So okay, the first chapter was kind of slow and annoying to me. Who is the book about, his father, Okoye or him, Okonkwo? It's obviously about him, but I was not completely sure until I started chapter two. I thought it was a dumb way to start a book, when they didn't talk about Okonkwo, only that he won a wrestling match against Amalinze the Cat and at the end when the author wrote one paragraph on Okonkwo's position in society, and wrote about four pages on Okonkwo's dad and his position in society and that he's pretty much a bum and love to play music, when it doesn't seem to have any importance, because it is basically comparing the two's status quos and tells that his dad died with no title and great debts.
It is getting more interesting. Then the second chapter he finds out that he must go to another village and make peace between the two so that war does not break out. This is all because the other village has killed one of Okonkwo's villager's wife. It ends up that there will not be war, but he is sent home with a young "ill-fated lad" named Ikemefuna and a virgin to replace the villager's wife. It is decided that until the destination of Ikemfuna, he will stay with Okonkwo. One thing that I don't like about it so far is all the foreign words that are put in while only a few are being explained. Also I now understand the importance of the first chapter, and it was setting up to better explain Okonkwo's role as a grown man. This novel as does show a lot about the different cultures, for example it tells about some traditions and myths/legends and beliefs. Just to give a few specific, they don't call a snake by its name after dark for fear it might come after them, and a tradition would be keeping the head of the human that a person killed at war. If you think about that, many different cultures us to do that, not so much now, that is just wrong, but it was done a long time ago.
2 comments:
It is really hard to find what the book is about, even as you keep reading. I believe it is actually about Okonkwo, but there is so much background on everything else it is really hard to determine the actual storyline. It just, jumps around so much. And yea, those chapters are very informative. So are many to follow.
This book does give a lot of background information but most of it is important for the rest of the book. I am really glad they chose the boy and girl compared to going to war. That would have been a boring book if they went to war. I am pretty sure this book is going to be about Okonkwo and his downfall in life.
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