"I told him that he should have spoken up against what we were planning, instead of which he put a piece of live coal into the child's palm and asked him to carry it with care."
----------------------------
I didn't realize that this was a trilogy until this year, so it was my first time reading this book.

Almost immediately the reader is shown the dissonance and malcontent that has crept into clan society as the early result of colonization through Ezeulu's family. The discord and division that deepens amongst this unit is happening in tandem with identical changes to the whole society. It's a sort of series of bad decisions leading Ezeulu's people further and further away from each other and toward the colonizers/whites and their religion. It is Ezeulu's pride and lack of understanding of the fundamental changes that have already taken root that leads his people to ultimately abandon tradition and seek permission to harvest from the Christian church. Throughout, the struggles amongst Ezeulu's people ultimately weakened/primed them for further cultural degradation.

It was truly amazing how Achebe shifted his literary tone - more simple and direct prose for Nigerian POV vs the more flowery and arch prose for the British POV. I think Achebe did a really interesting thing where he showed us the internal dialogue of characters, then immediately juxtaposed it with another character's perception of them being completely inaccurate and misdirected.