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Rose Ure Mezu.
Chinua Achebe: The Man and His Works. London:
Adonis & Abbey Publishers Ltd, 2006. 274 pp.
Achebe Novels:
Things Fall Apart,
Arrow of God,
No Longer at Ease,
A Man of the People, and
Anthills of
the Savannah
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Mezu and Achebe: An Inside Knowledge of Igbo Society
& Culture
A
review by Pierre-Damien Mvuyekure
Chinua Achebe: The Man and His Works
shows Rose Ure Mezu at the acme of literary
interpretation and criticism. Mezu’s new book is set to
spur change in the scholarship and discourse on Chinua
Achebe, a writer who was cited among the 100 most
important writers of the 20th and 21st
centuries. As the title suggests, Mezu’s new book
studies Achebe as a person, a writer, and as someone who
initiated what Rose calls “the literary tradition of
cultural nationalism.” A true Pan-Africanist scholar,
Mezu compares Achebe and his works with “African
literary and cultural groundbreakers” in the African
Diaspora, especially trail-blazing works of Olaudah
Equiano (The Interesting Narrative of
the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus
Vassa, the African, Written by Himself)
and Zora Neale Hurston (Our
Eyes Were Watching God
).
This is one of the features that distinguish Mezu’s
Chinua Achebe: The Man and His Works
from a large existent body of critical work on Africa’s
most studied novelist. There is another reason:
belonging to the same ethnic group as Achebe, Igbo, Mezu
writes with a thorough and an inside knowledge of Igbo
society and culture. This is clearly seen in her cogent
reading of Achebe’s novels and sharp interrogation of
Achebe’s portrayal of women in such novels as
Things Fall Apart,
No Longer at Ease,
and
Anthills of
the Savannah.
The 1996 interview with Achebe and the 1999 Mezus’ visit
to the Achebes in upstate New York are additional
distinguishing qualities to Achebe: The Man and His
Works. The ideas from the interview and the visit
inform Mezu’s critical assessment of Achebe and his
novels.
Besides a preface and an introduction,
Chinua Achebe: The Man and His Works
is divided into ten chapters, including their own
endnotes and works cited. In the introduction, Mezu
recounts her story of attending elementary and secondary
schools in Nigeria, where missionaries would not
introduce her to “such great African novels,” including
Chinua Achebe’s
Things Fall Apart
and
No Longer at Ease,
Alan Paton’s
Cry the Beloved Country, or Dennis Brutus’s
Letters to Martha. The colonialist attitude of
the missionaries and writers such as Joseph Conrad (Heart
of Darkness) and
Joyce Cary (African
Witch and
Mr. Johnson) led Achebe to tell his Igbo
people’s story in order to revalorize Igbo/Africa’s
history and culture.
Chapter 1
Chapter 1, “Chinua Achebe’s
Things Fall Apart:
Implications for Black Cultural Nationalism and
Revisionism,” studies
Things Fall Apart
as a novel that rectifies the misconceptions and
disputes colonialist representations of African peoples
and their history and cultures. Topics covered in the
chapter include correction of misconceptions, the writer
and his art, the black writer and the English language,
the gender question—women in the structure of the
nation-state, female bonding, and the writer as a
teacher/visionary. Excerpts from the conversations with
Achebe intersperse the critical analysis of the novel.
In this chapter, wee see an Achebe that has mellowed his
stance regarding the use of African languages in
creative writing. He is no longer the Achebe that
confronted Ngugi wa Thiong’o decades ago, as he reveals
that he has been writing in Igbo language since 1975.
Chapter 2
Drawing on Achebe’s essays,
Deleuze and
Guatarri’s reading of Oedipus and schizophrenia,
psychoanalysis, and
Machiavelli’s The Prince, [Mezu's] Chapter 2,
“Achebe’s
Arrow of God:
Ezeulu and the Limits of Power,” gives full critical
attention to Ezeulu, the Chief Priest of Ulu, and how he
fails his people and himself as “a governing authority.”
Mezu cogently argues that Ezeulu’s harmatia is
not only his hubris but also his ambivalent attitude: he
wants his people to love/respect and fear him
simultaneously. From this perspective, Mezu considers
Arrow of God,
to be a “Classic Aristotelian Tragedy.” The conflict
between Umuaro and Okperi villages becomes a microcosm
for the battle between African traditions and Western
modernity. Thus,
Arrow of God
becomes a cautionary tale about the unwise use of power
and its hindrance to proper governance.
Chapter 3
Chapter 3, “Conflicts and Notions of Culture and
Civilization in
No Longer at Ease,”
analyzes Achebe’s second novel as both a “transition
from colonialism to postcolonial identity” and a quest
for “a discourse of national identity which an educated
generation—personified in Obi Okonkwo—requires in order
to express the pressures of a pre-Independence Nigeria”
(66). With
No Longer at Ease,
the setting moves from village to an urban setting,
Lagos, and explores the challenges to
democracy—corruption, gender relations, and
post-colonial political and economic uneasiness in
Nigeria.
The chapter explores the following themes in Achebe’s
second novel: Western democratic ideals versus “Sons of
the Soil,” corruption in civil service as metaphor for
alienation,
No Longer at Ease
as a paradigm of differing interpretations of life, Obi
Okonkwo—idealism and the language of social unease,
Isaac Okonkwo: the problematics of being of a Christian
within a traditional space, gender relations—romance
versus realism, and which way Nigeria? In this chapter,
Mezu is tough on the 1950s Achebe who, through Clara—an
Osu—still sees the role of women as peripheral in a
budding nation.
Chapter 4
In Chapter 4, “A Man of the People:
A Moral Approach,” Mezu uses the moral critical approach
to evaluate the structure and content of Achebe’s fourth
novel. More specifically, the chapter analyzes moral,
socio-economic, and political modes of corruption as
found in the individual, the government, and society. In
this novel, Chief Nanga becomes the quintessential
corrupt and corrupting official in the government. On an
individual level, Odili becomes a victim of the
machinations and amorality Chief Nanga. When the latter
steals Elsie, Odili’s girlfriend, Odili vows to woo
Edna, Chief Nanga’s fiancée. Yet, Mezu argues that the
fact that Odili tenderly and romantically woos Edna
shows that he idealizes women. Further, a society that
accepts the corrupting language and behaviour the Nangas
is responsible for its own demise.
Chapter 5
Chapter 5, “Achebe’s
Anthills of
the Savannah,”
examines political structure, governance and nation
state, the woman’s role in nation building, and the
creative writer in society. Through the character of
Ikem, an aspiring writer, Achebe guides his audience to
examine the failures of the past in order to devise the
best “ideal political ideology.” Unlike
A Man of the People,
Anthills of
the Savannah
glitters by the writer’s sympathy towards the people.
The seminal section in the chapter is “The Role of Women
in the Structure of the Nation-State,” in which the
character of Beatrice is accorded full critical
attention. In this section, Mezu confronts Achebe
regarding the role of women in his fiction and society.
Always astute, Achebe counters that people have failed
to read fiction as representing reality, not as how
things out to be. More important, he reveals that
Beatrice has been appearing in his previous novels and
that just as society has been evolving, so has his
vision of a woman’s role—“it has been developing,
growing in intensity as the role of the Igbo woman has
been growing in Igbo society” (141).
Chapter 6
The merit of Chapter 6, “Achebe’s Okonkwo and Hurston’s
Jody Starks: Twin Souls in Different Climes and Their
Women,” is to link the African Diaspora and demonstrate
the similarities of two characters separated by the
Middle Passage and its effects. The gist of the chapter
is that Okonkwo and Starks share similar character
traits—hubris, hard work, inflexibility, violent
temper, mask of fear, misogyny/sexism.
Chapter 7
Chapter 7, “Achebe’s Writings: An Authentication of the
Igbo Culture of Olaudah Equiano’s 1789
Narrative,”
is the longest chapter in the book and could constitute
a monograph itself. Endowed with an intimate knowledge
of Igbo culture, Mezu meticulously studies the fictional
Igbo people of Umuofia and Umuaro in relation to
Equiano’s Essaka and posits that Achebe’s novels such as
Things Fall Apart
and
Arrow of God
authenticate the elements of Igbo culture as displayed
in Equiano’s
Narrative.
In
Things Fall Apart,
Achebe authenticates Equiano’s portrayal of Igbo
socio-cultural, economic, political, and judicial world.
Umuofia’s ceremonies of toasting wine and kola nut and
remembering the ancestors validate the religious beliefs
and the ritual ceremonies in Essaka as presented in
Equiano’s
Narrative.
In
Arrow of God,
Achebe corroborates “the patriarchal obsession with
female chastity that was an ethos of Igbo traditional
life” (178). After reading this chapter, the detractors
of Equiano and his remarkable
Narrative
can no longer doubt his description of Essaka “Eboe”
nation.
Chapter 8
Chapter 8, “Women
in Achebe's World:
A Womanist Critique,” repeats with emphasis the role of
women in Achebe’s novels as illustrated in the preceding
chapters. Drawing on feminist ideology and womanism,
the chapter assesses the absence of a moderating female
principle in
Things Fall Apart
and the issue of chastity/virginity in
Things Fall Apart
and
Arrow of God.
Although it is clear that Mezu feels very strongly about
Achebe’s vision of women in his novels, she ably takes a
critical distance, which allows her to view Achebe’s
vision of women as diachronically progressive.
Chapter 9
While in Chapter 9, “Conversations with Chinua Achebe,
1996,” Mezu interviews Achebe on the telephone, in
Chapter 10, “The Mezus Visit the Achebes: (A Second
Interview, June 15, 1999,” Mezu finally meets her
long-time idol writer. In the 1996 interview, Achebe
successfully defends his portrayal of women in
Things Fall Apart
and wins Mezu over to his argument that Okonkwo
violently mistreats both women and men. He also reveals
that he translates his knowledge into fiction via such
characters as Ikem, Chris, and Beatrice. With the Mezus
visiting the Achebes, we see Achebe and his wife
welcoming the Mezus à la Igbo tradition with
Igbo/Nigerian/African dishes. We also get a chance to
see Achebe revisit the 1990 car accident that left him
in a wheelchair. It is clear that Mezu has great
admiration for Professor Christie Achebe, the woman who
put her career on hold to take care of her disabled
husband.
Chinua Achebe: The Man and His Works
is dedicated to her.
Chinua Achebe: The Man and His Works
is an authoritative critical evaluation and inside
knowledge of Chinua Achebe, his novels, and his place in
the African Diaspora and world literature and culture.
Although grounded in various literary and critical
theories, albeit it is not full of obtrusive critical
jargon, Mezu’s book is accessible to students (college
as well as high school), teachers, and scholars alike.
It deserves to be read and taught.
posted 13 October 2006 * *
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updated 4
November 2007 |
