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4.15 AVERAGE
4.15 AVERAGE
I thought I was just going to be entertained, but this book changed me in ways I cannot explain. I miss Africa, and I underestimated her. I would love to go back again and start over.
adventurous
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
‘This is a great book.’ The lady at the till smiled at me. I was hoping that it was, and I had an idea it might be. I loved the Lacuna, and this, it’s more famous older sister, was going to try and take it’s place. As I try to articulate just how much I loved it, there are a few potential spoilers in this, just so you know.
Nathan Price moves his wife and four young daughters to the Congo to preach the word of God to the indifferent locals. That’s the premise of The Poisonwood Bible, but really it’s a beautiful, powerful, poignant, piercing recollection of what it means to be a girl, a sister, a mum, a wife and a woman. I am not sure I can do justice to this in a review.
Right from the start, the language strikes a tone, as Orleanna Price, the mother, and the girls, Rachel, Leah, Adah and Ruth May recollect their time in the Congo. Ruth May, the youngest, the sponge still filled the most with the teachings of the patriach, sees things simply and in context of the biblical stories she has had drummed into her. Rachel, the oldest and most precocious, ripped out of her promising world of boys and forbidden delights and plonked down in the middle of another continent can only compare what she experiences to what she feels she should be experiencing. But it was Leah, and particularly Adah that captured my heart more than the others.
Leah is the fiercest in the love of their father and loyally trudges around after him after they arrive in the village, and Barbara Kingsolver slowly and deftly shows her harden against the man she has revered all her young life. Adah, the quiet, physically impaired second twin, is one of the most incredible characters I have ever read. Her very existence giving her a cynical outlook on life, she often sees more truthfully than the others, with the exception of Orleanna, even as her young mind sometimes struggles to understand the full meaning of it.
I am prone to let the doctors’ prophecy rest and keep my thoughts to myself. Silence has many advantages. When you do not speak, other people presume you to be deaf or feeble-minded and promptly make a show of their own limitations. Only occasionally do I find I have to break my peace: shout or be lost in the shuffle. But mostly am lost in the shuffle. I write and draw in my notebook and read anything I please.
It is true I do not speak as well as I can think. But that is true of most people, as nearly as I can tell.
Plunged into an unforgiving environment with no experience or even comprehension of what they were in for, just dragged along in the wake of their fanatical father and husband, who’s iron will and determination of The Way does not blunt as it repeatedly hits the wall of African practicality and indifference, the five women each have their own experience that is different as their personalities but the same as a family that tacitly sticks together, even when the barrage is from within.
As they slowly try to understand the rhythm and customs of local life deep in the heart of the Congo, in a much more emphatic way than the preacher father does, his irrelevance increases as the story rumbles along, to the point where he is an island in his own family, cut adrift and it seems after he is separated from them, he still is so dogmatic that the loss of his family only affects him as far as he has to cook and live for himself.
I say it seems, as he drifts out of the main narrative, he still casts a shadow across his wife’s and daughters lives. It seems Leah, his steadfast shadow in her earlier years actually adapts and embraces Africa in a way that her father could have not even dreamed of doing, and even then she readily acknowledges that she is never fully accepted, in the end neither in Africa or in the US.
Adah makes a comment at one point that if there was a school reunion, Rachel, the eldest sister, would be voted the one that has changed the least. I couldn’t fathom my feelings towards Rachel, she was vulnerable due to the timing of the move to Africa, and could be something of a victim, but she still takes on the challenge of the new place and continually reaches upward and pulls herself forwards and upwards to an unlikely point at the end of the story.
As I mentioned before, Adah was the one I loved reading the most, when marking out bits to use in this post, almost all of them came from her chapters. She has a ironic and razor sharp way of looking at the world and the chasm that opens up between her and her mother and her subsequent path to reconciliation in her own heart and head was poignantly and elegantly written by Kingsolver.
Orleanna Price recollects the events from an entirely different perspective, the homemaker of the family without a home that she has any sense of, the mother trying to raise her daughters with a father that is completely absent or extremely authoritative. Orleanna emerges as a survivor, and is forced to pulling on a strength that she possibly did not know she had to pull the family out of the dangers it was in, but who then second guesses her every move later on in life, but who I’m not sure realises completely the strength of the daughters she raised and the impact she had on them.
Of course, the other character casting a spell over the whole story is that of the Congo itself, and it is fascinating to read it seen through the eyes of young girls who have no comprehension, but no expectations or biases clouding their vision. It is they who try eagerly to try and fit in to their new world.
She and her little girls all wear their hair in short spikes bursting out all over their heads, giving an effect similar to a pin cushion. (Rachel calls it the haywire hairdo.’) And Mama Boanda always wraps her pagne just so, with a huge pink starbust radiating across her wide rump. The women’s long cloth skirts are printed so gaily with the oddest things: there is no telling when a raft of yellow umbrellas, or the calico cat and gingham dog, or an upside-down image of the Catholic Pope might just go sauntering across our yard.
So yes, The Poisonwood Bible is a great book, and I loved it. It enveloped me in the sticky heat of the Congo and I still feel traces of it’s clutch even now. Did it replace the Lacuna? I don’t think it did, and that is just my subject preference. I think this is probably the longest review I’ve written, but then I can’t see there being many books more deserving of it than this.
The wonder to me now is that I thought myself worth saving. But I did. I did, oho, did I! I reached out and clung for life with my good left hand like a claw, grasping at moving legs to raise myself from the dirt. Desperate to save myself in a river of people saving themselves. And if they chanced to look down and see me struggling underneath them, they saw that even the crooked girl believed her own life was precious. That is what it means to be a beast in the kingdom.
(blog review here)
Nathan Price moves his wife and four young daughters to the Congo to preach the word of God to the indifferent locals. That’s the premise of The Poisonwood Bible, but really it’s a beautiful, powerful, poignant, piercing recollection of what it means to be a girl, a sister, a mum, a wife and a woman. I am not sure I can do justice to this in a review.
Right from the start, the language strikes a tone, as Orleanna Price, the mother, and the girls, Rachel, Leah, Adah and Ruth May recollect their time in the Congo. Ruth May, the youngest, the sponge still filled the most with the teachings of the patriach, sees things simply and in context of the biblical stories she has had drummed into her. Rachel, the oldest and most precocious, ripped out of her promising world of boys and forbidden delights and plonked down in the middle of another continent can only compare what she experiences to what she feels she should be experiencing. But it was Leah, and particularly Adah that captured my heart more than the others.
Leah is the fiercest in the love of their father and loyally trudges around after him after they arrive in the village, and Barbara Kingsolver slowly and deftly shows her harden against the man she has revered all her young life. Adah, the quiet, physically impaired second twin, is one of the most incredible characters I have ever read. Her very existence giving her a cynical outlook on life, she often sees more truthfully than the others, with the exception of Orleanna, even as her young mind sometimes struggles to understand the full meaning of it.
I am prone to let the doctors’ prophecy rest and keep my thoughts to myself. Silence has many advantages. When you do not speak, other people presume you to be deaf or feeble-minded and promptly make a show of their own limitations. Only occasionally do I find I have to break my peace: shout or be lost in the shuffle. But mostly am lost in the shuffle. I write and draw in my notebook and read anything I please.
It is true I do not speak as well as I can think. But that is true of most people, as nearly as I can tell.
Plunged into an unforgiving environment with no experience or even comprehension of what they were in for, just dragged along in the wake of their fanatical father and husband, who’s iron will and determination of The Way does not blunt as it repeatedly hits the wall of African practicality and indifference, the five women each have their own experience that is different as their personalities but the same as a family that tacitly sticks together, even when the barrage is from within.
As they slowly try to understand the rhythm and customs of local life deep in the heart of the Congo, in a much more emphatic way than the preacher father does, his irrelevance increases as the story rumbles along, to the point where he is an island in his own family, cut adrift and it seems after he is separated from them, he still is so dogmatic that the loss of his family only affects him as far as he has to cook and live for himself.
I say it seems, as he drifts out of the main narrative, he still casts a shadow across his wife’s and daughters lives. It seems Leah, his steadfast shadow in her earlier years actually adapts and embraces Africa in a way that her father could have not even dreamed of doing, and even then she readily acknowledges that she is never fully accepted, in the end neither in Africa or in the US.
Adah makes a comment at one point that if there was a school reunion, Rachel, the eldest sister, would be voted the one that has changed the least. I couldn’t fathom my feelings towards Rachel, she was vulnerable due to the timing of the move to Africa, and could be something of a victim, but she still takes on the challenge of the new place and continually reaches upward and pulls herself forwards and upwards to an unlikely point at the end of the story.
As I mentioned before, Adah was the one I loved reading the most, when marking out bits to use in this post, almost all of them came from her chapters. She has a ironic and razor sharp way of looking at the world and the chasm that opens up between her and her mother and her subsequent path to reconciliation in her own heart and head was poignantly and elegantly written by Kingsolver.
Orleanna Price recollects the events from an entirely different perspective, the homemaker of the family without a home that she has any sense of, the mother trying to raise her daughters with a father that is completely absent or extremely authoritative. Orleanna emerges as a survivor, and is forced to pulling on a strength that she possibly did not know she had to pull the family out of the dangers it was in, but who then second guesses her every move later on in life, but who I’m not sure realises completely the strength of the daughters she raised and the impact she had on them.
Of course, the other character casting a spell over the whole story is that of the Congo itself, and it is fascinating to read it seen through the eyes of young girls who have no comprehension, but no expectations or biases clouding their vision. It is they who try eagerly to try and fit in to their new world.
She and her little girls all wear their hair in short spikes bursting out all over their heads, giving an effect similar to a pin cushion. (Rachel calls it the haywire hairdo.’) And Mama Boanda always wraps her pagne just so, with a huge pink starbust radiating across her wide rump. The women’s long cloth skirts are printed so gaily with the oddest things: there is no telling when a raft of yellow umbrellas, or the calico cat and gingham dog, or an upside-down image of the Catholic Pope might just go sauntering across our yard.
So yes, The Poisonwood Bible is a great book, and I loved it. It enveloped me in the sticky heat of the Congo and I still feel traces of it’s clutch even now. Did it replace the Lacuna? I don’t think it did, and that is just my subject preference. I think this is probably the longest review I’ve written, but then I can’t see there being many books more deserving of it than this.
The wonder to me now is that I thought myself worth saving. But I did. I did, oho, did I! I reached out and clung for life with my good left hand like a claw, grasping at moving legs to raise myself from the dirt. Desperate to save myself in a river of people saving themselves. And if they chanced to look down and see me struggling underneath them, they saw that even the crooked girl believed her own life was precious. That is what it means to be a beast in the kingdom.
(blog review here)
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
4 to 4.5 Stars. I really enjoy the writing of Kingsolver. I had read one bad comment and thought, well, maybe not this one, but learning that it was beloved by a friend, thought I should read/listen to it, and I am very glad I did. It is very easy to picture the Africa Kingsolver describes, and her family that lived there. Kingsolver describes the traditions of the Congolese with respect and helps us to respect that maybe we (Whites, Americans) could learn a thing or two.
I'm still trying to decide what to say and think about this book. My initial understanding is that this is a book that illustrates the conflict that rises around the commonly held values in modern American culture. Beginning with the imposition of philosophy without open-mindedness, validation of the development of foreign cultures, and ending with the actual events that the United States government led which so greatly harmed the people of the Congo. I did not know much about the troubled political history of Congo before this book. I also don't think I truly understood the injustice of colonialism until I read it. Man vs. nature. Man vs. woman. Man vs. nation. Age vs. youth...it is a complex web of conflict that comes down to a story about the many inappropriate uses of influence, and the dangers of narcissism.
Certainly it is a book that teaches humility in the face of nature and unfamiliar culture.
Certainly it is a book that teaches humility in the face of nature and unfamiliar culture.
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Harrowing. Entrancing. Unforgettable.
And just above, ladies and gentleman, you can witness my transformation into a typical NY Times book critic.
Sue me for exploiting the masses.
Okay, now I’ve transformed into an investment banker.
Oh well. Read this book.
And just above, ladies and gentleman, you can witness my transformation into a typical NY Times book critic.
Sue me for exploiting the masses.
Okay, now I’ve transformed into an investment banker.
Oh well. Read this book.
I didn't want to give this 5 star because it broke my tender little mama heart (which is not difficult right now I will admit) but it's so well written, researched and developed. The different voices are unique and real, the interwoven stories and history and all beautifully done and it is above all else a story that is deeply human and I love it for that.