I just finished Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart", a story about the conversion of African villagers by white Christian missionaries. I say this in the passive tense because somehow it feels right--the African villagers are the central focus of the book, and the missionaries appear on the periphery. But like a sneaking, asymptomatic disease, the missionaries become conquerors, gradually overtaking, overshadowing, and replacing the villagers with all their ancestry, all their culture, all their history.
As always, this story is about more than that, on a micro-level. Particularly, this is a story about a man named Okonkwo who embodies the rise and fall of the Umuofia clan. Okonkwo is once revered for being a prize fighter, and a very brave man. He built himself up. pulling himself up by his bootstraps, because his own father was weak and poor, and he knew from an early age that he would have to fight his own battles. One line in the book that struck a resonant chord with me is this: "Fortunately, among these people, a man was judged according to his worth and not according to the worth of his father." Growing up with parents who were constantly in debt, I can relate to the notion of having to create one's own future from a rocky foundation, and knowing it is all up to you to ensure your success. In that respect Okonkwo reminds me of my older brother--he saved up, made sure he had good credit, and did not repeat the mistakes of his parents. And yet perhaps I have always felt judged according to the "worth of my father"--and acted accordingly, irresponsibly, and undisciplined with financial and practical matters. Okonkwo develops a very tough exterior, always ready to fight. He is clearly a man who has had to earn his keep.
Okonkwo has it all--and then, one day, in an instant he loses it all when he accidentally shoots a clansman and is exiled from the clan for seven years as is the custom. This is another very interesting and huge theme of the novel--the idea of custom, ancestry, and storytelling that weave throughout the narrative. The spiritual world plays a large role in the everyday lives of the clan. There is a large emphasis on tradition, rites, and respect for a history. Every day the people speak in storytelling language-i.e. "A child's fingers are not scalded by a piece of hot yam which its mother puts into its palm." There is a history based on tradition almost every week, such as the Week of Peace. And anybody who disrespects tradition is punished as is the custom--even when nobody alive can think of any logic for the custom. It is because it was--that seems to be the way the clanspeople think. Growing up in a Jewish household, I can certainly relate to the importance of tradition and culture. The ritual of Passover comes to mind--this year, my father tried to plow quickly through prayers and storytelling while the younger generation continually asked: Yes, but WHY? What is the MEANING? In Okonkwo's world, it is so because the ancestors did the same, and their ancestors before them, and so on.
However, when Christian missionaries appear, white strangers amongst the African clansmen, the younger generation finds a path that does not bind them to the tradition of their ancestors. Something new is offered, and many of the clanspeople cling to this newness, this apparent answer, this apparent otherness that does not seem to answer: just because. The Christians appear less bound to tradition, and in some ways, less bound to violence that many of the clanspeople view as senseless. Okonkwo's own son, Nwame, put off by the traditions of his clan such as the killing of twins just because, and the killing of his own stepbrother at his father's hand just because, joins the Christians, and therefore becomes dead to Oknokwo. He has abandoned his ancestors, and so no longer exists to his father, a man so proud of his clan and who has spent his life fighting for his high rank amongst his people.
And yet with Okonkwo's fall we also see the fall of the clanspeople. The Christian converts become more numerous. Respect for tradition wanes. In the end, Okonkwo does the only thing that he could possibly do in such a situation: he kills himself, rather than allow himself to see the day when his tribe is shattered, rather than allow his life to be usurped by the white man. And yet, tradition goes on, ironically: Oknokwo has committed a huge sin, and cannot be buried with respect. He can only be buried by strangers, the very white missionaries he killed himself to avoid.
This is a very sad and powerful narrative about the loss of a people and all their tradition. Okonkwo is a man of few words, a very gruff man, and yet you cannot help but side with him, despite all his violence. You want him to come out on top, and yet you know he cannot, because you have read the history books, and you know how history goes. Just because.
I will leave you with a line that comes near the end of the story, a thought from the missionaries' commissioner: "One of the most infuriating habits of these people was their love of superfluous words." Somehow I love this line, because it means, in a sense, that the clan is victorious, with their words, and with a spirit that will not die.
Next up: one of my favorite authors of all time, Kathy Acker, and a book I have not read for quite some time--"My Mother: Demonology".
Thursday, July 21, 2011
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