\\xa0"Conrad was a seductive writer. He could pull his reader into the fray. And if it were not for what he said about me and my people, I would probably be thinking only of that seduction,"\\xa0\\xa0
Today we would find Conrad\\u2019s portrayal of any group of people alarmingly offensive.\\xa0\\xa0
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Of course we would,\\xa0\\xa0and Achebe realized it immediately because they were talking about HIM, his family, his people.\\xa0\\xa0"The language of description of the people in\\u202fHeart of Darkness\\u202fis inappropriate," says Achebe. "I realized how terribly\\xa0terribly\\xa0wrong it was to portray my people \\u2014 any people \\u2014 from that attitude."\\xa0
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Well, his reaction is a model for all of us.\\xa0\\xa0He recognized a bad idea- and he fought it by countering with a better one.\\xa0\\xa0He chose to write and publish his own story- the story of his people from his perspective.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Exactly, years later, he was asked if he thought Conrad\\u2019s book should be banned.\\xa0 He was emphatic that\\xa0the answer was no.\\xa0 And amazingly, today a lot of English teachers teach both books together.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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I love that- don\\u2019t shut someone up by force- just have a\\xa0superior\\xa0idea.\\xa0
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And his\\xa0superior\\xa0idea changed the course of not just his life but the trajectory of African literature for all time.\\xa0\\xa0Achebe received over 30 honorary degrees during his life time.\\xa0\\xa0Published political essays, novels, poetry and short stories.\\xa0\\xa0He published\\xa0Things Fall Apart\\xa0in 1958 at the age of 27.\\xa0 He\\u2019d worked on it for a long time.\\xa0 He wrote it out by hand and sent his only copy to a typesetter in England who just sat on it.\\xa0 It almost got lost.\\xa0 He has said, if it had, he\\xa0likely\\xa0would have never written anything again, but a friend\\xa0who lived in England got that worked out.\\xa0 2000 copies were published and the rest is history.\\xa0 I do want to say, he married a girl named Christiana, but they called her Christy. They were married over 50 years all the way to the time of his death in 2013.\\xa0
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I want\\xa0point out\\xa0in 1999\\xa0Things Fall Apart\\u202finspired and was the title for\\xa0the fourth\\u202fstudio album\\u202fby American\\u202fhip hop\\u202fband\\u202fThe Roots- and that album went platinum which means it sold over 1\\xa0million\\xa0copies.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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I think we can safely say, Achebe had a better idea.\\xa0 Are we ready to start it..\\xa0
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Sure.\\xa0 Let\\u2019s do it.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Things Fall Apart\\xa0the book starts with an epigraph from a poem by W. B Yeats.\\xa0 Yeats is a\\xa0Nobel Prize winning\\xa0Irish writer.\\xa0 The poem Achebe quotes\\xa0was published in 1920- one year after the end of WW1.\\xa0The name of the poem ironically is \\u201cThe Second Coming\\u201d.\\xa0As we know from Eliot and many others, this War\\xa0was supposed to be\\xa0the war\\xa0to end all wars\\xa0but really it\\xa0murdered millions\\xa0and created\\xa0despair\\xa0in Europe like nothing that had come before it.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Yeat\\u2019s\\xa0first\\xa0stanza starts with these famous first four lines\\xa0that contain the title of Achebe\\u2019s book.\\xa0 Let me read the first stanza of Yeats poem:\\xa0
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Turning and turning in the widening gyre\\xa0The falcon cannot hear the falconer;\\xa0Things fall apart; the\\xa0centre\\xa0cannot hold;\\xa0Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,\\xa0The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere\\xa0The ceremony of innocence is drowned;\\xa0The best lack all conviction, while the worst\\xa0Are full of passionate intensity.\\xa0
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The epigraph\\xa0to Achebe\\u2019s book\\xa0is the first four lines.\\xa0 In its own right it is\\xa0easily one of the most famous and frequently quoted poems in all of Western\\xa0literature.\\xa0\\xa0The context in Yeats mind was the realization that basically\\xa0European society had pretty much broken down.\\xa0 While\\xa0some people were optimistic about the future, Yeats\\xa0wasn\\u2019t.\\xa0 He thought the deconstruction of society\\xa0had left\\xa0his\\xa0world in a terribly vulnerable place.\\xa0 His poem\\xa0is a terrifying prediction of future violence.\\xa0 Of course, from our vantage point we know Yeats was absolutely right and Hitler was right around the corner.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
Achebe uses\\xa0these lines as\\xa0an epigraph\\xa0to his book.\\xa0 An epigraph is\\xa0a short quotation at the beginning of the book.\\xa0\\xa0By using lines from \\u201cThe Second Coming\\u201d as the introduction to his book, Achebe\\xa0makes\\xa0parallel\\xa0between what the Europeans had done in WW1 and what the British had done in Igboland- as European had de-structured Europe and left it devastated, European colonization of Africa\\xa0had done\\xa0the same thing.\\xa0
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What\\u2019s brilliant about that is that Achebe uses the language of the colonizer\\u202f(literally and figuratively)\\u202fto enlighten the European heirs of colonialism on the point of view of the people who had been colonized.\\xa0
\\xa0Exactly, and it\\u2019s worth\\xa0looking\\xa0\\xa0at the poem more closely\\xa0which we\\u2019ll do\\xa0in our poetry supplement, but it is a brilliant parallel.\\xa0The specifics of the poem are also incredibly relevant to\\u202fThings Fall Apart.\\xa0\\xa0The poem begins with the image of a falcon flying out of earshot of its human master. In medieval times, people would use falcons or hawks to track down animals at ground level. In actual falconry, the bird is not supposed to keep flying in circles forever; it is eventually supposed to come back and land on the falconer\\u2019s glove. In this image, however, the falcon has gotten itself lost by flying too far away, which we can read as a reference to the collapse of traditional social arrangements in Europe at the time Yeats was writing- and is how Achebe\\xa0sees what has\\xa0happend\\xa0to\\xa0the Igbo social and religious structure\\xa0that had supported his society for hundreds of years.\\xa0\\xa0Yeats will make\\xa0the\\xa0argument in his poem that\\xa0living as Europe was living to use his words, \\u201cthe center cannot hold\\u201d which is exactly the point Achebe is making in Things Fall Apart.. As a result\\xa0of the colonizing efforts of the British, the Igbo people\\xa0were stripped of\\xa0the\\xa0social or moral rules that had given their lives a center for centuries.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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The term \\u201cSecond Coming\\u201d in the poem makes you think you\\u2019re talking about the second coming of Christ- the one where Christ comes to earth and makes a heaven or a Utopia out of earth.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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This, of course, is ironic- because WW1 did not usher in the second coming of Christ with peace and prosperity, but it instead\\xa0it\\xa0opened the door to\\xa0greed, destruction and chaos.\\xa0\\xa0This is Achebe\\u2019s parallel.\\xa0\\xa0The coming of the Europeans let\\xa0\\u201cloosed anarchy on the world\\u201d\\xa0of\\xa0Africa to use Yeats words\\xa0\\u2013 for Achebe the horrors of imperialism were marked by the coercing and brutalizing of\\xa0his people\\xa0fueled again mostly by Greed.\\xa0 I\\u2019m not sure TS Eliot, the king of Allusions could have make a more effective use of the technique.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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So, I think that\\u2019s enough said.\\xa0 I hope we brought a little of the context of the country of Nigeria, we talked about where Achebe got the title and why he picked it.\\xa0 Now, let\\u2019s read the first page of the novel and introduce our hero- Okonkwo.\\xa0 That is the last piece for setting up this amazing story.\\xa0 And I know we\\u2019re getting into a lot of context- but it\\u2019s necessary.\\xa0\\xa0This book is important; it\\u2019s groundbreaking, but it\\u2019s context is so foundational to understanding the complexity of the concept, it must not be overlooked.\\xa0
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Oh, for sure. I totally agree.\\xa0 Let me read page 1-\\xa0read through \\u201che had no patience for his father.\\u201d\\xa0
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I read one time that one of the questions Achebe was most often asked was why he made his hero so flawed?\\xa0 Wasn\\u2019t he supposed to be showing the greatness of the Igbo culture.\\xa0 Achebe\\u2019s response is so nuanced and so understated, it\\u2019s genius\\xa0floors me.\\xa0 He said, no.\\xa0 He had no interest in glamorizing Africa,\\xa0Ibgo\\xa0culture.\\xa0 Africa does not consist of savages; Africa does not consist of angels.\\xa0 Africa\\xa0is filled with people.\\xa0 The cultures of Africa, like every other culture on planet earth\\xa0are\\xa0also a mixed-bag.\\xa0 There is no perfect culture.\\xa0 There is no perfect\\xa0place..which\\xa0is something I think we lose sight of in America, I might say.\\xa0 We must love and accept all of it.\\xa0 In Okonkwo\\u2019s case, Achebe\\xa0creates\\xa0 an\\xa0Ibgo\\xa0hero.\\xa0 Now, we\\u2019ve read\\xa0how the Greeks felt about their\\xa0heros.\\xa0 We saw a little hero in Bilbo, but let\\u2019s look at Okonkwo.\\xa0\\xa0Patrick\\xa0Nnoromele, who is a member of the\\xa0Igbo\\xa0people, says that\\xa0A hero in the Igbo culture is one of great courage and strength.\\xa0\\xa0A man who\\xa0works\\xa0against the destabilizing forces of his community\\xa0and affects the destinies of others.\\xa0\\xa0His life is defined by contradictions, ambivalence because his actions must stand in\\xa0shart\\xa0contrast or ordinary behavior.\\xa0 A hero cannot exist outside of the community because he has to stand out in the community by definition.\\xa0\\xa0If he is ambitious he has obligations to his society, but\\xa0sometimes that creates a problem if your self-interest comes in conflict with the society you\\u2019re in.\\xa0 This is really a complicated paradox.\\xa0 So, when we get to Okonkwo, we immediately understand that\\xa0the single passion of his life is to be of\\xa0of\\xa0the lords of the clan.\\xa0\\xa0Acebe\\xa0says it is his \\u201clife-spring\\u201d and the first challenge he faces is that his dad is loser.\\xa0\\xa0So, the first chapter sets up Okonkwo in contrast to his father.\\xa0 His father was a male, but among the Igbo, he was never a man.\\xa0 In order for Okonkwo to become a hero,\\xa0the first thing he had to do was overcome his father\\u2019s reputation.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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That\\u2019s where we will stop for today.\\xa0 We get more into Igbo culture next week.\\xa0 I really\\xa0really\\xa0love this stuff, so I hope I don\\u2019t go overboard.\\xa0 I\\u2019m very excited about this book, so I hope you enjoy reading it with us if you haven\\u2019t already.\\xa0
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Oh, and I love it too.\\xa0 I\\u2019ve never been to Africa, so this is opening up a new world for me.\\xa0 I\\u2019m excited and look forward to discussing the next few chapters next week\\u2026..\\xa0
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Peace out!\\xa0
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