Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe

Arrow of God is the final part of Chinua Achebe's Africa trilogy, which began with Things Fall Apart and continued with No Longer at Ease. In this book, we return to the Igbo village setting of the first book, though this time our protagonist is a priest rather than a warrior.

Ezeulu, priest of Ulu the God of six villages, is a wise but proud man. He has a large and prosperous family, and has even sent one of his sons to the local Christian church to be his "eyes and ears" and keep him abreast of developments in the white man's religion. He is respected among his own people, but also held in high regard by the white district overseer. However, even the wisest of men is not immune to bad decisions, particularly when he allows his pride to cloud his judgement, and Ezeulu's pride may become his undoing.

Arrow of God is not a particularly easy book to read. There is a large cast of characters with confusing names that sound alike and it isn't always clear who's who. There are unfamiliar concepts and terms to get to grips with, and a culture which the average Westerner can't easily understand. However, I stuck with it an ultimately found the book very rewarding.

It helps if you've first read Things Fall Apart, as you will already have a basic grasp of some of the ideas, although the two books are not very closely linked and you certainly don't need to have followed the trilogy. Arrow of God is a little longer than Things Fall Apart and goes into a lot more detail about the spiritual life of the villagers, something which I found absolutely fascinating.

There isn't really much of a plot, not that that's a hindrance to enjoying the novel. It meanders along, relating events in Ezeulu's life and the lives of his family and community, and it felt a little like the bookish equivalent of watching a fly-on-the-wall documentary. I almost forgot that I was reading a novel until I found myself 20 pages from the end and wondered how on earth Achebe was going to wrap it all up. He does so quite abruptly, but there are no loose ends and I thought there were some interesting parallels drawn to Things Fall Apart.

Arrow of God is one of those books that rewards the slow and thoughful reader, and I loved the insights it gives into a culture and way of life that is so strange and different from our own. Four stars.