The date is January 1999. Venue: Block B of the Faculty of Arts complex, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. I’m on the ground floor walking along the aisle separating the two wings of the complex, my heart full of that excitement of a freshman going about his registration ahead of the forthcoming matriculation, my eyes glued to the doors on the left, searching earnestly for the office of the man who has been assigned to me as my academic adviser. Then I see him – right there at the doorpost. I look again. Yes, it’s certainly him, the master storyteller, the wordsmith himself, the same man that wrote Things Fall Apart, a book that I read in junior secondary school after I had watched portions of the film on my uncle’s black-and-white television.
But then, it is not his person – just his name: Professor Chinua Achebe. It is inscribed in white chalk right there on the doorpost. I stop short, go closer to the door, stretch out my right hand, caress the inscription and rub it on my chest as a sign of obeisance. On later inquiry, I am told by an older student that that was the office that Achebe used while he was still on the faculty board, long before he had the accident that took him to the United States of America.
My greatest memory from Things Fall Apart when I first read it was that story of a certain festival where many people gathered round a mound of fufu, tackling the fufu from different corners without seeing one another – not until the fufu had been levelled that people on either side of the fufu mountain saw one another, exchanged pleasantries and shook hands. The image of that fufu mountain never left my young mind.
But I was to encounter Achebe in many more ways as an undergraduate student – in his other novels which were recommended for such courses as Introduction to Fiction, African Fiction, Studies in Fiction, among others: No Longer at Ease, Arrow of God, A Man of the People, and Anthills of the Savannah, and, of course, the big masquerade, Things Fall Apart.
One thing binds all Achebe’s novels: language. Indeed, Achebe is a great wordsmith. He says so much by saying so little. His language is so simple, yet so deep, so penetrating – indeed, so profound. His style of fiction draws heavily on the oral tradition of his native Igbo people. He weaves folktales into the fabric of his stories, illuminating community values in both the content and the form of the storytelling.
Equally noteworthy is his use of proverbs, which often illustrate the values of the rural Igbo tradition. As Achebe himself says, proverbs are the palm oil with which the Igbo eat words. And so he sprinkles them throughout his narratives, repeating points made in conversation. As critic Anjali Gera notes, the use of proverbs in Arrow of God “serves to create through an echo effect the judgment of a community upon an individual violation”.
In Things Fall Apart, for instance, we see Okonkwo, a roaring fire, who is frustrated by what he terms his son Nwoye’s “degenerate and effeminate” nature. While Okonkwo sits and ponders on this, he eyes move to the log fire, he recalls the name, questions how he, a flaming fire, could have begotten a son like Nwoye. “He sighed heavily, and as if in sympathy, the smouldering log also sighed. And immediately Okonkwo’s eyes were opened and he saw the whole matter clearly. Living fire begets cold, impotent ash. He sighed again, deeply” Chapter 17 (p. 143). What a way to resolve the raging storm in Okonkwo’s mind! That experience settles it all for Okonkwo, and it is from this point that he gives up completely on Nwoye.
Another instance is Obierika’s comment, which, for me, sums up the whole essence of Things Fall Apart: “The white man is very clever. He came quietly with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart” Chapter 20 (p. 162).
As in Things Fall Apart, so also in No Longer at Ease and the rest. Look at the following words from No Longer at Ease, for instance: “You cannot plant greatness as you plant yams or maize. Whoever planted an iroko tree – the greatest tree in the forest? You may collect all the iroko seeds in the world, open the soil and put them there. It will be in vain. The great tree chooses where to grow and we find it there, so it is with the greatness in men” Chapter 5 (p. 57).
Achebe presents the picture of the conscious, fully-aware writer working consciously, assiduously on his language to achieve maximum effect. As he notes in one of his essays: “For an African, writing in English is not without its serious setbacks. He often finds himself describing situations or modes of thought which have no direct equivalent in the English way of life. Caught in that situation he can do one of two things. He can try and contain what he wants to say within the limits of conventional English or he can try to push back those limits to accommodate his ideas…. I submit that those who can do the work of extending the frontiers of English so as to accommodate African thought-patterns must do it through their mastery of English and not out of innocence.” His wise choice between the two options he presents above, for me, is what has elevated Achebe to the high pedestal of a wordsmith of international repute.
CHUKS OLUIGBO
