I have a love/hate relationship with this novel, and it's been so very influential. I find it interesting that what you refer to as toxic masculinity* is examined with such honesty in this "primitive" literature compared to much of the unprimitive literature more usually reviewed by the New York Times. ::wryface::
* It is toxic masculinity, being both toxic and a form of masculinity, but not necessarily identical in causes or effects as the behaviours and beliefs more usually referred to by that term. I'm not questioning this use of the term, only observing the expansion of context.
Yeah, I hadn't thought of it that way but understand the use of the phrase in the review now that I think about it. And I get the somewhat sympathetic telling/reading of the protagonist.
Achebe's later book *A Man of the People* is very cynical about more modern politics, and has one of the best last lines in a book.
The first edition cover our host posted above also reminds me of the pulp "colonial" adventure covers of the time. I wonder if that was intentional. And positioning Things Fall Apart as a first contact novel, in a late 1950s context of science fiction (often with similarly pulpy covers), is interesting too, although I think there are probably other post-colonial novels which might be more usefully discussed in that context. I don't have any insta-opinions though.
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james_davis_nicoll) wrote2016-02-21 01:16 pm
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* It is toxic masculinity, being both toxic and a form of masculinity, but not necessarily identical in causes or effects as the behaviours and beliefs more usually referred to by that term. I'm not questioning this use of the term, only observing the expansion of context.
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Achebe's later book *A Man of the People* is very cynical about more modern politics, and has one of the best last lines in a book.
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one of the best last lines in a book
"A fair day's wages for a fair day's work!" ;-)
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