Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Achebe, Chinua (Vol. 26) - Charles Miller

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CHARLES MILLER

In reading Arrow of God, it's not … necessary to know that there is such a place as the African continent to recognize at once that you are in the presence of an extraordinarily mature literary artist.

In fact, I don't think it extravagant to say that the book brings to mind Joyce Cary's African novels. It must be added, however, that if Achebe should ever happen to read this he would probably dissent vigorously and take the comparison as affront rather than honor. More than once he has said, in so many words, that Cary got away with murder, that he had no real knowledge of his subject, that his characters (notably Mister Johnson) were merely caricatures, and so forth. But whether or not this is true seems hardly the point. The fact is that the works of the two men have a great deal in common, and I am far from the first to have noted the similarity.

Which, when you get down to it, is all but inevitable. Both Arrow of God...

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1. Introduction
2. The Times Literary Supplement
3. Phoebe-Lou Adams
4. John Coleman
5. Robert C. Healey
6. Time
7. Phoebe-Lou Adams
8. Ronald Christ
9. Charles Miller
10. ROBERT McDOWELL
11. Kate Turkington
12. Adrian A. Roscoe
13. Bruce King
14. John Povey
15. The New Yorker
16. Ifeanyi A. Menkiti
17. The New York Times Book Review
18. Joseph Bruchac
19. Francis M. Sibley
20. G. D. Killam
21. Jonathan Peters
22. Bruce King
23. Copyright

1. Chinua Achebe