No Longer at Ease (Penguin Modern Classics)

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It’s a beautiful if poignant story of a young Nigerian man, Obi Okonkwo who is facing his trial for taking a bribe and abusing his position in the Civil Service. The story then traces his past, from the young, bright-eyed, academically gifted boy in school to his present as an accused criminal. At first I missed the powerful story of Things Fall Apart. By the end I realized that it could not be the same. The tragedy is the same: the loss of certainty and the surrender of old tribal values in an effort to mix with the White Man. But the times are so different that Obi mistakenly hopes his modern views and education will see him through. The inciting force on this Thursday is a delegation from Abazon—the northern province of Kangan devastated, like Nigeria’s own northern regions, by drought— that has come to the capital city of Bassa to seek relief. Ikem has only recently written an editorial, his allegorical “Hymn to the Sun” that dries up the savannah, accusing the president (the sun) of responsibility and promoting the delegation’s cause. Sam at first feels threatened by the loud demonstrations outside his office, but when he learns that the delegation consists of only six elders and that the rest of the demonstrators are Bassa locals, he decides to use the situation to rid himself of his old school buddies and to entrench himself in power surrounded by loyal henchmen such as Ossai. Achebe’s breaks the rules of novel craft and focuses instead on bringing out character and societal flaws, and therefore I found the style quirky in places and influenced, no doubt, by the oral tradition of his Igbo tribe. Obi comes across as impulsive and Clara can be jealous and cold. Achebe thinks it is more important to show a driver using his elbows to steer the car while lighting his cigarette than clearly and proportionately demarcating time and scene shifts in the novel. The local patois is hard to follow but lends authenticity to the dialogue. Poetry and song intrude into the narrative. Achebe’s political observations, which seem to be the prime motivation behind this trilogy, are quite astute:

Obi spent most of his time with Clara and his friends, such as the louche Christopher, Joseph, and a high-ranking Nigerian politician, the Hon. Sam Okoli. He found himself in a great deal of money trouble, as he continually received bills and could not find a way to pay for them. Once Clara gave him a mysterious fifty pounds to help him out, but he decided not to use it and it was accidentally stolen from his car.Publisher Published in the United States by Random House through an arrangement with Reed Consumer books. Obi's mother grew ill and he traveled to visit her. There his father privately asked about Clara and expressed his reservations, but Obi tried to tell him that because he was a Christian he could not care about Clara's osu status. His mother, however, told him firmly that he could only marry her after she died, and if he married her beforehand she would kill herself. Torna, pertanto, con tanta teoria come ad esempio il credersi saldamente fermo sui principi morali che si oppongono alla corruzione dilagante del paese. Although Obi is thankful for his education, he is not always truly grateful to the UPU, who are perpetually intruding on his life and whose "scholarship" was nothing more than a loan, according to Obi. Obi is at odds with the Union just as he is often at odds with tradition—the Union and tradition being one and the same for the purposes of the novel, despite the misleading name of the Union, which contains the word "progressive."

Climax There are two climaxes in the novel. The first is when Obi finds himself in mental turmoil right at the point where he has lost Clara and his mother had died and the second is when he is arrested for having taken a bribe. Achebe won several awards over the course of his writing career, including the Man Booker International Prize (2007) and the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize (2010). Additionally, he received honorary degrees from more than 30 universities around the world. DeathObi was not Christian but knew a bit about it. He did not like how in Christian sermons the audience could not reply. However, everything is not as rosy as it seemed. Although having been accepted in the services, his boss Mr. Green is a “white-man” who rebels against Nigeria’s independence. Suffering Mr. Green’s taunts and verbal abuses is, however, least of Obi’s problems. We’ve all heard of (or read) the author’s most famous work, Things Fall Apart. This book, No Longer at Ease, is the second volume in what became a trilogy. The third volume is Arrow of God.