Today we interview Dr. Thomas Jay Lynn about Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Lynn is associate professor of English and program chair of the associate degree in Multidisciplinary Studies and member of the Global Studies faculty at Penn State Berks. His teaching and scholarly interests include African, world, and ancient literatures, as well as the music of The Beatles. Lynn’s book, Chinua Achebe and the Politics of Narration: Envisioning Language (2017), was published by Palgrave Macmillan, and his other writings on African literature have been published in many refereed journals and numerous books. In 2020, Lynn was elected to the Northeast Modern Language Association Board of Directors as the British and Global Anglophone Studies director. He was awarded the 2021 Penn State University Comparative Literature Sydney Aboul-Hosn Award for making “a decisive contribution to [students'] study of literature in a global context.” Lynn’s other African literature publications include 11 articles, one book chapter, and many encyclopedia entries on Chinua Achebe, including a chapter-length entry on Achebe's second novel, “No Longer at Ease.” Lynn tells us he became interested in African literatures through Native American and South Indian literatures. His Fullbright summer seminar in India made him want to become a literature professor and this interest was further reinforced through his graduate studies in world literatures. He especially loves the traditional trickster character found in other cultures. Some of the Native American authors he studied were Louise Erdrich, Leslie Marmon Silko, N. Scott Momaday. He also enjoyed “Black Elk Speaks” by John Niehardt and “Finding the Center” about modern Zuni storytellers by Dennis Tedlock. Tom became interested in writing a book about Chinua Achebe called Chinua Achebe and the Politics of Narration: Envisioning Language. The book springs partially from his dissertation and other writings he authored about Achebe. Tom feels that Achebe sort of supplanted Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as the African author assigned in school curricula. Achebe, in fact, gave a lecture about racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Tom tells us Achebe’s non-fiction works are not as famous as his fiction, but his most famous is the last book he wrote, There Was a Country: A Memoir of Biafra. He also wrote two excellent collected works about literature and Africa. Nancy notes that Achebe said, “things are generally all right from the [Western] point of view. That’s because the West runs the world. But from the view of Africa and Third World countries, the world is upside down and needs to be totally reordered. When people say my books are too political, this is the reason.” Nancy asks Tom whether his interest in Achebe comes from the intersection of his Master’s of Social Work with a concentration in Policy and Planning and his doctorate in literature. Tom says his idea of a good book is a book that seems to be contributing to make the world a better place. Achebe’s work does this. Tom tells us that Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is a masterpiece of world literature. He often teaches the book in relation to the Odyssey, Gilgamesh and Antigone. He feels it is that level of mytho-poetic literature that will stand the test of time. Further, he feels the book explores colonialism whose impacts are still being felt today, from the perspective of an African. Nancy tells Tom that she and Linny debated the benefits and drawbacks of colonization to the Igbo people. Linny astutely pointed out that Christianity provided a haven for those otherwise outcast. Nancy more concentrated on the cultural and economic drawbacks. Nancy comments that Achebe, perhaps, responds to both of them when six months before his death, he said: “The legacy of colonialism is not a simple one but one of great complexity, with contradictions – good things as well as bad.” Nancy asks Tom about the duality of the Igbo culture and whether that duality influenced Achebe’s representation of colonialism and its results. Tom says, yes, Achebe’s duality can be seen throughout his writing. He thought this connection to his view of colonialism is a good one. Achebe doesn’t defend colonialism, nor would he condemn it in entirety. In fact, he was criticized for seeing the good and bad of colonialism. Linda liked that the book was a nuanced view of colonialism. Linda notes that the women were not in a position of power, but then played a significant role in Things Fall Apart. Tom tells us he wishes his first book would have included a separate chapter on the role of women. There was a period that many people criticized Achebe’s portrayal of women. Tom feels Achebe is telling the true about how women were treated in traditional Igbo culture. He is also saying women are, nevertheless, essential and find work arounds for their poor treatment. He notes the power of the priestess, and also Okonkwo’s wife’s strength in following her daughter who is taken by the priestess. Linny notes that one of the scenes she appreciated was when the brother’s saved their sister from a husband who was beating her. Tom agrees this scene is important in showing that this man was criticized because that his not manly behavior. Nancy was intrigued that Achebe wrote a very flawed protagonist. There were more likable and even more moral characters, but he focused on Okonkwo to tell the story of the Igbo people as they first encounter British imperialism. Tom thinks this question gets to the heart of Igbo dualistic philosophy. Okonkwo is flawed because Achebe wanted to tell the whole truth about Africa: neither flattering the culture nor condemning it. He trusts his readers to figure out this tragic hero in the context of his culture. Linny asks what Achebe has to say to Penn State students in the 21st century. Tom says his students encounter Achebe from differing backgrounds and this often impacts their reception of Achebe’s work. He hopes his students recognize the book shows that people on this planet may have valid, but very different perspectives, than our 21st century American values. He also likes the profound spiritual aspects of the book that represent the Igbo religion. Okonkwo is admired by his community for his positive traits, such as industriousness. Where he fails, is his poor treatment of the female principle. Nancy notes that his shooting crime is considered a female crime and that is what does him in. Tom agrees saying that plot point shows his violation of the female principle. He is ashamed that his father was derisively called a woman. But, at the end of the novel, he is buried in the same desecrated land his father is. This takes us back to Greek tragedy: the further one runs from one’s destiny, the more one seals it. Tom thinks Okonkwo is very similar to Gilgamesh. He also feels Achebe’s writing has many parallels to ancient Greece literatures, though he was not attempting to mimic these literatures. Of course, Achebe’s work is prose, not epic poetry. Tom says Achebe’s work is criticized because it was written in the colonizer’s language, not his native language. Achebe says he wrote it in English so it could be more broadly read. Nancy says she read that Achebe was masterful in how he captures the Igbo syntax using the English language. Tom agrees this is a revolutionary aspect of the novel. He also captures their style of interaction, such as the use of proverbs to work into the heart of the topic of a conversation. Tom tells Linny and Nancy he is working on a new book whose working title is Women’s Abandonment, Illness and Healing: Trauma and Testimony in African Literature. One of the early chapters covers an Achebe novel, No Longer at Ease. Tom includes some contemporary novelists, too, such as Ayobami Adebayo and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.