Went and discussed Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart tonight with three fellow readers. Although we discussed quite a number of aspects of the novel, I think these words from the author sum up why the book was important to me.
I tell my students, it's not difficult to identify with somebody like yourself, somebody next door who looks like you. What's more difficult is to identify with someone you don't see, who's very far away, who's a different color, who eats a different kind of food. When you begin to do that then literature is really performing its wonders.
This book works its wonders because Achebe writes so clearly and artlessly about the impending destruction of a culture through enforced outside change. A change that was not sought and one from which there is no return. The story has an universality that is the hallmark of great literature. It is that universality which makes us identify with this small tribe of people living in 19th century west Africa. It's an excellent book. Read it.
Posted by Joe at June 16, 2003 10:43 PM