classics

This is truly one of the best books I have ever read. It's long, yes, but it's worth it. Really. I stayed up through the wee hours of the morning to finish it, I was that enraptured. It also takes some thought and reflection to tap into the deeper elements and themes of the book, but to me that's always what makes a piece of literature great.

The story begins in 1959 when southern Baptist preacher Nathan Price, filled with missionary zeal, drags his family off to the Belgian-controlled Congo. The book is narrated in turns by Nathan's wife and four daughters.

Orleanna is a passive, quiet woman who lives her life by doing as her husband demands. Her own youngest daughter describes her as wearing "the flag of 'We Give Up!'" (page 23). She does not find her own strength until Nathan has already all but destroyed their family.

Rachel Price, the eldest daughter, is quite possibly the most exasperating character I've yet to come across. She represents the majority of American thought at the time, viewing the Congolese as completely ignorant savages that can't even be equated with humanity. In reality SHE is the one who is hopelessly ignorant, repeatedly messing up words and phrases - i.e. "Give up the goat" rather than "Give up the ghost," "More Scold" rather than "Morse Code," and "Episcopotamians" rather than "Episcopalians." Rachel's mind, what little of it there is, is consumed entirely by two thoughts: her hair, and how much she wants to go back home. She is entirely predictible and almost pitiable by the end of the book. As her sister Leah says, she has "the emotional complexities of a salt shaker" (page 474).

Adah and Leah are twins, the middle children of the family. In the beginning of the book, they couldn't be more different. Leah is a daddy's girl that tries her best to walk in her father's footsteps. Of course she is never good enough. Adah has a birth defect that causes her to drag one side of her body. She is bitter and reclusive, but highly intelligent and has a tendency to write and even speak backwards. Both girls change dramatically as the story progresses. Leah turns into the most amazing and spiritually beautiful woman I have ever come across in a work of fiction. Marrying one of the Congolese, she gives herself over to a life of poverty for the sake of her humanitarian aims. Adah returns to the United States where she finds a therapist that ultimately brings her to overcome her disability. She attends college and goes on to enter the field of disease research, specializing in African maladies. Both women set out to heal the scarred Congo, but they go about it in very different ways.

Ruth May is the youngest child, and represents the innocence that cannot survive in the vicious political world of the 1960s Congo. In the beginning I found her terribly irritating, with her blind faith in authority, but as her narrative progresses I found myself feeling more and more sorry for her and enraged at the world that refused to let her blossom.

Nathan Price himself is, to put it plainly, an egocentric, misogynistic prig. His opinion on education for women is that "Sending a girl to college is like pouring water in your shoes. . . . It's hard to say which is worse, seeing it run out and waste the water, or seeing it hold in and wreck the shoes" (page 56). By the time he and his family get to the Congo, the rest of the missionary movement and the Belgian-controlled government have pretty much already done all the damage, so he just bumbles around like the baffoon he is, but not without tearing his own family apart. He also represents the more widespread damaging influence of the occupying Europeans as a whole, and what they have done to the Congolese people. Nathan's almost comical ignorance is brought to the forefront in the sequence that gives the book it's title. In the Kikongo language, "bangala" means "precious." But inflections of the voice cary great weight in the language, and the same word also refers to the poisonwood tree, a plant that will leave anyone who comes into contact with its sap with a very nasty rash. During one of his sermons, Nathan proclaims, "Jesus is bangala!" Without knowing it, he has just told all the locals that Jesus will make them very miserable indeed. He's not so off the mark.

The Poisonwood Bible recounts the trials and tribulations of the Price family throughout their time in the Congo, and follows the thirty-year healing process they must go through after their lives are torn assunder by their arrogant father's actions. It is a beautiful narrative of destruction, survival, recovery, and hope. I generally never make marks in the books I read, but my copy of this novel is very liberally highlighted; it holds an astounding wealth of meaningful quotations.

Barbara Kingsolver's writing is magnificent. Her ability to create five very different voices and alternate between them throughout the work is superb. She manages to wring emotion from the reader with her imagery. There were times I laughed, cried, or felt like hurling the book across the room in disgust at something a character had said or done. I read this for a women's studies course at my local community college, but it is such a significant work in so many areas that it could easily be worked into many curricula. It brings up issues of gender, race, religion, politics, culture, and love. If I could give The Poisonwood Bible more than five stars, I would. I'll definitely be re-reading it for many years to come!

Having lived in South Africa for 21 years and in Georgia, USA for 29 years Barbara Kingsolver's book "The Poisonwood Bible" hit a nerve. Barbara descriptions of life in Kilanga, Congo 40 years ago is astounding and brought back fond memories of my travels in villages in Mozambique, Zululand and the Transkei. The serene-looking faces, quick laughter and bare chested elegance of the village people fascinated me more than the tensed-faced, harried, self-conscious city folk I knew. Barbara's exquisite writing made me feel, see and sense Africa all over again. Each of the Price family members represented parts of me and helped me to understand myself better. Nathan's religious fanaticism, Orleanna's loyalty, Ruth Mae's innocence, Rachael's self-centeredness and the thoughtful keen-eyed observations of Adah and Leah, the twins. They were the true seekers of wisdom and truth. Barbara's comment about the USA and Western Europe's involvement in the bloodshed and devastation of Africa is shocking. The possible link between the CIA and Patrice Lumumba's death; the United States support of Joseph Mobutu's dictatorship and abuse of funds; Mobutu spending $20 million to bring two American boxers to Zaire so quote "all the world will respect the name Zaire" when his people were dying of starvation and disease; the Export-Import Bank loaning the Congo more than a billion dollars for a bogus power line so they can be assured a permanent debt and be repaid in cobalt and diamonds. I had not idea and feel outraged. Through the characters of the Fowles, Anatole, Leah, Adah and Orleanna, the author shows how the people who get off the treadmill of further, faster and more to return to nature and simplicity seem not only to survive but thrive.

Maybe it's because I'm a Senior in high school who was forced to read this over the summer, but I really despise this book. I give it 2 stars because it is obviously well-written, but it is just one big incessant ramble. I thought it would never end; thank God I was wrong. The book is a composition of "journal entries," although the characters never really wrote in journals. One of the characters is a little girl who writes her chapters at the college level. The main flaw with this book is that the characters are completely unlikeable. One daughter is a vain superficial jerk (and I liked her the best out of all of them, which is not saying much), the other is a pretentious snob, the other is mentally handicapped and annoyingly writes a lot of things backwards, and the 4th daughter is a little girl who seems to have terrible luck. The mother is submissive to the father and shrouds herself in self-pity, and the father is a preacher who does nothing BUT preach.

I understand why women would like this book (...), but if you are a red-blooded male who enjoys car chases, explosions, and the occassional romantic comedy (who didn't love You've Got Mail!), do not subject yourself to the torture of reading this book.