"Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe

For the past five weeks, I've been taking part in another "slow read" led by Simon Haisell at Footnotes & Tangents.  (I've recently tagged all the "slow reads" I've done with that group to date as "F&T slow readlong.") 

"Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe is the third book I've read with F&T this year. First published in 1958, it's the story of a changing Africa in the late 19th century in the face of European colonization, as experienced by Okonkwo, a proud and respected member of the Igbo tribe in the village of Umuofia in what is now Nigeria. (It's the first in a trilogy about Africa's colonial evolution.) 

The first part of the book is all about Okonkwo, his family, and traditional village life in Umuofia. A tragedy forces Okonkwo and his family to leave Umuofia for seven years. He returns to a village and a life that has been profoundly changed by the arrival of the white man, colonial government, and the Christian church.

This is not a long book (and would have been a fast one, if it hadn't been spread out over five weeks...!).Okonkwo is a brute and not a particularly sympathetic character overall (although I did feel for him near the end, struggling to cope with a world he no longer understands). I also felt empathy and understanding for one of Okonkwo's wives, Ekwefi, who lost many babies, clings to her one surviving daughter Ezinma (Okonkwo's secret favourite), and envies the other women and their children. From Chapter 9:  

...Ekwefi had become a very bitter woman. Her husband's first wife had already had three sons, all strong and healthy... Ekwefi had nothing but good wishes for her. But she had grown so bitter about her own chi [personal god] that she could not rejoice with the others over their good fortune... Her husband's wife took this for malevolence, as husbands' wives were wont to. How could she know that Ekwefi's bitterness did not flow outwards to others, but inwards into her own sould;  that she did not blame others for their good fortune but her own evil chi who denied her any? 

Sound familiar?? 

I also found it difficult to read about how twins -- considered an abomination (!) -- were placed in earthenware pots,  taken into the forest and... left there. Yikes!

It's an interesting book (especially if you have any interest in Africa), and well written. I'll admit, however, it's not something I would have picked up on my own, and it's not something I'm likely to read again. 

3 stars on both Goodreads & StoryGraph. 

Our final F&T book of 2025 will be "The Blue Flower" by Penelope Fitzgerald, beginning Nov. 3rd. Details here.   

Simon also recently announced what we'll be reading together in 2026. You can find that list of books here. (Not sure I'll do every one, as I did this year, but I see a couple I'm interested in...!)  

This was Book #32 read to date in 2025 (and Book #5 finished in October), bringing me to 71% of  my 2025 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 4 books behind  schedule to meet my goal.  :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2025 tagged as "2025 books."