Hello and happy Sunday. Is tomorrow a holiday in your country, too? I am assuming that you and I don’t live in the same country, but oh well. This week I was on break, and I had the ambitious idea of finishing *at least* two books while I was visiting my dad. I almost finished one of the books, so I call that a success. That book was Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.

This book came into my life because a couple of weeks ago, my boss had us go to the library and borrow some books we found appealing, and well, the selection was pretty depressing. Most books (including this one) had been written way before I was even born, and out of those, the majority had been written by white men. I did tell my boss that if we wanted kids to be excited to read, we should modernize and diversify the book selection, so I hope that happens soon.

My experience reading Things Fall Apart was odd because I simultaneously felt that a lot was going on and that nothing really was going on. We follow Okonkwo, who lives in this African village and essentially has anger issues, which lead him to trouble. The way that time passes by in this novel is super strange: we can have a either a week or three years go by in one chapter. There are also many minor characters, but they’re not explored in depth. It’s like we’re told enough to know what is going on but not enough to care.

I felt super conflicted reading this because I understand the value of reading about traditional cultures before and while being colonized, in this case by England, but this one was particularly horrible towards women. Okonkwo had three wives, and we learned the name of two of them, but we were never told the name of his first wife. She was refered to either as the first wife or his son’s mother. I felt like I couldn’t fully enjoy this book and learning about a culture that is absolutely foreign because the sexist discourse was so prevalent.