Things Fall Apart grabbed me from its very first page, even though nearly 70 years have passed since its first publication. It had fallen into the category of reputed classics that I have never quite gotten around to, what with there being a lot of books both old and new, and if not for the Süddeutsche Zeitung and a snafu at my local bookstore I might have carried on with not getting around to it. What a loss that would have been! Here’s how it happened: One of the Süddeutsche‘s sets is called Metropolen, metropolises, and it’s twenty books about twenty major cities around the world. In my rush to get the set a couple of years back, I accidentally bought the German translations of books that were originally written in English. (They’re pretty editions! I don’t regret owning them, but I feel silly reading an English-language book in German.) The Achebe book that appears on the Metropolen list is No Longer at Ease, and the local bookstore’s web site said that they had a copy on hand. When I went to buy it, though, neither I nor the clerks could find the physical object. Rather than concede entirely, and recognizing that No Longer at Ease is the second book in what came to be known as Achebe’s African Trilogy, I bought the first one, Things Fall Apart.

Achebe begins the novel in a timeless, almost mythological register:

Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements. As a young man of eighteen he had brought honour to his village by throwing Amalinze the Cat. Amalinze was the great wrestler who for seven years was unbeaten from Umuofia to Mbaino. He was called the Cat because his back would never touch the ground. It was this man that Okonkwo threw in a fight which the old men agreed was one of the fiercest since the founder of their town engaged a spirit of the wild for seven days and seven nights. …
That was many years ago, twenty years or more, and during this time Okonkwo’s fame had grown like a bushfire in the harmattan. He was tall and huge, and his bushy eyebrows and wide nose gave him a very severe look. … When he walked, his heels hardly touched the ground and he seemed to walk on springs, as if he was going to pounce on somebody. And he did pounce on people quite often. He had a slight stammer and whenever he was angry and could not get his words out quickly enough, he would use his fists. He had no patience with unsuccessful men. He had had no patience with his father. (pp. 3–4)

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