September 2008

The first question I have about Things Fall Apart is why was this on our shelf to start with? Who bought it and why? Or did we lift it from my mother’s bookshelf a long long time ago?

The next question I have is… why, why, why do we get so excited by books like this. And when I say we, I mean the people who decide what’s a classic, what’s a must read, what’s a prize winner, what should be in a high schooler’s curriculum? I don’t get it. OK so it was written in the late ’50s, before Nigerian independence. I can see why it might have received acclaim way back then – but now? I feel like there are better books, better stories and better characters.

It was interesting. But I don’t understand the rave reviews or why it’s on all sorts of great book lists.