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    Things Fall Apart
    Things Fall Apart
    Things Fall Apart
    Audiobook13 hours

    Things Fall Apart

    Written by Harry Turtledove

    Narrated by Jim Frangione

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Survivors of a supervolcanic eruption in Yellowstone Park must rise from the ashes of the apocalyptic catastrophe to continue civilization
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateDec 3, 2013
    ISBN9781470392208
    Things Fall Apart
    Author

    Harry Turtledove

    Harry Turtledove is an American novelist of science fiction, historical fiction, and fantasy. Publishers Weekly has called him the “master of alternate history,” and he is best known for his work in that genre. Some of his most popular titles include The Guns of the South, the novels of the Worldwar series, and the books in the Great War trilogy. In addition to many other honors and nominations, Turtledove has received the Hugo Award, the Sidewise Award for Alternate History, and the Prometheus Award. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles, earning a PhD in Byzantine history. Turtledove is married to mystery writer Laura Frankos, and together they have three daughters. The family lives in Southern California.

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    Reviews for Things Fall Apart

    4/5

    4,458 ratings213 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This is a very complicated book to review because it describes a civilization that existed in the 19th century and was very different from the way i was socialized. the protagonist is very psychologically injured by English colonizers who have no understanding of the lifestyle of their prey. however, the misogyny and violence of indigent people was not one i could agree with. there were really no people i could root for in this book, which took place in Nigeria.
    • 4/5
      My initial rating of this book is 4 stars but I can already tell that it is a book that will linger inside me, so I may end up modifying that rating.

      I don't know when this story is supposed to be set but it includes the first exposure of a Nigerian (Ibo?) society to white colonialists & missionaries. The way this impacted the people & the end of the book made me so sad and so angry at the same time.

    • 4/5
      A very interesting book, and I went into it without knowing what to expect.

      The first 100 pages or so were very slow. Very little plot to drive the narrative forward, and a lack of strong/likable characters to care about. The narrative was mostly driven forward by the setting and world. The cultures and customs of the tribe were fascinating.

      The main character, Okonkwo, was a character that was morally despicable. However so well written, that it was impossible not to empathize. Him realizing that his culture and traditions were being erased right out from under him was honestly heartbreaking. I knew African colonialism was terrible, but this definitely made it feel more real.

      While initially I was put off by the pacing of this, I think it actually worked out really well. The beginning is slow, and you get to know, and understand the culture and customs of the tribe. The last 40 or so pages go by so fast, as the white man gets introduced to this tribe, and their (and thus, the reader's) world gets catapulted into an entirely new world at a breakneck speed.
    • 4/5
      I read this in high school and many, many years later, it still haunts me. Beautifully written and poignant.
    • 4/5
      I found this pretty hard to get into. The prose was stark and dispassionate, and although I found it interesting I felt no connection to the characters or involvement in the book. However, as the book progressed I became more involved. The personalities and history became more compelling, and the interactions between cultures horrifyingly gripping in an impending-train-crash kind of way. Very powerful.
    • 4/5
      Sequel in Turtledoves series about what happens when the supervolcano under Yellowstone erupts. We see the effect on the US from the perspective of one family, scattered around the country. A young woman gets out of a refugee camp in Kansas and makes it back to Los Angeles. A young man makes a new life in Maine (and manages to perpetrate a truly wicked Turtledovian pun), A young man in Los Angeles may be starting out as a writer. A young scholar moves from Los Angeles to frigid Nebraska. A police officer makes an astounding discovery in Los Angeles. All this in the face of a world becoming harsher and deadlier.
    • 4/5
      I couldn't put the first book down, the second left a little to be desired but can be expected in a series. You may find you like following some characters over others and you will get a full picture of what life could be like when you read between the lines of the entertaining story. Turtledove mastery of weaving alt-hist. with story. I thought it was a little slow to get started due to his reintroduction of the characters, picked up in the middle and ended with me wanting to read the next book. Predictable toward the latter third you knew where he was going with the characters you just didn't know how he was going to get them there. Anxiously awaiting the third book to see how the story may end, completely hooked on this one.
    • 1/5
      This is BOOK 3, don’t be misled!! Look at the picture of the book rather than the scribd title. Book 2 is also available.

      The series goes:

      1. Eruption
      2. All Fall Down
      3. Things fall apart
    • 4/5
      Achebe, in this book, gave me a feel for at least one kind of traditional African society, and a heightened awareness of the damage done by western colonial powers. It left me with understandings and emotions I still hold, which is the best thing a book can do.
    • 4/5
      This book tells the tragic story of Okwonko, a member of the Ibo tribe (now called Igbo) in the fictional Nigerian village of Umuofio in the late 1800s. It examines tribal culture prior to and after the arrival of the British colonial representatives and Christian missionaries. Okwonko comes from a low station in life, which he attributes to his father’s laziness and lack of courage. His father died in poverty and disgrace, leaving Okwonko to support himself at an early age. Okwonko fears becoming like his father, so he relies on strength and hard work to attain prestige in his village. His self-image is tied to his need to affirm and protect his masculinity. He and his three wives live in a compound of multiple buildings with their numerous children. He is easily angered, beats his wives, and suppresses his and his sons’ emotions.

      As Achebe describes him: “Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Okonkwo’s fear was greater than these. It was not external but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father.”

      Achebe employs a third-person narrator, in the tradition of a storyteller. The narrator’s style is colloquial, employing proverbs, folklore, and songs to tell Okwonko’s story. It is if he is looking to the past, relating facts of what happened to Okwonko during his life, and how he reacted to the many changes introduced by the arrival of colonial agents. It is told in a straight-forward manner, using the type of language that would appear in stories promulgated through oral history. Ibo words and phrases are used liberally, and a glossary of terms is provided in the back of the book, though the meaning can usually be inferred from the context.

      The book is divided into three sections. In the first, Okwonko is introduced and his major life events related. The village life is described in terms of its customs, ceremonies, rites of passage, music, tribal religion, relationship with nature, personal chi, laws, social hierarchy, methods of settling disputes, means of communication, relationship with nature, and gender-based roles. This section slowly lays the groundwork for the sections to come. The village clan lives in harmony with nature. They use peaceful methods of dealing with internal disputes and they obey the council’s decisions. Punishments, such as exile, are meted out for breaking the societal norms. The second part of the book describes one such period of exile. The third describes the clash of civilizations when the colonial powers arrive, and its impact on Okwonko.

      The brilliance of this book lies in Achebe’s ability to show the tribal society in a way that is understandable to the reader. Though we may not agree with the practices of the Ibo society (where wife beating is acceptable and twin babies are discarded as evil spirits), we recognize how their society functions within its own parameters of rationality. We see the basis for the miscommunications that lead to hostility. For such a short work (just over 200 pages), it covers a lot of ground and provides an intimate portrait of tribal life. Be prepared for “woman” to be used as a derogatory term in this patriarchal society, though the feminine is also viewed as “Nneka – Mother is Supreme.” This is a quintessentially cultural work told from the perspective of those experiencing massive change, as they cling to traditions and struggle to adapt. Published in 1958, it is considered a modern classic. It is definitely worth reading and I wish I had read it sooner.
    • 4/5
      Certainly I admire the achievement. But the protagonist is so unsympathetic. Certainly it does what a novel ought, which is immerse the reader in a culture far removed from the accustomed. But I don't know what to think about the treatment of women. What conclusions can possibly be made--without using words like civility, ignorance and so forth. A dark (I mean it literally) work.
    • 4/5
      Okonkwo’s father was not industrious, or manly, or wise, or wealthy. He was everything that Okonkwo swore that he would not be. And he wasn’t. From a very early age he established himself as a great wrestler, warrior, farmer of yams, and keeper of the traditions of his clan. Admittedly he was hard on his wives and his children. But no harder than he was with himself. His pride was easily offended and he feared even the hint of his father’s fecklessness. For a time his rise is unstoppable. But events, or his actions, or fate, or his chi conspire against him and he finds himself falling in the eyes of others and more importantly in his own eyes. Worse, the world in which he found his worth is itself changing out of all recognition with the appearance of white men and the white man's god.This is a deceptively simple story, subtly told and curiously worked. Story threads recur in successive chapters, sometimes in successive paragraphs, but altered. It’s as though narrative itself is unstable in Okonkwo’s world. And ultimately the point of view shifts at the very end to the white district commissioner contemplating writing his memoir of his time in Africa in which, he muses, Okonkwo may merit part of one paragraph. Or he may simply be a detail that will need to be cut out.Such narrative sophistication presented as a simple folk history of an unlucky man is what warrants the continued praise that this novel receives. I’m very glad that I finally took the opportunity to read it.Highly recommended.
    • 3/5
      This leaves me feeling sad, no-one seems to come out of it well and you sense a downward spiral from here. Okonkwo is the son of a feckless father and so he cultivates an attitude that contrasts with that of his father - to the point of going too far and being almost incapable of feeling for his family and fellow clansmen. He also has what seems to be a hair trigger temper and an inability to listen to advice - none of which bodes well. He is hard to sympathise with, as he has no empathy for his fellows. I find the ending slightly odd, and I'm not sure it necessarily fits with the man we have followed this far - although the loss of standing may well have been sufficient driver for his actions. Set at the time of the white scramble for Africa, it shows the start of the disintegration of the clan system and the beliefs of the indigenous people. It is all just terribly sad, at whatever level you read it at.
    • 5/5
      The book starts off with what seems at first to be vignettes of Nigerian life in a village, stories strung together by its inhabitants. Part II quickens the pace and the hero emerges more clearly, not as a saviour but as a tragic hero who seems to live in the past. Part III delivers the final blow and what was a snippet of a life suddenly become the emblem of an entire nation, indeed of an entire continent. Masterful and unforgettable.
    • 4/5
      I read this book for a class and I definitely wasn't the sort of book I usually read on my own time but I did think it was a very interesting read. I did get a little lost sometimes with the language but I still understood most of the story.
    • 4/5
      Told in third person, mostly following a wealthy and fearless Igbo warrior, Okonkwo, Things Fall Apart describes life in a pre-colonial village in Nigeria up until the early days of European colonization.

      The later part of my childhood I grew up in the church. I would say probably between 7 years old to 15/16 years old, when I stopped going. But I remember the stories of missionaries going all over the world to save the souls of those who were lost and "know no better". Now that I'm older and haven't been to church in a long time, I'm slowly reading about the other side of all of that. This novel challenges the narrative about "savages" and how the White Christian Saviors needed to "civilize" ("westernize") them.

      “The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on things that held us together and we have fallen apart.” Obierika to Okonkwo.

      Even though it's told through the life of Okonkwo as he, his village, and the villages around him experience the change, this novel doesn't side with the colonized or the colonizers. It still gives both the good and the bad of both systems. There's even a part in the book where the leaders of the Igbo people tell the teachers of the white church that they have nothing against them - they don't agree with all of their practices, and they know the church doesn't agree with theirs. But they (the Igbo people) are fine with leaving them alone as long as they too are left alone. The book neither condemns nor praises the worldview of either.

      This novel really gave me things to think about. I know a lot of history taught in schools is white washed, made to look like the white man is the savior to all, and that's why I'm glad books like this exist so I can read and learn about the other side of things.
    • 3/5
      Although this was an interesting book, I can't describe it as an enjoyable read. An important perspective, yes, and therefore worthy of being read, but not the sort of thing to curl up with in a chair for a cosy afternoon of reading.
    • 4/5
      This story follows Okonkwo a man who is leader in his village and is faced with challenges, most of his own doing. His actions are caused by a fall from grace in his village and the appearance of missionaries to his village.
    • 4/5
      The story is well written and really gives you a sense of what life in these small African communities was like with it's laws, and beliefs that may seem strange to those not familiar with them. The conflict in the book is one that shows how things really happened, and you can only imagine the fear of the strange new world that was being injected forcefully upon them. This is an important book to have in your "read" list as it shows a different side of the story most of us all know so well..
    • 5/5
      What can I say that better readers and writers haven't already said? Powerful and tragic, the simplicity of story and language masks the complexity of the clash between cultures, between gods, between a character's pride and his helplessness in the face of history.
    • 3/5
      Set in pre-colonial Nigeria Things Fall Apart is the story of Okonkwo and his community. He sees himself as a hard-working, important man, he has gained many titles through his hard work and effort as well as creating a profitable farm. His three wives and children are all well fed and cared for. One of his greatest concerns is to ensure he is seen as different from his father, an indolent man who never worked unless he was forced to and died in debt to many men. He is worried that his eldest son Nwoye will turn out like his father, and he often wishes that one of his daughters, Ezinma, was a boy as he sees much of himself in her.

      This is one of the great African novels. It is concerned with the change in lifestyle from the traditional tribal or village life of the Ibo people as the colonising British begin to make their presence felt. Okonkwo is a traditionalist, he wants to follow the ways of his ancestors. He is proud of his town and the other 8 towns that make up the Umuofia clan. He wants their way of life to continue and prosper.

      I am afraid that this is one of those books that I can appreciate but am unable to really like. Okonkwo is not a character I could ever come to like, he is far too much of a male chauvinist, but at the same time I can understand his utter dismay at the way his people are changing. Their laws and traditions are being taken away from them, even their gods are being supplanted by the colonisers.

      I found it an interesting read, learning about different cultures always is, but this is not a book I think I would reread.
    • 4/5
      Some co-workers of mine, including one who is from Nigeria were talking about reading this book "again" as a group. I think I was supposed to read it in college, but for some reason never did. I was looking forward to talking with them about it, particularly Peloumi, but then the pandemic happened and we haven't seen each other in months. Other reviewers have said it far better than I, but this was an important novel for me to read as a Westerner who has consumed almost exclusively Western literature. I would have liked to have been able to read it with a class (or my aforementioned co-workers) in order to more appreciate the themes and the context, but I still found that it stretched my understanding of colonialism as well as the concepts of comparative religion.
    • 5/5
      Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe was first published in 1958 and depicts scenes from the life of Nigeria’s Igbo society. The main character, Okonkwo is a willful and headstrong man that in turns could be abusive, misogynist, impatience and intolerant. He grew up in a warrior’s culture and under the shadow of a lazy, unsuccessful father, so these traits that we would label as faults today, helped him to become a successful and powerful man of the Igbo.The story of Okonkwo’s life is also a story of how colonialism impacted and undermined the traditional African culture. It is difficult not to condemn the Europeans with their feelings of cultural superiority and their hypocrisy of pushing their religious beliefs on these people. Written without indulging in sentimentality or strong bias, this book comes across as a parable to the memory of the past.This rather short book encompasses a lot including African identity, racism, cultural differences, social and political issues as well as capturing a period of change and upheaval for the African people. Things Fall Apart was informative, timeless, important and, best of all, an excellent read.
    • 4/5
      Set in the last moments of pre-colonial Nigeria, Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart relates the story of Okonkwo, one of the greatest warriors of his clan. The novel starts by providing background on Okonkwo's father and Okonkwo's upbringing, both of which inform his decisions as a grown-up. While his father was said to be rather lazy and not going the extra mile to get a good harvest, Okonkwo is described as industrious and diligent. Okonkwo is also determined not to show weakness of any kind and his every decision is rooted in this feeling of having to show that he is the strongest and most fearsome warrior in his clan. Okonkwo's rise to power in the clan is, however, stopped by an act of violence and his subsequent banishment of seven years. When Okonkwo returns, colonialization is slowly starting and Christian missionaries are changing the lives of the people in his clan. How will Okonkwo deal with the intruders that completely disrupt life in the village?Throughout the book the reader is confronted by characters speaking in proverbs that arise from oral traditions of the Igbo tribe in Nigeria. Right at the beginning of the novel it is stated that "Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten." For me this was a rather new and unfamiliar experience as I was constantly thinking that the proverbs carry a deeper meaning that I will never be able to grasp fully. Add to that the fact that they are used frequently and you get the first aspect that made me think about getting an annotated version or looking up explanations of the proverbs online. The second aspect is that I know next to nothing about pre-colonial Nigeria. This is, however, also the reason why I picked up this book. Eventually, I think this novel is a good starting point to start learning more about (pre-colonial) Nigeria.As regards the plot, I found that there were many descriptions and many conversations which did contribute to the overall setting and understanding of Okonkwo's motivations but seemed to be negligible. For a long time I was missing a climax or some sort of turning point. To my mind, many important events could have been explored in more detail while others could have been passed over more quickly. The arrival of the European colonizers only comes quite late in the novel, but that is exactly the point where I would have wished for more as the conflict was obvious. It was also obvious that there would be no easy resolution to that conflict and Okonkwo's character trait of showing no weakness whatsoever provides a lot of potential that was not utilized. The following passages are very revealing as concerns the mindsets of colonized and colonizers:The colonized: 'Tell the white man that we will not do him any harm,' he said to the interpreter. [...] 'You can stay with us if you like our ways. You can worship your own god. It is good that a man should worship the gods and the spirits of his fathers. [...]' The colonizer: 'Tell them to go away from here. This is the house of God and I will not live to see it desecrated.' That being said, I have to say that overall I liked the novel and only thought that it could have been longer. Immediately after I finished reading I felt like it was all exposition and only little else. Yet, the book managed to stay with me and I find myself constantly returning to "what would have happened if"-thoughts. 3.5 stars.
    • 3/5
      I'm doing a book challenge this year where one of the challenges is to read a book from the decade you were born. Perhaps back in the 1950's this would have been a very good book but I thought it was tedious to get through--reading about all the tribal traditions and their superstitious beliefs. But I did it. This was a first in a trilogy and I will not be reading more.
    • 2/5
      Oof. I don't remember much, but I do remember this book wasn't great for me. Maybe 10 years later I'd find it more interesting. I definietly do not have a copy on hand, though, and I'm not sure if I'm going out of my way to track one down, either.
    • 5/5
      Wow. I can see why this book has attained "classic" status. In a mere 200 pages, Achebe presents us with an intimate look into a world with which most are wholly unfamiliar. The book does not have a "plot" per se, but is more one of those series-of-events types of books.. However, it is written so well, it feels as if it does, indeed, center around a plot and the reader is driven forward to find out "what next".

      Although the characters are not particularly empathetic.. they are incredibly engaging. You feel very strongly about what is happening and the motives behind it, without being traumatized by the events.

      So much happens in such a short amount of space -- love, hate, pride, loathing, joy, fear, excitement, life changes on grand spectra, shock, comfort... it is, somehow, all there.

      Absolutely, positively, without a doubt, you will enrich your life by reading this book. Do it.
    • 4/5
      Okonkwo is well-known in the nine villages making up Umuofia, a locality populated by the Igbo people in what is now Nigeria. Famous initially for his prowess in wrestling, and then more and more for his farming success and prosperity attained despite his lowly beginnings. Okonkwo's father was a gentle and musical man, but also a lazy one who was content to borrow from his friends rather than work hard himself, and Okonkwo has grown up to despise everything that his father stood for. His hard work and determination mean that he is well on the way to achieving his ambitions to become a great man within his clan, until a chance accident puts all at risk...This is very much a book of two halves. The first paints a detailed and fascinating picture of the life lived in Nigeria before its colonisation by the British. The second half provides the rationale for the 'things fall apart' of the title, as the introduction of Christianity and the British administration and legal system sounds the death knell for the traditional Igbo society.Achebe paints a balanced and non-judgmental picture of the history of his country, and in Okonkwo he has a protagonist who, despite being difficult to like, has integrity in the context of his time and culture. This was one of the first books to attempt to portray the point of view of the colonised Africans rather than the colonising Europeans, and the difference in viewpoints is summed up in one of the most powerful closing paragraph that I have read.
    • 4/5
      Wow. For the first half of this book I thought it a bit artless and frustrating, but it turns into a very much cleverer and more subtle work than I had been expecting. Ultimately the book is utterly damning about colonialism without ever romanticising what came before it.

      I feel weird tagging "spoilers" about a book the outlines of which are pretty well known, and the plot of which is basically described in the publisher blurb, but in spite of all that there were some surprises as I went, so here goes:

      First of all, there is one thing that annoyed me intensely through the entire book: the complete lack of any development of female characters or voices. I can imagine a defence of that in terms of the book describing two intensely patriarchal cultures and their meeting, but I'm still digesting Achebe's critique of Conrad. One of his more on-point criticisms is that Conrad writes about colonialism in Africa without ever giving a single African character a real voice - it's fair, but then it rankles to see Achebe do exactly the same thing to women, especially in a book that's partly about brutal patriarchy.

      The first part of the book, describing the traditional society that existed before colonisation, is an interesting mixture of pastoral and horrifying. It's not hard to see how people would value what they had, and find its disruption by outside forces intensely painful, but there's also plenty about it that is terrible. Not only the status of women (property whose only apparent chance at any agency at all is by cheating on the husband they didn't necessarily get to choose), but murder of twins, mutilation of sick childrens' corpses, and casting out of men who don't fit a very specific mould. At first I was frustrated by Achebe's stalwart refusal to allow a hint of judgement on any of this; by the end I saw it as a real strength of his writing.

      Once things do start to fall apart, I came to appreciate that by keeping any editorialising out of the way, Achebe was able to let his characters and story say all that needed to be said about their own society. The real genius of the book is in its dissection of how weaknesses in the existing culture allowed missionaries to make inroads, how effectively the missionaries manipulated this (often without seeming to understand what they were doing), and yet how disastrous this all was for the people it happened to in spite of the completely unvarnished portrayal of what they had before.
    • 4/5
      The story of a determined man impelled not to repeat the debt accumulation of his father in Nigerian village coming increasingly under the sway of Christianity and western imperialism. The majority of the book is a passage through Ibo life punctuated by the toxic masculinity of the main character, while the finish is his hardships due to his own traditions and the rule of imperialism. Compelling if not in a pleasant way.