Linny regales Nancy with stories of her stint as a background person for a movie filmed in York. She reveals that she already has a second gig booked for a short film in Lancaster. Nancy tells Linny about her experience escorting bestselling author Amy Tan around at the Governor’s Lecture for the Humanities. After sharing their latest news, Linny and Nancy turn to the October book, Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Nancy had heard about this book for years, but have never read it, so she was excited it was a 2024 pick for the podcast. Things Fall Apart is set in the late 19th century in what is now Nigeria, just colonialism reaching deep into tribal cultures. Previous to this book, most books about the African continent in English had been written by Europeans, promulgating the notion of Africans as a savage culture. Linny likes how this book shows an in-depth look at a culture and then shows how early colonization is confusing and at least initially harmful to others, but helpful as well- the positive and negative. In fact, the majority of the book really delves into life in Igboland. Nancy notes that it’s interesting that Chinua Achebe wrote this book nearly a century later after colonization after that colonization was disintegrating and African nations were becoming independent. This made Linny think about the positive and negative impacts of colonization. Nancy focused mostly on the negative impacts, such as religious imperialism, economic exploitation, and political subjugation. Linny notes that the villagers are completely immersed in the spiritual world and are quite faithful to their beliefs. The missionaries that acknowledged this were more sympathetic. Okonkwo is the main character in this novel. He lives in Igboland and is respected throughout the nine villages and even beyond as a great wrestler and warrior and this really pleases him because he is trying to rise above the failures of his father who was poor and preferred lazing about and playing instruments to working hard. Okonkwo has three wives and a flourishing farm. The title of this book is “Things Fall Apart.” When a character in a novel starts out with everything going well for him, you know things are going to start going south! In this novel, we have the title to also reinforce that trajectory. Nancy asks Linny when did she thinks things started falling apart for Okonkwo. Linny says it was probably pretty late; it was when Okonkwo is exiled for seven years. For Nancy, it was when Okonkwo murders the little boy who is living in his household and whom he loves, little Ikemefuna. Okonkwo is a hard man. He’s obsessed with strength and acts out of fear. He kills Ikemefuna because he is afraid of being thought weak. Nancy notes that Okonkwo doesn’t really seem to value his wives beyond their obedience to him. He really wants a son who is as great a warrior as he is but is really disappointed in Nwoye, his oldest. Okonkwo characterizes himself as a roaring fire and his son is the cold, impotent ash. His favorite child is a daughter and throughout his life, he keeps ruing the fact she isn’t a boy. Nancy asks Linny whether she sees these disappointments as gender and generational divides or as the classic case of someone with low self-esteem trying to demean everyone else to make themselves feel better about who they are. Linny likes the Okonkwo’s little girl and the way she relates to him. Linny didn’t really think of this about gender and generational divides. For Nancy, she thought it was a theme in the book. When Okonkwo returns to his home village after seven years of exile for an accidental killing, he’s appalled at the influence of the missionaries and urges the villagers to fight them. They tell him: “It is already too late. Our own men and our sons have joined the ranks of the stranger. They have joined his religion and they help to uphold his government.” Okonkwo’s son is one of those who has joined the missionaries. Linny says that a lot of Okonkwo’s resistance, beyond grieving over the loss of traditional ways, is also about how it doesn’t want to lose his status and power. Nancy says Okonkwo is probably unequipped to live through such an enormous transition because he is so inflexible. He also lacks an inner reserve and strength but Okonkwo is driven by his fears. If there’s no longer an esteemed place for him, he doesn’t want to be there. Linda notes that Chinua Achebe once said a great failure of people is to see other human beings as human beings. Nancy said this book helps readers see the Igbo people as humans because it takes their dreams, hopes, communities, loves, and worries as seriously as any European novel about Europeans. Nancy reads a passage from the end of the book when the British District Commissioner is shown Okonkwo’s body thinks about writing a book he will title, “The pacification of the primitives of the lower Niger.” And that Okonkwo’s story would warrant, “perhaps not a chapter, but a reasonable paragraph.” Linny says it was heart-wrenching to read such a limited view of the value of Okonkwo’s life. Linny loved the book and wants to read Achebe’s novel that continues to tell this story. Nancy also really loved it, especially the immersion into Igbo culture. She thinks it is interesting that Achebe decides to make the protagonist one that is so flawed, rather than one that is more sympathetic. Yet, we still mourn his loss and the loss of his culture.