Friday, August 31, 2012

THE POISONWOOD BIBLE by Barbara Kingsolver ✰✰✰✰✰ and a ♥


When Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna was released in 2009, it was hailed as her masterpiece.  I reviewed it, even raved about it-great characters, sense of place and history-Kingsolver’s ability to pull her reader into her story was unparalleled.  But now that I have gone back and read her 1998 release, The Poisonwood Bible, I have come to realize that there was so much more inside Kingsolver than I saw in The Lacuna, because this is the story of her heart, the novel that her life experience prepared her to write.

This is a story of a family that goes to Africa to bring their faith to the heart of darkness-what they learn, about Africa, God, each other, and themselves.  It is an intimate portrait of what happens to a country in the birth throes of independence, with its wars and factions, all the ugliness and pain that comes before autonomy.  It is a searing indictment of the world’s superpowers and the role they play in aggravating unrest, whether their motive is diamonds or stopping the spread of the communist menace.  

The Congo of the late 1950s was a raw place, inhospitable to its indigenous inhabitants and downright hostile to those who trespassed.  Into this environment comes proud, inflexible evangelical Baptist missionary Nathan Price, dragging his wife and four young daughters along.  Characters are pivotal to the novel, and multiple narrators are used, a technique I usuallydo not like, but which Kingsolver carries off masterfully.  Each of the four daughters narrates, and their voices are so distinct that I never needed to refer back to chapter headings to see who was talking.   Their narration is intimate and driven; it did all those things great writing is supposed to do-I cried at deaths (really, really sobbed), was speechless, angry, anxious, exasperated. 

Because of the way that Kingsolver chooses to narrate the novel, it opens up for the reader various perspectives.  One daughter is very closed minded, rather typical of the time, reflecting the colonial and American mindset still prevalent in a nation striving to break free not only from foreign, but also from local, oppression and dictators.  Another daughter embraces all that Africa has to teach and wants the experience and wants to give back what she has to share to the people around her as well.  Her twin sister is willing to watch from the side, for once in her life not looked upon as a freak, but with quiet acceptance by the community, and goes about trying to stay out of the line of fire within her family.  Through the eyes and ears of the youngest daughter we play the games of children and gain simple insights.

My connection with the characters was especially personal, as I closely identified with the youngest daughter, who is five when the family moves to the Congo; I was four when my own family moved to the Orient.  In addition, I share many personality traits and similar experiences with the daughter Leah, so I felt very connected with her character throughout the story.   However, I do not think that this was the only reason that I rated the novel so highly.  I believe that every novelist has one book in them that their whole life history prepares them for, and I think that for Barbara Kingsolver, this was that book.  When I read The Lacuna I was impressed by her talents as a writer; it was a great story, and she had all the technical things down pat.  This book was very different.  It pulsated with life-with the verdant jungle foliage of Africa and its wildlife and the diversity of her people, not to mention the vast variety of foreigners attracted to her mystery.  Postcolonial stories are never easy tellings, with all their various factions and coups, the so sadly inevitable assassinations of brave political leaders, and the slippery slope balancing of greed and economic prosperity.  Kingsolver managed her tale splendidly through the unlikely narration of four young girls, perhaps because that is how she herself viewed it, growing up as the daughter of medical workers in Africa.  This was the book that I believe her childhood planted in her soul, and it came out as an incredible tour de force.  An absolute five star favorite-this one comes with my highest recommendation.





3 comments:

  1. Great review, Care! I also found this one to be an excellent read when I read it years ago. I've always meant to try another of Kingslover's books, but am sad to admit I still haven't done so.

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  2. This book is one of my top five lifetime reads. I love it for all the reasons you brought out - except my family didn't move anywhere. ;-)

    Wonderful review of a wonderful book!

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  3. Thanks, ladies! I think this is going to make my lifetime list as well-it will certainly be among those I recommend most frequently!

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