28
Apr
2009
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
For some reason, I had always thought that Barbara Kingsolver was Australian. I have no idea why that is. But that is why I read this American author during a kick I was on, reading authors from around the globe. Since it mostly takes place in Africa, and I was already a few chapters in when I found out she was not, in fact Australian, I kept reading. Besides, I was already hooked.
Nathan Price is a 20th century Abner Hale. But instead of going to the remote islands of Hawaii, he hauls his family to the inner reaches of the Belgian Congo, and refuses to leave.
While Nathan is a central character, often driving much of the plot, he is not one of the story’s five narrators. His four daughters, and occasionally his wife, Orleanna, give voice to their travails in the Congo, each with a slightly different perspective. But Nathan is such a misogynistic WASP, that we probably wouldn’t want to read anything he’d have to say anyways.
The Price daughters range in ages and personalities. Rachel is the oldest, in her mid-teens when the novel begins, and is mostly concerned with her appearance and all things material, even in the middle of the Congo. Next come the twins. Leah is the older, an idealist who loves her father in the beginning, but changes her views as she matures. Her twin is Adah, a hemiplegiac, who is a quiet intellectual, and often lags behind due to her limp. She loves to make palindromes, which I’ve heard were a real bitch when translators worked on this book in other countries. The baby of the family is Ruth May. She befriends the children of the village, and hates snakes and her Malaria medicine.
This book is, of course, more than just the price family. It is also about the Congo. The novel starts out in 1959, and it takes only a few years before the Colonial rule is thrown off by the Congolese. Because she herself was the daughter of an African missionary, Kingsolver tells it like it is, or was. Well, probably still is. The United States plays a part in selecting the new government, fearing that the new Congolese government will veer towards Communism they encourage a brutal man to take the office of President.
As you can probably guess, there are several levels to this book. From the basic hierarchies of family life, to the Western dominance in Africa, both pre and post colonization, Kingsolver intertwines them all deftly, in this incredibly rendered book.
If you like this book/author, you might like:
Heart of Darkness (F) by Joseph Conrad
A Bend in the River (F) by V.S. Naipaul
Saving Fish from Drowning (F) by Amy Tan
Hawaii (F) by James Michener
Three Cups of Tea (CNF) by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, The Man Who Would Cure the World (CNF) by Tracy Kidder
One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd (F) by Jim Fergus
Song of Solomon (F) by Toni Morrison
What Is the What (F) by Dave Eggars
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier (CNF) by Ishmael Beah
Half of a Yellow Sun (F) by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Purple Hibiscus (F) by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Everything Good Will Come (F) by Sefi Atta
Ancestor Stones (F) by Aminatta Forna
The Lovely Bones (F) by Alice Sebold
Peace Like a River (F) by Leif Enger
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (F) by Jonathan Safran Foer
Little Women (F) by Louisa May Alcott
Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela (CNF) by Nelson Mandela
Beethoven Was One Sixteenth Black & Other Stories (F) by Nadine Gordimer
Jump & Other Short Stories (F) by Nadine Gordimer
My Son’s Story (F) by Nadine Gordimer
The Pick Up (F) by Nadine Gordimer
Things Fall Apart (F) by Chinua Achebe
The Power of One (F) by Bryce Courtenay
Silence (F) by Shusaku Endo
King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (NF) by Adam Hochschild
Other works by Barbara Kingsolver:
The Bean Trees (F)
Pigs in Heaven (F)
High Tide in Tucson (CNF)
Prodigal Summer (F)
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (CNF)
Small Wonder & Other Essays (CNF)
Homeland & Other Stories (F)
Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983 (NF)
Last Stand: America’s Virgin Lands (NF)
Another America (F)
The Lacuna (F)
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