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innashtakser's review against another edition
5.0
Wonderfully combative essays on Africa, literature, African literature, racism in literary criticism and the experience of being an African writer.
j_dyzzle's review against another edition
1.0
While Achebe does make some valid points in his varies speeches and essays, as a reader, I am unfortunately blinded by his tone and ferver. Achebe looses some of his academic cred the moment he calls Conrad "a bloody racist". He even seems to go so far as to say that anyone who doesn't think Conrad is racist is inherently racist themselves.
There are some interesting sections regarding the need for communication between cultures, and the things that have prohibited a proper line of communication up until now.
However, there comes a point when you push your point so hard that you turn onto the person that you are arguing. At times, I feel as though Achebe crosses this line. Yes, it is absolutely true that the lines of dialogue are often unfortunately one sided, and that the lesser spoken communities in Africa have much that they can teach the rest of the world. However equality in traditional terms, would dictate that they be willing to listen to outsiders without such resentment. Each country should learn from each other, not just one preaching at the other. No matter who is doing the preaching.
Perhaps it is simply the form of the book, in putting all of his arguments, and sometimes, rants, together, but at times it feels as though Achebe is looking for something to be upset about. So perhaps reading the whole book cover to cover and taking it as fact would not be the best way to take in the book or Achebe's philosophy.
I disagree with Achebe on many points, (for example Descartes) but that does not mean that I think he is completely wrong. I would just hope that he would respect my having an opinion on matters that might be different from his.
There are some interesting sections regarding the need for communication between cultures, and the things that have prohibited a proper line of communication up until now.
However, there comes a point when you push your point so hard that you turn onto the person that you are arguing. At times, I feel as though Achebe crosses this line. Yes, it is absolutely true that the lines of dialogue are often unfortunately one sided, and that the lesser spoken communities in Africa have much that they can teach the rest of the world. However equality in traditional terms, would dictate that they be willing to listen to outsiders without such resentment. Each country should learn from each other, not just one preaching at the other. No matter who is doing the preaching.
Perhaps it is simply the form of the book, in putting all of his arguments, and sometimes, rants, together, but at times it feels as though Achebe is looking for something to be upset about. So perhaps reading the whole book cover to cover and taking it as fact would not be the best way to take in the book or Achebe's philosophy.
I disagree with Achebe on many points, (for example Descartes) but that does not mean that I think he is completely wrong. I would just hope that he would respect my having an opinion on matters that might be different from his.
wenda's review against another edition
5.0
My mind feels richer and more open for having read this well-balanced collection of essays by Achebe. Collected over almost twenty-five years and first published thirty years ago, it is still fresh nonetheless. Arguments about the importance of literature and art in Nigerian or any society have lost none of its value nor urgency. Sadly, the same goes for the prevalence of racism and colonialism despite progress made in the meantime.
It surprised me to see how many are still defending Conrad's Heart of Darkness as not being the product of a racist mind fifty years on. But rather than focusing on such negatives, I just felt lifted up by the eloquence and fluency of every sentence, of the diverse and colorful citations of literature from across Africa as well as Europa and America. Wished these kinds of essays would be taught more widely, it's essential reading in my opinion.
The varied palette speaks to the imagination, and according to Chinua Achebe himself, that's just what fictions should do.
It surprised me to see how many are still defending Conrad's Heart of Darkness as not being the product of a racist mind fifty years on. But rather than focusing on such negatives, I just felt lifted up by the eloquence and fluency of every sentence, of the diverse and colorful citations of literature from across Africa as well as Europa and America. Wished these kinds of essays would be taught more widely, it's essential reading in my opinion.
The varied palette speaks to the imagination, and according to Chinua Achebe himself, that's just what fictions should do.
savaging's review
4.0
My favorite thing in Achebe is how he has mastered the polite but devastating criticism.
The most powerful essays in this work for me are the bookends: Achebe begins with a sharp critique of Joseph Conrad and Heart of Darkness. Conrad was my favorite author in high school, when I first discovered real literature. Achebe does a remarkable job of showing how the racism in the work isn't just some forgivable side issue, but radically shapes the regressive message of the entire piece -- and perpetuates the most idiotic of stereotypes.
Achebe ends with a powerful eulogy for James Baldwin. Impediments first, and then hopes.
The most powerful essays in this work for me are the bookends: Achebe begins with a sharp critique of Joseph Conrad and Heart of Darkness. Conrad was my favorite author in high school, when I first discovered real literature. Achebe does a remarkable job of showing how the racism in the work isn't just some forgivable side issue, but radically shapes the regressive message of the entire piece -- and perpetuates the most idiotic of stereotypes.
Achebe ends with a powerful eulogy for James Baldwin. Impediments first, and then hopes.
paintedverse's review
5.0
Hopes and Impediments is my first-hand introduction to Chinua Achebe as a writer and speaker. It is a collection of fourteen essays (and a postscript). The best part about this essay collection is that Achebe begins from the scratch. If he has to talk about mankind, he will begin with the cosmic changes. He is witty. He is well-read. The essays are full of anecdotes and stories.
Conrad was born in 1857 and what he portrayed in his work Heart of Darkness is, along with other reasons, also because of the effect of how the world treated the Blacks. In his essay, An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Achebe talks about the existing prejudices that are often held high. Africa is an exact "antithesis" of Europe and Achebe justly portrayed the limitations that the novel brought: the Blacks were seen as something (and not even someone) that can be sidelined and not important for the larger history.
In 1979, Achebe was asked to talk about "The Necessity for Cultural Exchange in a Spirit of Partnership Between North and South". Hence emerged the second essay in this collection, Impediments to Dialogue between North and South. From Naipaul's comment on Africa's future (“Africa has no future”) to a comment of the British governor of Rhodesia on the partnership between black and white ("the partnership between the horse and its rider"), Achebe talked about the origin and the subsequent emergence of the dialogue between "the white man and his brother".
In Named For Victoria, Queen of England, the quirky and quintessential Achebe is still there in his full glory. Just when I think that this is it, I am revamped with more of his ideologies and wittiness. Well, Achebe wasn't the one who knew that he will have to take the profession of a writer as an adult. But he didn't want their story be told "by anyone else no matter how gifted or well intentioned".
In The Novelist as Teacher, he talks about the dual culture that he had to live in in the process of growing up. The dual culture he and his kith and kin were living in often forced them in a quandary. While they were actively involved in the new, there were longings for the old, be it the adoption of a new form of prayer or that of a new name given to him because of adopting Christianity. Achebe is not drab and pale. His words are so suffused with humour, that even when I am waiting to take in his thoughts, I can't stop chuckling. Here's what he had to say about relinquishing his baptized name, Albert Chinualumogu: "So if anyone asks you what Her Britannic Majesty Queen Victoria had in common with Chinua Achebe, the answer is: They both lost their Albert!"
The Novelist as Teacher lays down the responsibilities that writers have for the place they belong to. Theirs is a task to jolt the society awake and tell them to have gratitude for everything their home has to offer. A child not writing about the harmattan brings the point at home -- everything about home is to be made disarrayed in order to be acceptable. In The Writer and His Community, Achebe talked about the individualism of art and the subsequent difficulties that arose because he had choosen two worlds at the same time - the world of his home and his imposed home.
They say, change is the only constant and I have always felt the same. But never have I been so ambivalent about change before, as The Igbo World and Its Art made me. In this essay, Achebe very vibrantly points out "an arena" of the Igbo world. It is a world of complicity and inclusion. It is a world of process, not of product. It is a world that appreciates change more than ancient. And since change is so vital, hence there has been changes in the "awesomeness" of the world. But such a proud portrayal of the masquerade and Igbo customs has made me wary of it and now I am yearning for something I have never had.
Colonialist Criticism talks about how colonialism continued to affect the lives of African writers even after its end on the surface. Achebe talks at length, through his experiences, about the big brother attitude that continued to make its omnipresent existence felt to their "junior brother[s]".
Thoughts on the African Novel stipulated the tenancy of the term "African literature". The problem Achebe felt there is, in trying to define African literature, is the early conclusion that the writers in a conference at Uganda were trying to draw when the writers had just started writing about Africa. He explained this difficulty with a proverb: "Do not underrate a day while an hour of light remains." He further discussed about the limitations and challenges that arose subsequently in trying to reach to a firm dogma of a literature that could be called African.
I read Amos Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drinkard earlier this year. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, but I couldn't get much of why Tutuola choose to write about a palm-wine drinkard going in quest for his tapster. In his essay Work and Play in Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drinkard, Achebe, as someone who had taught Tutuola, presented his condensed thoughts. I am still very confused as far as his ideas are concerned, but the general tone of Tutuola's work is at my hindsight now.
Don't Let Him Die: A Tribute to Christopher Okigbo and Kofi Awoonor as a Novelist deal with Achebe's cherished writers of the African land. Language and the Destiny of Man is one of my favourites from this collection. It begins with "few greater successes" of mankind and goes on to talk about several myths and purposes that they serve.
In The Truth of Fiction, Achebe discusses about, first through Picasso's comment on the falsities of art, the truth of fiction. He establishes the power of fiction in comparison to "editorials and other preachments" and "the lessons of history". The notion of sense is attacked upon. This essay, like two other essays in this collection, enlightened me to the whys that were left unanswered while reading The Palm-Wine Drinkard.
I found What Has Literature Got to Do with It? a bit more complex that all the other essays in the collection. This essay talks about the limitations goals often put. Achebe takes example from various countries all over the world to prove his ideas. He further puts importance on the need for both science and humanities and delves very well in the arena of contemporary political and developmental problems.
Conrad was born in 1857 and what he portrayed in his work Heart of Darkness is, along with other reasons, also because of the effect of how the world treated the Blacks. In his essay, An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Achebe talks about the existing prejudices that are often held high. Africa is an exact "antithesis" of Europe and Achebe justly portrayed the limitations that the novel brought: the Blacks were seen as something (and not even someone) that can be sidelined and not important for the larger history.
In 1979, Achebe was asked to talk about "The Necessity for Cultural Exchange in a Spirit of Partnership Between North and South". Hence emerged the second essay in this collection, Impediments to Dialogue between North and South. From Naipaul's comment on Africa's future (“Africa has no future”) to a comment of the British governor of Rhodesia on the partnership between black and white ("the partnership between the horse and its rider"), Achebe talked about the origin and the subsequent emergence of the dialogue between "the white man and his brother".
In Named For Victoria, Queen of England, the quirky and quintessential Achebe is still there in his full glory. Just when I think that this is it, I am revamped with more of his ideologies and wittiness. Well, Achebe wasn't the one who knew that he will have to take the profession of a writer as an adult. But he didn't want their story be told "by anyone else no matter how gifted or well intentioned".
In The Novelist as Teacher, he talks about the dual culture that he had to live in in the process of growing up. The dual culture he and his kith and kin were living in often forced them in a quandary. While they were actively involved in the new, there were longings for the old, be it the adoption of a new form of prayer or that of a new name given to him because of adopting Christianity. Achebe is not drab and pale. His words are so suffused with humour, that even when I am waiting to take in his thoughts, I can't stop chuckling. Here's what he had to say about relinquishing his baptized name, Albert Chinualumogu: "So if anyone asks you what Her Britannic Majesty Queen Victoria had in common with Chinua Achebe, the answer is: They both lost their Albert!"
The Novelist as Teacher lays down the responsibilities that writers have for the place they belong to. Theirs is a task to jolt the society awake and tell them to have gratitude for everything their home has to offer. A child not writing about the harmattan brings the point at home -- everything about home is to be made disarrayed in order to be acceptable. In The Writer and His Community, Achebe talked about the individualism of art and the subsequent difficulties that arose because he had choosen two worlds at the same time - the world of his home and his imposed home.
They say, change is the only constant and I have always felt the same. But never have I been so ambivalent about change before, as The Igbo World and Its Art made me. In this essay, Achebe very vibrantly points out "an arena" of the Igbo world. It is a world of complicity and inclusion. It is a world of process, not of product. It is a world that appreciates change more than ancient. And since change is so vital, hence there has been changes in the "awesomeness" of the world. But such a proud portrayal of the masquerade and Igbo customs has made me wary of it and now I am yearning for something I have never had.
Colonialist Criticism talks about how colonialism continued to affect the lives of African writers even after its end on the surface. Achebe talks at length, through his experiences, about the big brother attitude that continued to make its omnipresent existence felt to their "junior brother[s]".
Thoughts on the African Novel stipulated the tenancy of the term "African literature". The problem Achebe felt there is, in trying to define African literature, is the early conclusion that the writers in a conference at Uganda were trying to draw when the writers had just started writing about Africa. He explained this difficulty with a proverb: "Do not underrate a day while an hour of light remains." He further discussed about the limitations and challenges that arose subsequently in trying to reach to a firm dogma of a literature that could be called African.
I read Amos Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drinkard earlier this year. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, but I couldn't get much of why Tutuola choose to write about a palm-wine drinkard going in quest for his tapster. In his essay Work and Play in Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drinkard, Achebe, as someone who had taught Tutuola, presented his condensed thoughts. I am still very confused as far as his ideas are concerned, but the general tone of Tutuola's work is at my hindsight now.
Don't Let Him Die: A Tribute to Christopher Okigbo and Kofi Awoonor as a Novelist deal with Achebe's cherished writers of the African land. Language and the Destiny of Man is one of my favourites from this collection. It begins with "few greater successes" of mankind and goes on to talk about several myths and purposes that they serve.
In The Truth of Fiction, Achebe discusses about, first through Picasso's comment on the falsities of art, the truth of fiction. He establishes the power of fiction in comparison to "editorials and other preachments" and "the lessons of history". The notion of sense is attacked upon. This essay, like two other essays in this collection, enlightened me to the whys that were left unanswered while reading The Palm-Wine Drinkard.
I found What Has Literature Got to Do with It? a bit more complex that all the other essays in the collection. This essay talks about the limitations goals often put. Achebe takes example from various countries all over the world to prove his ideas. He further puts importance on the need for both science and humanities and delves very well in the arena of contemporary political and developmental problems.
jain's review
4.0
Excellent collection of essays focusing on (mostly African) literature and art and on colonialism. The first essay alone--"An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness"--is worth the price of admission.
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