Things Fall Apart (Part I)

This story seems to be one from rags to riches. Okonkwo, who started with next to nothing, rose to one of the higher positions in his clans. While almost striving to overcome everything his father represents, he rules his family with an iron fist taking no excuses for laziness. When a adjacent clan commits an offense on their clan, Okonkwo takes in a boy, Ikemefuna, from their clan to later be sacrificed. After 3 years, Ikemefuna has almost become part of their family, but the time has come to sacrifice him. Not wanting to be seen as weak Okonkwo goes to participate. Time goes on and at a funeral for one of the clansmen, Okonkwo's gun goes off and kills a boy. Now him and his family must be exiled from the clan for some time.

This story seems to focus around sadness for me. A man who has worked hard for everything he has and is striving to become the clan leader has it all taken away in an instant due to a freak accident.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Part II)

The village headman was gone for a while so Luo decided to take this opportunity to visit the Little Seamstress each night and read the recently stolen books to her, all while the narrator would stay in their home and read the rest of the books to himself. They had decided not to work in the field whilst the headman was gone. One day the narrator came with Luo to the Seamstress's village. On the way there, he realized the danger Luo was facing daily to see her (a narrow, long, high path). This journey promptly gave the narrator a nightmare the next night. In this, the Little Seamstress fell off the ledge while prancing over it. The headman returned after having a wrong molar removed by a less than qualified dentist. He tried to get Luo to fill the problem tooth for him, but Luo refused. A few days later, the tailor came to the village. He stayed in the narrator and Luo's house upon hearing from his daughter that they could tell stories. For the next few days, the narrator told him the story of The Count of Monte Cristo. When he was nearing the end of the story, the headman took the narrator and threatened to take him to the secrurity office for spreading "reactionary trash". The headman bargained with Luo that if he'd fix his tooth, he wouldn't take the narrator. Luo accepted.

The two boys took this opportunity as a sort of revenge on the headmaster. Knowing that this would be very painful without an electric drill, they made it even more-so by going slowly.

After this, the book goes into a story told from three different perspectives, the old miller's, Luo's and the little seamstress's, to the narrator. The old miler's is told from a Leafy bush overlooking a pool of water where Luo and the seamstress were "swimming". He watched them for a while being sure that they would not notice him.
Luo's deals more with the seamstress's ability to swim and a keyring he would have her dive after from time to time. Then "today" the lost his keyring and something happened when the seamsress went to look for it that made Luo never want to come to that place again. After he had gotten back to his village that day, he learned that his mother had been rushed to the hospital and he needed to be by he side. The village headman gave Luo a month off to go because of the success of his dental treatment.
The seamstress tells of the day that they had lost Luo's keyring. Beforehand, they had eaten lunch and read some of The Count of Monte Cristo and proceeded to act out one of the more tragic scenes. After this, Luo threw his keyring into the water. The first time she tried to retrieve it, she had touched a snake at the bottom of the pool. The final time she almost had the key, but was then bitten by the snake which is the cause for their hesitance to return.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Part I)

This story starts out in a small village on a mountain known as the Phoenix in the Sky. Two teenagers, Luo and the narrator, are sent there for reeducation, basically to work. The village headmaster is examining a violin to figure out what it is, the narrator has to explain to him that it is a musical instrument. The boys' parents are persecuted during the Chinese Cultural Revolution for being doctors. During this "reeducation" they lived in a house on stilts with only two beds and an alarm clock that captivated many of the villagers and especially that of the headman. The boys usually worked by carring waste in buckets, but would occasionally tell stories to the villagers. This led to the headman sending them to see a movie in town and coming back and describing it to them.
This going to the city is what led the boys to meet the little seamstress. She would stay in her home and sew on her machine while her father would travel to the different villages to make clothes. When they talked to her for the first time, it seemed as if Luo was attracted to her. For a couple of months, the boys were sent to work in a coal mine on the mountain. It was dangerous work and eventually, Luo developed Malaria. The day he got it, Luo recieved a letter from the seamstress telling them that she had gotten permission for them to tell the story of one of the movies to her village.
When they arrived at the village, they told the stroy of "The Little Flower Seller". Luo told the better part of the story because he had a gift for storytelling. By the end of their performance, there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Luo was struck down by the Malaria, enough to where they (the seamstress and the narrator) had soceresses come to watch over him.

Clocks Like Horses

From what I gather, this is a story of a man who used to be obsessed with watches. He still enjoys the watches he's inheireted, but not as much as previously. He takes one of the nice ones and carries it around with him one day. While at a restaraunt, his waiter asks him the time. He pulls out the watch, knowing that it didn't work, and before he told the waiter that it wasn't in proper working order, the waiter had taken it into his hands and was examining it. He told him of a man in the Fao region that would be the only one who could fix a watch like this. The man takes the watch there where he finds a man with many many clocks in his house all set to different times. Upon seeing his watch, the man wants to fix it and whilst doing so, he tells stories of his past life as a sailor who traded horses.

The Coffee-Cart Girl

This story starts out with a strike going on in front of the Metropolitan Steel Windows Ltd. In the midst of the crowd of people are several coffee carts and one in particular, is run by the story's protagonist, nicknamed Pinkie eventually. While the crowd of strikers are combating the police force that is trying to suppress them, some of the coffee carts start collapsing because of all of the people. A man, nicknamed China, pulls the girl out of her coffee cart and wheels it away just as another collapses. She thanks him and promises to give him free coffee and pancakes. Eventually, China becomes a regular to Pinkie's cart, but being without a job, barely has the money to pay for his food. Pinkie offers him free pancakes and coffee anytime he doesn't have the money to buy food. CHina graceously accepts, but rarely takes up on the offer. When China gets a job, he takes her to a cheapjack, Naidoo, and lets her pick out anything she wants. After this day, Naidoo also becomes a frequent customer to Pinkie's cart. One day, China notices a new ring in Pinkie's finger. When he asks her about it, she tells him Naidoo gave it to her for payment of three days of coffee and cakes. China doesn't believe this and gets jealous to the point he threatens to kill Pinkie. When he can't bring himself to do it, he apologizes and goes away. Scared to return, China contemplates how he'll talk to Pinkie after this. After three days, he goes back only to find her cart empty. He asks Naidoo about it and apparently the government restricted carts run by blacks. He sat in her empty coffee cart and thought of how or if he'd meet her again.

Papa, Snake & I

This story is told from the perspective of a boy in a family. After a meal, this boy went outside where he overheard his mother and father talking of a snake in their chicken run who had been killing their birds. His father said he would get someone to kill it the next day and they both went on their ways (the father to work, the mother to her sister's home). While they were gone, the boy started looking for the snake with his "brother". When he finds it, he just leaves it there. Eventually, two dogs (one theirs, another owned by a man named Senhor Castro) start to bark and paw at the snake. The snake bites the dog owned by Senhor Castro and the dog runs back to it's own home. At this point, the boy gets one of his brothers to throw a cloth over the snake while he beats it with a broomstick. After a short while, the father and mother come back and the boy shows the father the snake. Then, Senhor Castro comes over demanding that the father compensate him for his dead dog. The father agrees after a short discussion. Then the father and son talk about things and eventually the son goes to sleep.

The Betrayal

This story is told around a well respected doctor/polititian and his dealings with a rival political group that is being newly formed. Doctor Kamal was the president of a political group known as the Oriental Front. When a new group starts to form, he sees them as a threat to thye Oriental Front and hints to one of his subbordinates about taking them down. Salim Rashid, the one Dr. Kamal hints towards, gets together the Youth League to annihilate this new group. Dr. Kamal only says a few words of encouragement to the group before-hand. The next day, they are all present at the first meeting of the new group. During the discussion, members of the Orient Front interject with ideas of their own trying to disrupt the preceedings. Eventually, this all leads to the Youth Group rushing to the front an supposedly, start to beat the members of the new group. Dr. Kamal escapes, as to not be associated with this violence, and the police are called. Dr. Kamal gets curious and re-enters the room where everything is going on only to be "horrified at the new dimension added to the battle" which I can only assume is gunfire from the police.

A Conversation From the Third Floor

This is a story of a woman visiting her husband in prison for the last time before he is transferred. She has to shout at him from the out side of the building to the third story cell he's being held in. Basically he asks general questions about if she's taking care of the household and how his kids are doing.

A Handful of Dates

In this, a man, or boy, recalls a story from his past. The majority of it deals with him, his grandfather and a man named Masood. The grandfather calls Masood an indolent man because Masoood had inherited a grove of date palms. Each time Masood would marry, he would sell a little more of his palms to the grandfather. The grandfather saw this eventually leading to Masood selling all of them to him. When the time to harvest them came, Masood had gotten none of the dates while the grandfather got 5 sacks and was still owed more from Masood. This led to the grandson secretly despising his grandfather.

An Incident in the Ghobashi Household

In this story, a mother and a daughter are having a conversation in the morning before going off to market to sell grain. The father had gone away to a job and left the household in the hands of the mother. While the daughter is getting ready, the mother thinks of how sneaky she has been. The daughter has been pregnant with an illegitimate child for months, but has been hanging out a towel to dry as if she has been having her period still. The daughter kept it hidden because she didn't want to shame her father. In the end, as the daughter is about to go to the market, the mother stops her and gives her her life savings with which to take a flight away and find a husband (I think)

Minutes of Glory

This is the story of a barmaiden named Beatrice. She compares herself to a bird that wants to soar, but can't. In this, she means that she's looking for the love and affection her "coworkers" seem to get from gentlemen callers at the bars. Seeing as she can't find this, she keeps trveling to more and more bars in the hopes of finding it. One other barmaiden in particular, Nyagũthiĩ, Beatrice seems to hold a certain grudge over more than the others. She had this because of the demeanor Nyagũthiĩ had (being able to look bored and impatient) and still men would flock to her.
Beatrice, bored with her current bar, moved to a town named Ilmorog. Ilmorog was seen as a town of hope for the weary and down-trodden, but when she arrived there, it was not much different from the last place she was. By the time she got there, a substance called Ambi (something to lighten skin pigment) had arrived in Ilmorog. She tried using this to make her dreams come true, but this was not the case. After this phase, she recognizes it as one of her most humiliating periods.
After a while, a new bar opened in Ilmorog and Beatrice saw this as an opportunity. The patrons which came to this bar were, what they call, big shots(i.e. nice cars and big pockets). In any case, Beatrice took a job there as a sweeper and a bedmaker. Eventually, to her dismay, the other girls soon folowed and with them, Nyagũthiĩ.
One Saturday, a man came in which drove a fairly large truck. He would try to join in conversations with the other patrons, but would be ultimately ignored. Then, he would "hire" a room and girl for the night. He would do this every Saturday. Eventually, he started to confide in Beatrice, seeing as the others would have nothing to do with him. This led to him hiring Beatrice for the nights.
One of these nights, she robbed the man. Using this money, she left for Nairobi to buy herself a new dress, stockings and heels. It was then men started to treat her differently, buying her drinks, wanting to dance with her ect. She went back to Ilmorog and flaunted herself in the bar were she was working. The same reaction came from these men, until the man she had robbed came in with police to arrest her for stealing. Everyone in the bar then began to talk about what had happened and Nyagũthiĩ began to cry.

The Green Leaves

This story starts out with a man(Nyagar) in his hut noticing a commotion outside. He grabbed his spear and waited while three men ran by followed by a much larger mob. He proceeded to follow the mob and learned that the three men were cattle thieves. They caught up to the thieves and proceeded to beat them. Two of them escaped and the mob left the last one unconscious on the ground to die. They covered his body with green leaves and went back to their huts to bury him in the morning. Nyagar, after returning to his hut, decides too go back to the body to loot it. When he finds the man's money pouch, he tries to take it off his neck and right as he does this, the man wakes up and stabs Nyagar in the eye. He then covers up Nyagar's body in leaves and runs away. The next morning, thirty men in the village go to the police to tell them what happened. The police come to the village and try to get a single person to admit to killing the thief. When no one steps forward, the police uncover the body only to find Nyagar's body instead. Nyagar's wife and relatives begin to cry and the village mourned his death.

The Gentlemen of the Jungle

This story is of a man who lives in the jungle. During a rainstorm one day, his friend the elephant came to occupy his hut. An argument ensued until the lion came to ask what the commotion was about. When he heard, he commissioned a council to sort out the matter. They found in favor of the elephant and the man constructed a new hut for himself. This new hut was then occupied by a rhino and the same process continued until all the members of the council had huts. Knowing this was just going to continue, the man built a larger hut in the distance. Upon seeing this, all of the animals rushed over there and argued amongst themselves over who would get this hut and the man was happy.

Civil Peace

This is about a man who after a war, considered himself very lucky to come out of it with himself, his wife and three of his four children. He was a poor man, but started to make money by using his bike as a taxi for more wealthy people. He then used this money to start a bar for military officials and people with money. Then, he had turned in "rebel money" and was rewarded with 20 pounds. Everything was going good until one night thieves came to his house demanding 100 pounds. After explaining that all he had was twenty pounds, he handed that over an the thieves left. The next morning, his neighbors came to sympathize with him only to find him and his family hard at work. He said that to him this was nothing because he didn't live off rewards before and he didn't need to now.

The Will of Allah

This is a story of two thieves, one highly religious (Sule) and one who almost seems to be against religion (Dogo), working together. It appears to be an odd combination, but they are only working together because it is convenient. Their backgrounds are explained, how neither of them fear any man, aside from Allah on Sule's side, and how they both distrust each other. They end up breaking into an old shack which contains a large gourd, used as a bank of sorts. Dogo takes the gourd down by a stream and thrusts his hand into it, all while Sule is still exiting the shack, only to feel a sharp pain in his wrist. When asked by Sule if he'd opened it yet, Dogo replies no. Sule then puts his hand in the gourd only to also have a sharp pain in his wrist. When the peer inside of it, they both realize they've been bitten by a cobra and proceed to die there by the stream.

The Apprentice

This story was about a young boy of royal decent who did not want to take the throne. As far as I can tell, this was because he did not want to deal with the problems that would come with it. So, instead of going to school, he decided to become an apprentice for a blacksmith. Eventually his master came to love him like his own son. After a while though, the young boy's work started to resemble that of te master's rival. This upset the master to the point of making the boy leave. To be able to be a smith, the boy needed to complete his apprenticeship, so he asked his old master's rival (turns out, he's the old master's twin brother) to teach him. He gladly accepted. After a year though, he was upset with the boy for using his brother's teachings and eventually kicked the boy out. So, the boy didn't want to take the throne because of the problems it would create only to become engulfed in the problem's of others anyways.

Certain Winds from the South

This is a story about a woman (told completely from he perspective) telling a story about a past experience to her daughter to ease the daughter's sadness caused by the thought of her husband going away for a job to provide for his new-born. It's basically a mother caring for her own child while also helping her to take care of her child.

The False Prophet

This story is about a lazy man named Mahmoud who uses deception to gain respect and money. After becoming bored of being lazy he travels to another land and changes his name to Aidra, which gains respect for himself among the local people. He then collects money for performing prayers and other things and travels from "compound to compound" in order to get free meals (the custom being to feed strangers). Eventually, he finds himself in the middle of the desert next to a sole flourishing tree. He decides to stop and rest under it. Before laying down to sleep he gets a feeling that someone is around him. He checks the tree and his surroundings several times before burying his treasure underneath him while he sleeps. He wakes up, after a dream of being ransacked and shaved, and began to pray. While doing so, he realizes his dream was a reality and his head and face had been shaved clean. He digs for his treasure only to find his hair. After a conversation with voices in his head he runs off into the desert as a crazed man. The only real meaning or moral to this story I could find was, what comes around goes around, meaning, he spent all his time fooling others for his own gain only to have it taken away while he slept.