Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Anchor (1967), Edition: FIRST ANCHOR EDITION, Paperback, ??? pages
Description
By the renowned author of Things Fall Apart, this novel foreshadows the Nigerian coups of 1966 and shows the color and vivacity as well as the violence and corruption of a society making its own way between the two worlds.
Media reviews
User reviews
LibraryThing member patrickgarson
Achebe's short, kind-of Bildungsroman is at once quintessentially Nigerian and yet also surprisingly universal. Pidgin or no, venal politicians seem alike the world over, and so too the starry-eyed youths trying to take them down.
Odili is a young teacher who becomes involved with his own former
This is a simple book. There are no sub-plots, and characters are drawn competently, but quickly. They are also very familiar characters. Odili is a represents a very stock young man: idealistic and arrogant. Nanga likewise is the wise, corrupt and cheerful elder. One thing desperately missing from the story is women. This book is very masculine, and the women - where they exist at all - are no more than sex objects for the characters, lacking any agency or will of their own. This irritated me, and would have irritated me a lot more if the book had been more than 165 pages long.
Something else I struggled with was Achebe's no-doubt-authentic use of Pidgin english throughout the book. Whilst imparting an nice flavour and verisimilitude to the novel, I genuinely struggled understanding much of this dialogue, and it stood out from Achebe's otherwise mellifluous prose.
Ultimately, I have trouble recommending this book. It's competent enough, but almost wholly unoriginal - even for its publishing date. It's not the kind of book I could really rail against, but it's definitely limited by its small cast, thin characters, veiled sexism, limited plot and predictable narrative.
Odili is a young teacher who becomes involved with his own former
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teacher, M.C. Nanga, now a powerful government minister. Nanga is successful, rich, and very popular, but behind his bluff good cheer there's... not much really. Will Odili settle for the perks offered by a friendship with Nanga, or try instead to destroy him?This is a simple book. There are no sub-plots, and characters are drawn competently, but quickly. They are also very familiar characters. Odili is a represents a very stock young man: idealistic and arrogant. Nanga likewise is the wise, corrupt and cheerful elder. One thing desperately missing from the story is women. This book is very masculine, and the women - where they exist at all - are no more than sex objects for the characters, lacking any agency or will of their own. This irritated me, and would have irritated me a lot more if the book had been more than 165 pages long.
Something else I struggled with was Achebe's no-doubt-authentic use of Pidgin english throughout the book. Whilst imparting an nice flavour and verisimilitude to the novel, I genuinely struggled understanding much of this dialogue, and it stood out from Achebe's otherwise mellifluous prose.
Ultimately, I have trouble recommending this book. It's competent enough, but almost wholly unoriginal - even for its publishing date. It's not the kind of book I could really rail against, but it's definitely limited by its small cast, thin characters, veiled sexism, limited plot and predictable narrative.
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LibraryThing member alexbolding
This is a classical parable about an established politician (Chief Nanga) who angers a young upstart (Odili, Nanga’s former best pupil in class) by bedding what Nanga thinks is one of Odili’s many girlfriends (but in fact turned out to be his only serious gf). The aggrieved young man vows
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revenge, setting out to steal Chief Nanga’s proposed second wife, Edna, and establishing a new opposition party. The point Chinua Achebe wishes to make in this novel is that post-Independence nationalist politics reflects big men rule, whereby upstarts use the political path as another means to settle personal grievances. The novel is obviously set in Nigeria, and succinctly highlights all sorts of mechanisms that keep the powerful in power. At some stage however, once the elections have been won by the ruling party, Odili’s party has been crushed, its leader killed, Odili himself crippled in hospital, the genie is out of the bottle. The organised violent gangs instituted by the ruling party to win the elections, take the law in their own hands, going on a looting spree. This then destabilises the country to such an extent that the silent, cynical masses spring to life, and the Army commits a coup d’Etat to restore order by jailing the ruling chefs. Chinua’s novel was seen as a master piece at the time, since it predated the coupe in Nigeria by 6 months. Show Less
LibraryThing member ohernaes
The young Odili joins his former teacher, now Minister of Culture, Nanga in the capital. Hot-tempered, he falls out with his master and joins the opposition to get revenge. He has got his eyes up for the huge amounts of corruption going on, but people do not appear to want to hear that message,
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they know it already and have reverted to cynicism and narrow village interest. Fraud, violence and mayhem follow the rivalries of the two camp, but not with much room for hope of better times. Show Less
LibraryThing member soylentgreen23
At first I was unsure what to make of this short novel; the biographical introduction to the titular man of the people left me dry, but the pace picked up with the narrator's fateful journey to the capital. Full of the minor details that place a novel in a real culture, this is the book that left
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me hankering for a return to Africa, but at the same made me glad not to be living there. Show Less
LibraryThing member dbsovereign
Power corrupts absolutely in this novel where bribery, governmental apathy and incopetence vie as the modus operandi for a cruel dictator.
LibraryThing member zasmine
Chinua Achebe almost effortlessly build such beautiful characters. Let's look at Odili- upright, scornful of the direction his country is taking, yet happy with his little assignment at the Grammar School. Then the possibility of a scholarship comes along and his 'dissent' starts turning into
Odili is such a real character- full of interesting twists and turns and choices.
This is the first Chinua Achebe book I've read and definitely won't be the last.
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action. He decides he needs this scholarship anti the current theme of Western educated elite being treated like pariahs. He almost 'dissents' by going and living with Chief Nanga and his family- someone he is shown to have developed a detest for- and admires his multi-bungalow, flushed-toilets lifestyle. A minor dissent is trying to bring his girlfriend Elsie and her friend home for the gentleman's company. And then of course that fateful incident which leaves him like someone 'with an elephant carcass on their head toeing around for a grasshopper' (I only remember this one but the book is full of such delightful local similes). He then dissents by joining the 'left-leaning intellectuals led common people party' (as described in a beautiful introduction by Karl Maier) and contesting the chief's seat and vying for the affection of his upcoming wife. What follows is tragic and yet beautiful. Odili is such a real character- full of interesting twists and turns and choices.
This is the first Chinua Achebe book I've read and definitely won't be the last.
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LibraryThing member eloavox
A very human, engaging look into the politics and life of one facet of African culture.
LibraryThing member Gypsy_Boy
I seem to have read Achebe’s best books (Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God) first (unintentionally). I have no idea what remains in store but the next two I read (No Longer at Ease and this) are distinctly not as good--or perhaps I should say, more accurately, that I did not enjoy them anywhere
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near as much. This book relates the story of Odili Samalu, a one-time student of Chief Nanga, who is now a highly successful, highly corrupt Minister of Culture. The two reunite, fall out, and then run for a seat in Parliament—against each other. Although the characters are complete and completely believable individuals, the story is so predictable as to be depressing. Odili is a member of the idealistic, rising generation; Nanga is the older, entrenched (and traditional) generation. But Nanga uses his position and the corruption of the new government to increase his own wealth and power. The focus of the book is political corruption in a newly independent (and unnamed) African country, Odili’s growing awareness of it, and its pervasiveness. The book was published in 1966 and brought Achebe into serious trouble with the authorities. As a result, he and his family fled to the region that would secede and become Biafra the following year. Worth reading because of who wrote it but I can’t particularly recommend it. Show Less
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1966