Arrow Of God (1964) by Chinua Achebe is the third and last book of his Africa Trilogy. For me it was the most challenging and hard to follow because of the all the difficult African names, multiple characters, aphorism, and my unfamiliarity with older Igbo traditions. At it's heart, is a story about the collision of the ancient, traditional world of the six villages that are governed by the head priest Ezeulu, and the modern traditions of the would-be colonists lead by Winterbottom. There are major miscommunication between the two men when Ezeulu is summoned by Winterbottom and refuses to be named chief of the district by the Englishman. But there are many other problems that Ezeulu is facing from his own people, who are beginning to lose faith in him and question his choices. He has sent one of his son sot be educated by the white men so that he can report back to him what they are doing, but he is converted to Christianity and commits sacrilege when puts a sacred python ins box hoping to kill it and prove his Christian faith. This act undermines his father's influence. In the end Ezeulu's pride is his downfall, along with a tragic act of God out of the blue that causes him to lose face and lose support of his community. Again, Achebe uses all sorts of sayings and idioms that are intriguing but also head scratching, here are some example with their English equivalents(?):
A man who brings home ant-infested faggots should not complain if he is visited by lizards. (If you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas.)
Let us first chase away the wild cat, afterwards we blame the hen. (Let’s not put the cart before the horse.)
I do not blame you for wanting to bale that water before it rises above the ankle. (Nip it in the bud.)
A toad does not run in the daytime unless something is after it. (No smoke without fire.)
Did not our elders tell us that as soon as we shake hands with a leper he will want an embrace? (Give an inch take a mile.)
You indeed walked into the mouth of a leopard. (The lion’s den).
I think I would have enjoyed the novel more if I had the cultural background-say something like what one would experience if they were reading this is in a college class. All in all, I think the fall of Ezeulu was an interesting story and probably reflects some truth about how tribes were colonized in the 1920s when this novel was set.
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