The Poisonwood Bible

Rating:
Summary: Engrossing and fascinating
Review: I read Kingsolver's earlier "Pigs in Heaven" and "Bean Trees." I picked up "The Poisonwood Bible" on impluse to read while on vacation. Once I started reading it, I found it hard to put down.

I have never had much interest in African history, but this book made me want to find out more. Her characters, as in her earlier books, are very well realized and fascinating. The story begins with the arrival in the Belgian Congo of Nathan Price, fire and brimstone Baptist preacher, and his reluctant family. The family's story is told by Nathan's wife, Orleanna, and their five daughters - shallow teen-age Rachel, twins Leah and Adah, and five-year-old Ruth May. The voices of the characters are authentic and believable.

Other reviewers are correct in their assessment that this is, in a sense, two books. The first is about Nathan's clumsy and ill-advised attempts to fit Africa to his fundamentalist beliefs, and the family's attempts to fit their lives to Africa. The second is about the way a family tragedy marks its survivors and the different ways events in Africa mark them as well. I don't agree that Kingsolver should have "stopped writing" at the end of the first part.

I was absolutely spellbound by the way the voices changed and the way they stayed the same from the first to the last of the book. One believes in the characters, they change and grow as the book progresses. Other reviewers found Rachel grating, but I think that was the point. Her shallowness brought home the points that Kingsolver was making even more effectively than the earnest preaching by Leah. I got the sense that in her own way, Rachel understood the events perfectly well, but that she did not care.

I felt very complete when I finished the book. It was a satisfying experience.

Rating:
Summary: AN ENGAGING SAGA OF HUBRIS, HISTORY & HOPE
Review: Kingsolver in my view is one of the most thoughtful and daring of modern writers.

This feisty opus from her is set against one of the most dramatic political chronicles of recent times: Congo's fight for freedom from Belgium, the gruesome murder of its first prime minister, the CIA coup to install his replacement, and the sordid progress of a world economic order that robs the fledgling African nation of its autonomy.

Sound familiar?

That engaging backdrop alone is reason enough for me to recommend this treat of a read. The narrator's first person voice is fascinating and indelibly colored by her own losses and unanswerable questions. Also narrating the story, by turns, are her four sharply observant daughters, each of whom must strike her own separate path to salvation, a path paved with moral risk and personal responsibility.

For its audacity in setting up a fascinating literary scaffolding (with the intertwined narratives) or for its politically charged backdrop, or for the sheer worldly wisdom packed within its many pages, The Poisonwood Bible offers twin pleasures of being a dark comedy of human failings as well as the breathtaking possibilities of human hope.

I couldn't recommend this book highly enough.

Rating:
Summary: Meh...
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Stunning, wild, hungry... Kingsolver is a wonder
Review: The author of the magnificent books, 'The Bean Trees', and 'Pigs in Heaven', leaves her protagonists Turtle and her mother in the Southwest and puts us in Africa, the Congo, Kilanga, in 1959. This stunning book is the tale of the family (of girls) of a Baptist preacher who moves them to a Congolese village to convert the heathens. The story is told through the voices of the girls: Rachel, Leah, Ruth May, Adah, Rebecca, and their mother, Orleanna Price. Their father's ignorance and somewhat violent tendencies, the sheer poverty and simpleness of the village, and the vast differences in their lives for these girls from Georgia are expressed by all of them. Their personalities, their strengths, their needs and their confusion are evident by their every word and their complex thoughts. Kingsolver, who is a brilliant writer anyway, brings a fascinating perspective to her imaginary family in the Poisonwood Bible - as she, the daughter of public health care workers who spent time in the Congo when she was very young, "waited thirty years for the wisdom and maturity to write this book." A powerful story, an excellent read.

Rating:
Summary: I Would Definitly Recomend
Review: The Poisonwood Bible set in the Belgian Congo during the 1960's, releases the story of a missionary family and their journey to Africa. The Poisonwood Bible is a historical based novel, where much happens politically in just a small amount of time. Within five hundred pages of mostly fiction plot isn't the main focus of the novel. The story is made of mostly thoughts and reflection, and some of this could have been replaced with more action and adventure for some extra balance to the overall tale.
Kingsolver seems to make a huge effort to drive this book by its characters. The characters seem so real, because the reader can see inside the protagonist's heads. Kingsolver allows five women, four being only children for a majority of the book, to release such strong views, beliefs and emotions. Within the family of characters, each person was given such a different personality; this was key to get the broadest sense of the story possible.
The language is consistent through out the entire novel. I wouldn't say it was an easy book to read, but I wasn't sitting next to a dictionary looking up three words per page. The content of the book is what was more difficult to undertake. Depending on what stage of life the reader is in could change the book entirely. Kingsolver makes it easy for the reader to relate to book by incorporating 'every human' thoughts into the characters thoughts.
The beautiful and unique style of The Poisonwood Bible is what kept me turning the pages in a smooth rhythm for so long. The images and writing techniques used in Kingsolver writing of this book, is what made it seem so real. After finishing this book it was hard to believe it was a work of fiction. Detailed descriptions and portrayal of the big picture are two aspects of writing Kingsolver managed to use and put together to keep the equilibrium of the book.

Rating:
Summary: "Tata Jesus is bangala!"
Review: This is certainly the most powerful book written by Barbara Kingsolver. It is an epic novel, a tale of sin and redemption, set against a dramatic political turnover. The backstage is Congo's fight for independence from Belgium, the murder of Patrice Lumumba, the CIA coup to install his replacement, and the world economic game that plunges this African country into chaos.

On the front stage we have a typical 19th century novel, with a familiar plot (see "The Mosquito Coast," "A Play in the Fields of the Lord," or "Kalimantaan"): the theme of white men trying to force his alien culture and religion on native societies, and the disintegration of previous values held by the intruders. The player in this act is a Baptist family, headed by Nathan Price an arrogant, eccentric, religious zealot, obsessed by faith and guilt, who is destined to risk his own life and the lives of those closest to him in pursuit of "saving souls." He represents the patronizing attitude of white colonialists and their devastating legacy. His wife Orleanna is a symbol of passivity, totally dedicated to the care and survival of her kin. The Price family is complemented by four daughters: the oldest, selfish pragmatist 15-years old Rachel, the shrewd twins Leah and Adah, and the youngest, 5-years old, innocent Ruth May.

The story begins with the arrival of the Price family in a small village called Kilanga, in 1959. The four girls narrate the story in turn, at the precipice of events, while the mother narrates in retrospect. The narrative turns on different axes, shaped by the 5 feminine characters, the way they contemplate themselves and one another, the surrounding events and their individual adaptation.

Congo permeates "The Poisonwood Bible," with descriptive, colorful, imaginative writing the author transports the reader into a world of tropical beauty, of heat and humidity, of abundance and drought. The author herself lived two years in Congo when she was a young girl and her childhood experiences had a lasting effect on her imagination. Although the author places her emphasis on people and not on politics, this a political angry novel, a critical view of imperialistic arrogance, exploitation, and prejudice. Kingsolver, a radicalist by nature, writes with strong idealistic messages, she deliberately hooks people into a good story and then gives a political lesson.

Why the title "The Poisonwood Bible?" Nathan Price, the obsessed missionary shouts "Tata Jesus is bangala!" but it never occurs to him that in Kigongo (the language spoken in Kilanga) meaning depends on intonation, and while "bangala" may mean "precious and dear," it can also mean poisonwood tree, a virulent local plant!.