BOOK REVIEW: A NIGERIAN GIRL RE-READS THINGS FALL APART BY CHINUA ACHEBE

Written by Safa Alhassan

Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is one of those books that built my love for books and literature. I remember holding that book around and everywhere. It shaped my perspectives, especially on Igbo tradition, so much so that I started looking at some local movies at the time as not really carrying the weight of the tradition and culture as they should. It was more like a sorry attempt to mimic the richness Chinua Achebe had shown me. It’s one of the most beautiful books in the world, and it is also the book that made me love Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie because I felt I could see subtle pieces of Achebe in her writing.

Growing up, I didn’t have the language to fully explain my reactions. I just knew I was bewildered by the tragedy, unsettled by Okonkwo’s behaviour, and utterly lost in the sea of proverbs and adages that felt both wise and mysterious. At such a tender age, I couldn’t fully comprehend them because life had not yet shown me its deeper sides. Now, as an adult rereading my all-time favourite, I realise that this book is not just a story about Okonkwo but a mirror of a culture, a people, and even our present struggles.

This Nigerian reader has just re-read an all-time classic in one sitting, and here is my review.

Let’s talk about Okonkwo. As a child, I only saw a man who was tough, feared, and respected. But as an adult, I see something else: a man enslaved by his own fear. He is terrified of weakness, of resembling his father, and so he builds his life around control, violence, and an obsession with strength. This is not just masculinity; it is hyper-masculinity mixed with a kind of narcissism. His entire identity depends on how others perceive him. The tragedy is that in trying so hard to prove his manhood, he loses the very things that could have given his life meaning: compassion, love, adaptability, and peace.

Chinua Achebe is a very clever writer. Okonkwo is not just one man, he is also a symbol of patriarchy itself. In Umuofia, women are the backbone of family and tradition, yet they are sidelined, silenced, and defined by their service to men. Even his beloved daughter Ezinma, the child he secretly wishes were a boy, cannot inherit his legacy because patriarchy does not bend for love. Reading this now, I see how Chinua Achebe was both preserving Igbo culture and also interrogating its limits. He was very careful not to glorify or demean the culture. He simply tells the truth, and it is this honesty that gives the novel its power.

The fall of Okonkwo is also the fall of Umuofia. Chinua Achebe brings their fates together beautifully. Okonkwo cannot adapt to change, and neither can his people. Just as his rigidity kills him, their stubbornness opens the door to colonial domination. Pride without wisdom leads to destruction, whether in a man or in a society.

Sixty seven years after this book and there are still plenty lessons to be learnt today. First, that tradition is beautiful but must evolve with wisdom. Second, that strength without compassion is destruction, whether in the family, community, or nation. And third, that silence in the face of injustice (be it the silence of women in Umuofia or of people today when culture is used to excuse harm) only fuels collapse.

Reading Things Fall Apart as an adult, I feel like the book is much more than the fall of Okonkwo. I personally see it as Chinua Achebe giving us the full picture of a society standing at the edge of enormous change, where tradition and colonialism collide in very powerful ways. In the book you will notice the method the British arrived. You’ll realise how they slowly creep into the daily life of Umuofia. At first it looks harmless, just missionaries gathering a few converts, often people already living at the margins of Igbo society. But personally, I think the brilliance of the writer is in how he shows that what begins as almost nothing grows into something that tears families apart and weakens the very bonds that once held the clan together. Think about this and let it hit home.

Religion, to me, is the sharpest edge of this clash. The Igbo world is built on cosmology, gods, ancestors, rituals, and a strong sense of the spiritual. Then Christianity enters, offering a new kind of belonging, especially for those who felt shut out of traditional structures. I personally find this part fascinating because Chinua Achebe doesn’t just paint it as evil but he shows the double edge of it. It comforts some, but at the same time it fractures the community.

Another thing that struck me, reading it again now, is the bigger question the writer raises: how much can a culture bend before it breaks? Personally like I've earlier mentioned, I feel he presents Igbo tradition with great dignity, but he doesn’t ignore its limitations. To me, this makes the tragedy of Umuofia even deeper.

Even the language of the novel, I personally believe, is part of the story. The writer takes English, the coloniser’s language, and bends it with Igbo proverbs, folktales, and idioms until it becomes something distinctly African. To me, that alone is powerful and i just love him for his brilliance. It felt like Chinua Achebe rewriting who gets to tell the African story and how it should be told. He made sure it isn’t told as a caricature or stereotype, but as something human, dignified, and complex.

Finally, I personally see Chinua Achebe’s story as a true tragedy in the classic sense and that’s why this book never gets old for me

Reading Things Fall Apart in the 21st century, I find it even more urgent. Nigeria is still wrestling with the same themes: patriarchy, pride, identity, the clash between tradition and modernity. For me, the novel is more than literature. It is both a warning and a mirror.

And truly, the title says it all. When we refuse to bend, when compassion is lost and when pride becomes a cage, things will surely fall apart.