Given the way this book ends, I think I was correct in my assessment, formed as I read it, that the purpose of this book was not to valorise the tribal life it describes, nor to traduce it, but to humanise it. Okonkwo, our protagonist is a man of great achievement whose tragic flaw is a terrible fear of weakness which leads him to repress all feeling as womanly and act only in bullying outbursts to prove his manliness and toughen up his son. His life is full of ritual and socialisation, the reality of spirits and importance of family. There is also misogyny and the brutal treatment of newborn twins and people sick with unclean illnesses - this is a functioning, vibrant, rich society but not a perfect and lovely one. In fact the rural life and the folk tales, beliefs and rituals and defining rhythm of the natural cycle reminded me strongly of life as described in Joe McGowan's Echoes Of A Savage Land. Great and terrible change is coming in the form of white missionaries, with Okonkwo impotent to stop them, no matter how he rages.

A brilliant book, an evocation of a way of life and a worldly outlook supreme in its confidence but utterly vulnerable to the relentless outside forces encroaching. The great final theme is of people who refuse to understand each other's ways, and of people who refuse to allow other people to think their own way. A sad and terrible book that ends with the promise of unspoken and indescribable brutality to come.