Things Fall Apart - Response

I really enjoyed reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.  I haven't read many works of African fiction, so this book was pretty different from what I usually read.  I think this book provides a lot of insight into African culture while still telling a story that is universal and easy to relate to.  The protagonist of the story, Okonkwo, is a flawed hero trying to make a name for himself, and while his hard work gains him prestige and fame within his community, he never fully escapes his fear of being perceived as weak like his father.

One aspect of this book that I found to be challenging was the Ibo vocabulary spread throughout the book.  I didn't realize until I finished this novel that there was a list of definitions in the back, so I struggled to make sense of certain terms and often had to rely on the context of the text.  While reading, I was reminded of how English language learners must feel when trying to make sense of a word or words.  There are certain words that we understand only because they are commonly used in our culture, so it was interesting to have the roles reversed somewhat where I was reading a book that contained words from a language that I had no familiarity with.

I thought Okonkwo was a very interesting character in this book.  I saw him to be a bit of a tragic hero.  He is obviously very skilled and competent, but he is so stoic that he never is able to feel comfortable showing the love that he clearly feels.  He is also so concerned with being perceived as tough and brave that he never seems to enjoy life as much as he could have.  His life, essentially, was out of balance; he tried so hard to not by like his father that he was the extreme opposite.

I was a little disappointed with the second half or so of this book.  I was enjoying reading about life among the Ibo people, but in the second half of the book, the story becomes a fairly typical story of intervention by white men.  I realize that this is historically accurate and essential to the novel, but the last several chapters started to feel like the story that we have all heard before.  However, this book does portray the destruction of culture better than any book I can remember at the moment, which was why I thoroughly enjoyed the whole novel.  Also, most of my disappointment is most likely because I wish that the Ibo tribe could have just continued in their ways.