continuing to teach my way through you know a slightly-modified western civ canon. i am reminded how truly excellent dubois's souls of black folk is. i sort of lost track because there is a lot lot of unreadable dreck after that; the sociology and early essays are the strongest. later he goes ever-more into sort-of hegelian oracular poesy. ohmygod i am going to be teaching things fall apart. one thing i want to say is that novels are fictional. they're not true! another thing is that even though this is written by a native, as it were, it's surely a little ooga-booga pre-postcolonial; well i think about myself as an audience and i don't feel all that different from kipling. i am remembering why i hated it in 1976. this sucker has been sitting in the canon for many decades, so it's time to stop pretending it's a gesture of inclusion. its reputation is an affirmative action-type gesture.