Finalizing "Things Fall Apart"

After finishing all of "Things Fall Apart" I have fortunately found that I hate it much less than I had upon reading it in high school .  When I read it first in high school, I was not willing to believe that the people of Umofia were actually civilized people.  My teacher had insisted that they are not barbaric and that they are full of culture and even have organized government, but I just was not feeling it.  I hated everything about Okonkwo, he killed his son and drank wine from a human skull.  Nothing about his character was appealing to me and I could in no way relate to the story.  As I said previously, I was dreading reading this story for a second time.  This time, after having more education in literature and just general education, I discovered that this story was much more tolerable.  I would not go as far as to say I loved or even liked the novel, but I definitely understood it more and better recognized the point.  Unlike my experience in high school, I realized that the villagers in this novel were in fact civilized and had complex structures of developed peoples. The traditions and customs were proof enough of that the people were not barbaric and with the trial processes and the systems of government, these were actually a very developed people.  I think I had such a problem caring about it in high school because Achebe was very realistic about it, which I now recognize as the most powerful aspect of the piece.  Achebe took an approach that was very believable and there were no fantastic or extraordinary elements.  He did not paint the villagers as saints, he showed them as they truly would have existed. That on its own makes the novel more effective in portraying the commodification of the Western missionaries over the villagers of Nigeria.