Quick Review | ‘Things Fall Apart’ by Chinua Achebe

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1001 book list, 50 books a year, africa, book review, chinua achebe, Grapes of Wrath, Nelson Mandela, Nigeria, Okonkwo, rory gilmore reading list, things fall apart, Umuofia

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Challenges: 1001 BYMRBYD (no. 468), 50 Books A Year (no. 38)

“The writer in whose company the prison walls fell down” – Nelson Mandela

This year I’m really lucky to have the chance to read a whole bunch of famous authors for the first time. Chinua Achebe just happens to be one of those, and his book ‘Things Fall Apart’ is a find that puts a smile on a readaholics face. Yes, it’s a wonderful find, and I say ‘find’ because for me at least, the reading quest is a personal one of discovery. With ‘Things Fall Apart’ I have found a valuable, intimate account of the ways of old tribal life in what was then the region of Umuofia, but what is now a part of Nigeria.

The story is of the great warrior Okonkwo, whose bravery and hard-earned glory is legendary among the various tribes. He is revered by his countrymen as the epitome of manhood and respected as a leading authority figure. However, as the story unfolds we witness the personal demons that haunt him, as we learn of his fathers lazy ways and the shame Okonkwo felt about this as he grew up. The day-to-day life of the villagers are told in a simple but powerful way. At one point I began to feel like one of the tribe, because I genuinely cared for what happened to the villagers of Umuofia. Okonkwo’s wives and his children, even the local medicine woman and the problems with the heavy rains and droughts that ruined a whole year of harvest shows a people who were brave and noble.

With Achebe you get to see the natives and their nobility of thought as well as the superstitious beliefs that caused a lot of grief for the various tribal members.

This book was so engrossing that I almost stayed up all night reading it. I couldn’t tear myself away, especially when the white man begins to threaten the existence of the settlements. I’ve never read anything as detailed as this about African tribes. Okonkwo is a very powerful character, and the tribe members all have their own distinct voices. Overall the sense of community is very strong in Achebe’s story and I found this to be for Africa what ‘The Grapes of Wrath‘ was for America. It tells of the way time-honoured traditions are cruelly massacred by white strangers with their white god. It shows how a community that has known each other for generations can fall apart at the intrusion of another faith. The tribes are not ready for the confusion that the travellers from the North bring them, and it marks the beginning of the end for these people.

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Best Bits ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ | The Tractor Man…

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Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck, tractor man

“And in the tractor man their grows the contempt that comes only to a stranger who has little understanding or no relation. For nitrates are not the land, nor phosphates, and the length of fibre in the cotton is not the land. Carbon is not a man, nor is salt nor water nor calcium. He is all of these, and he is much more, much more; and the land is so much more than its analysis. The man who is more than his chemistry, walking on the earth, turning his plow point for a stone, dropping his handles to slide over an outcropping, kneeling in the earth to eat his lunch; that man who is more than his elements knows that the land is more than its analysis.”

 

One of the most poignant parts of the novel, the Tractor Man. I love how Steinbeck talks about blessings and curses. This part almost made me weep. There is a timelessness to it, such beautiful imagery.

Excerpt from ‘Grapes of Wrath’ | On the Divorce of Humanity and Nature

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California dustbowl, Grapes of Wrath, Joad family, John Steinbeck, migrant workers, oklahoma

Photo by Dorothea Lange during the Great Depression, 1936. Depicting the plight of the workers,
and the injustice of being uprooted from the only life they knew…

“The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not own. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.” – Chapter 5, p.38

 

‘The Grapes of Wrath’ is a powerful novel set during the Great Depression, when famine, poverty and changes in agriculture caused thousands of farming families to migrate from Oklahoma to California. The novel tells of the hardships of the Joad family, and their paper-thin hope of a better life in California. This bleak story takes the reader on a journey that spirals deeper and deeper into disappointment and hopelessness. Steinbeck’s novel is an illuminating and vivid account of the people of the dustbowl and tells the painful truth about the class divide that caused so many of them to die of hunger. The novel won the Pulitzer prize in 1940 and was highly praised by President Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor despite being vilified by politicians and Californian officials. It was even publicly banned and burned by citizen’s because it was seen as ‘communist propaganda’.

 

Steinbeck travelled widely and observed the migration first-hand to get a true understanding of what was really happening during the Great Depression. ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ is unique and timeless because it steers the focus away from the political scene. Instead Steinbeck writes from the perspective of the migrants, showing us the human face of the suffering, not the statistics and reports.

 

The novel is not only a portrayal of the US government’s betrayal of its people, but is also a commentary on the many different ways humanity subsequently became divorced from mother nature.

John Steinbeck | on ‘The Grapes of Wrath’

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California dustbowl, Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck, migrant workers, Salinas, working days

“If I could do this book properly it would be the really fine books and a truly American book. But I am assailed with my own ignorance and inability. I’ll just have to work from a background of these. Honesty. If I can keep an honesty it is all I can expect of my poor brain… If I can do that it will be all my lack of genius can produce. For no one else knows my lack of ability the way I do. I am pushing against it all the time.”

Taken from ‘Working Days’ (The Journal of John Steinbeck), entry June 18th 1938.

This was written by Steinbeck just 3 weeks into the novel ‘The Grapes of Wrath’. Not only do his words display an endearing vulnerability, but also double up as pearls of wisdom that throw a light into the psychological preparations, tribulations and confrontations a working novelist must encounter with every work he or she produces. Here he describes the ghost that ceaselessly haunts all authors, that is, the terrible fear that this time they may not be good enough. Steinbeck’s honesty is definitely a virtue that shines through in his writing. He is a very ‘human’ writer, and ‘Grapes of Wrath’ can be called his most startling work about a distinctive period in American history; one where the sufferers had no voice.

 

One one thinks of Steinbeck, we think of migrant workers, Salinas and the California dust-bowls. His name has become synonymous with that period of American history, mainly because he saw and wrote things from a workers’ point of view. He has preserved its particular lingua with his excellent ear for rustic conversation. When all is said and done, reflecting honesty is sometimes the only true goal a writer can have to fall back on.

Grapes of Wrath | ‘100 Days of Writing’

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100 days of writing, Caskie Stinnet, Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

 

‘In 1963 Steinbeck told Caskie Stinnet: “I wrote ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ in one hundred days, but many years of preparation preceded it. It took a hell of a long time to get started. The actual writing is the last process.”

 

Though Steinbeck actually wrote the novel in ninety-three sittings, it was his way of saying that Grapes of Wrath was an intuited whole that embodied the form of his devotion. The entire 200’000 word manuscript took upto 165 handwritten pages (plus one smaller sheet) of a 12×18″ lined ledger book. When he was hot, Steinbeck wrote fast, paying little or no attention to spelling, punctuation or paragraphing. On top of that his script was so small he was capable of cramming over 1300 words onto a single sheet.’

 

– Introduction to The Grapes of Wrath  

 

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If you haven’t read the introduction to ‘The Grapes of Wrath’, then I suggest you do. It’s filled with very important facts on how the novel came to be written. Everything seemed to be sparked by a moment of inspiration, the genesis of it was driven purely by the need to chase down and live to the very core of this unique event. The mere thought of writing a 200’000 word manuscript in just over 100 days is an incredible feat. More amazingly, almost every word he wrote was published exactly as he wrote it. No wonder I love his writing so much. It’s raw and it comes from the heart. True novelists write about what they know, what they’ve lived. They aren’t afraid to have life show through the bones of their work.