A Reconsideration of Achebe's No Longer at Ease

T HAVE FOUND that most people do not care much about Achebe's second novel, No Longer At Ease,' mainly because they regard it as somehow less objective than other works by the writer on the recurrent theme of colonialism in Nigeria. Perhaps the truth must be stated here that very few of Achebe's readers understand and enjoy the mode of his writing as a satire. The aim of this essay is to offer a new perspective on No Longer At Ease, and as I go along to unfold his sub-themes: the clash of two civilizations, the antipathy between youth and old age, human fallibility, social and moral decadence. The present exposition reveals how, in contrast with his earlier novel Things Fall Apart, Achebe is writing topical satire for educated Africans.2 Achebe knows that some of his readers will at least discover for themselves how his novel responds in a vigorous way to the knotty problems centered on acculturation in the Nigerian society. Even if epic tragedy has become his specialty, one finds him using satiric wit in various contexts throughout No Longer At Ease. Therefore this least admired of his novels tends to fulfill the readers' need for change, however modest and surprising, within a frame of the heroic vision of life espoused by Nigeria's most celebrated storyteller and moralist. All mature readers who prefer epic tragedy in Things Fall Apart to satiric humor in No Longer At Ease are often compelled to do something like this on aesthetic rather than moral grounds.3 On one side of the debate, for instance, it appears that Achebe is happier with the former and, while still emulating his audience at home, associates ridicule in prose fiction with lack of seriousness and good taste. Without necessarily exaggerating the point, Achebe shows no enthusiasm for journalistic prose and low comedy as anything artistically viable.4 His prejudice does not cease to come out if one looks closely at No Longer At Ease, or even his later novel, A Man of the People. In regard to the present book under examination, Eustace Palmer has remarked

Literary Theory and Cultural Hermeneutics · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies

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