Things Fall Apart

[Dead_Soul]

I was wondering if anyone else on this forum is familiar with this work. The depiction of a stable pagan community being undermined by Christian missionaries is one that I feel is sympathetic to the philosophy endorsed by this site.

Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe

[wEEman33]

It's been infiltrating school curricula for the last decade or so.

I was assigned to read it both in high school and college.

In my experiences, most students tended not to view the missionaries as an evil entity and would instead blame the collapse of the society on the protagonist, Okonkwo.

I would say that either reading is plausible, given that the seeds of societal collapse are already being sown well before the missionaries show up in the story.

[Cynical]

Fuck this book.  "Noble savage" propaganda that was meant to be the answer to the "racism" of "Heart of Darkness".

[Septicemia]

Fuck this book.  "Noble savage" propaganda that was meant to be the answer to the "racism" of "Heart of Darkness".

Was forced to read in high school. Agreed.

[KiSSy]

Haha! This was on Corrupt's recommended reading list.

[death metal black metal]

The depiction of a stable pagan community being undermined by Christian missionaries is one that I feel is sympathetic to the philosophy endorsed by this site.

I enjoyed this book.

I think most teachers try to look for a movie poster style synopsis and that fails; the title speaks for itself.

For example, while the missionaries in it are clearly useless agents of corruption, they're not the bad guys. Nor is this an anti-racist novel (it inherently endorses caste distinctions among Africans).

The title says it all: Things Fall Apart, or how societies end up in the shitter through disorganization -- not someone slashing them in half.