5 Stars
Goodreads Review
Oprah Book Club® Selection, June 2000: As any reader of The Mosquito Coast knows, men who drag their families to far-off climes in pursuit of an Idea seldom come to any good, while those familiar with At Play in the Fields of the Lord or Kalimantaan understand that the minute a missionary sets foot on the fictional stage, all hell is about to break loose. So when Barbara Kingsolver sends missionary Nathan Price along with his wife and four daughters off to Africa in The Poisonwood Bible, you can be sure that salvation is the one thing they're not likely to find. The year is 1959 and the place is the Belgian Congo. Nathan, a Baptist preacher, has come to spread the Word in a remote village reachable only by airplane. To say that he and his family are woefully unprepared would be an understatement: "We came from Bethlehem, Georgia, bearing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle," says Leah, one of Nathan's daughters. But of course it isn't long before they discover that the tremendous humidity has rendered the mixes unusable, their clothes are unsuitable, and they've arrived in the middle of political upheaval as the Congolese seek to wrest independence from Belgium. In addition to poisonous snakes, dangerous animals, and the hostility of the villagers to Nathan's fiery take-no-prisoners brand of Christianity, there are also rebels in the jungle and the threat of war in the air. Could things get any worse?
In fact they can and they do. The first part of The Poisonwood Biblerevolves around Nathan's intransigent, bullying personality and his effect on both his family and the village they have come to. As political instability grows in the Congo, so does the local witch doctor's animus toward the Prices, and both seem to converge with tragic consequences about halfway through the novel. From that point on, the family is dispersed and the novel follows each member's fortune across a span of more than 30 years.
The Poisonwood Bible is arguably Barbara Kingsolver's most ambitious work, and it reveals both her great strengths and her weaknesses. As Nathan Price's wife and daughters tell their stories in alternating chapters, Kingsolver does a good job of differentiating the voices. But at times they can grate--teenage Rachel's tendency towards precious malapropisms is particularly annoying (students practice their "French congregations"; Nathan's refusal to take his family home is a "tapestry of justice"). More problematic is Kingsolver's tendency to wear her politics on her sleeve; this is particularly evident in the second half of the novel, in which she uses her characters as mouthpieces to explicate the complicated and tragic history of the Belgian Congo.
Despite these weaknesses, Kingsolver's fully realized, three-dimensional characters make The Poisonwood Bible compelling, especially in the first half, when Nathan Price is still at the center of the action. And in her treatment of Africa and the Africans she is at her best, exhibiting the acute perception, moral engagement, and lyrical prose that have made her previous novels so successful. --Alix Wilber
Review:
There are two big questions that The Poisonwood Bible raises. First, why does helping people in poverty have to be tied in with religious ambition, and second, why does religious fervor cause people to forget their common sense? I don’t understand why religion, especially (though not only) evangelical Christianity, causes people to act like Nathan Price. On one hand I’m ok with religion when it acts as a moral compass to guide life decisions that affect only you, and I’m even more ok with it when it guides people to help others out of a desire to be more God/Christ-like. However, what I do have a problem with is when people try and force that religion on others and try and change a person’s culture to make it fit into a prescribed box of what people are “supposed” to be. And when the desire to control other’s and make them just like you takes precedence over the safety and welfare of your family, well then you’ve just gone too far. People need to realize that while you may have chosen a particular path, other people may not choose it. And those other people may indeed be your wife and kids.
Ok, religion rant over, back to the book. I absolutely loved the first two thirds of the book. I loved the culture clash of a middle class white family being thrust into a tribal African culture. I also adored the five different viewpoints of the story. Each character had a distinct voice that added to the overall texture of the story. The African culture in this book is richly presented, with wonderful descriptions that show just how much the Price family was like a fish out of water. It also showed that people have to adapt in order to survive, and some members of the Price family welcomed the change while others fought it tooth and nail.
The last third of the book was when the story started to go downhill for me. Not that the political climate of Africa isn’t fascinating, but I felt myself emotionally disconnecting the more macro the story got. I was more interested in the effects that Nathan’s blind religious zeal had on his family and the African community than sweeping political commentary.
Overall The Poisonwood Bible is about how intolerance and ignorance does nothing but destroy the very thing you’re trying to build. Rigidly following religious doctrine only causes the people you’re trying to help resist you more. In order to bring about change you have to be bending and considerate.
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