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July 02, 2008

The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

Book 28 in my 52 books in 52 weeks in 2008

There are very many books in the world that I will never read, and this could easily have been one of them. The outine isn't promising. An evangelical American baptist minister in the late 1950s decides to take his wife and four daughters to the Belgian Congo to be a missionary there. So that's religion and history as main topics - not usually my cup of tea.

However, I was talking to a friend about books this came up as one of their favourite, and I was told that I must read it. So I tried to get a copy but baulked at the full price and eventually got it second hand off Amazon. It was thicker than I'd imagined, but I finally made a start, and was glad that I did, as it turns out that it is one of the best books I've read recently.

Each of the females in the family get to tell parts of the story. It starts tantalisingly with Orleanna Price, the wife and mother, writing from 30 years in the future after she has returned home to America. She hints at terrible things that happened, and quickly lures you in so that you cannot stop reading until you find out what it is.

All the first person narratives from the Congo are written by the daughters. Ruth May is only about five years old, Leah and Adah are pre-teen twins, and Rachel is the teenager. After only a few chapters, you can recognise their unique voices from the way they 'talk', and from how they are reacting to life in the jungle. You quicky realise that their father Nathan is a bit unhinged. His mission is not even fully sanctioned by the church, and he refuses to accept any logical arguments on how to live in this new environment, alienating himself from the villagers with entreaties to baptise them in the crocodile infested river.

Emotions run high, and as disaster approaches the tension makes this a real page turner. I found it hard to out this down up to the emotional climax, which is unfortunately only about 2/3 of the way through the book.

If the novel had stopped there I would have been very happy with it. if I was to make a film of the book, I would definitely stop it there. But instead, it changes quite a lot, and turns into more of a history of the Congo region over the succeeding thirty years rather than just a family saga. The politics overwhelms this final stage too much, and though the case against the white man in Afica is pretty strong, I'm sure that the native people are not blameless either. However, America in particular, white people, and men, all get a very thorough bashing, and there are no bad Africans, or women at all, just a few who are corrupted by circumstances and by their colonial overseers. A bit more balance wouldn't have gone amiss. I found this less compelling. It was interesting, and I learned a lot, but I cared a lot less about the characters, and was glad when it finally came to a conclusion, of sorts.

I do highly recommend this book to anyone of any age; it is a marvellous piece of story-telling which you will not forget in a hurry.

Posted by se71 at July 2, 2008 11:39 AM

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