Books! The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Thursday, 7 January 2016 05:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
byslantedlightMy first book-read this year!
Told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959, The Poisonwood Bible is the story of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa. They carry with them all they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it - from garden seeds to Scripture - is calamitously transformed on African soil.
I must admit I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy this. It's told from the pov of five different people, alternating, and there's a bit of back-and-forth with time too, bu-u-ut it turned out that didn't matter at all, because every single person added something different to the story, a different perspective, and it was as much about the different ways they saw things as it was about what happened to each of them, and being Barbara Kingsolver it was beautifully written.
I rushed it a bit - it's a book group book, and they're due back today, so no extensions, so I have a bit of a book hangover, but like most book hangovers, it was very much worth it! With the added bonus that I had half an eye out for what was happening in the Congo/Angola when Bodie would have been around... *g* It's mostly a story about a family though, and their past that made them, and where they're going now. There are hints of what's going on around them, but they're self-centred enough (for various reasons) that they're not really paying attention to this - which is precisely the point, because they absolutely are affected by it, for all their white-ness and faith (or not) in their Christian god, and comparative wealth.
The Congo itself is beautifully painted (and I wonder if the author's been there) in all its glories and terrors, and the way the people of the Congo understand it, and live with it and love it for what it is rather than for what other people tell them it should be is beautifully drawn too - as is what happens when those other people try to make it something else. There's one character, the minister who "went native" before the Price family arrived, who has a line I liked alot too. He's trying to explain to the girls why he feels the Congolese are really already Christians in many ways: When I want to take God at his word exactly, I take a peep out the window at His Creation. Because that, darling, He makes fresh for us every day, without a lot of dubious middle managers. I'm neither Christian nor religious, but I think that if you want to be, that's the sort of thing you should be starting from... and as in most things, fewer middle managers sounds like a good idea... *g*
It's not an area I've ever known much about in any depth, and I realised I didn't have much idea what was happening over there right now either, so I nipped to Wiki for at least a brief sort of clue. I am headdesking that I hadn't quite consciously taken in the change of name back from Zaire to the Congo, in 1997. After years of civil wars, Wiki says, As of 2015 elections are scheduled for late 2016 and a tenuous peace holds over the Congo.
Told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959, The Poisonwood Bible is the story of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa. They carry with them all they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it - from garden seeds to Scripture - is calamitously transformed on African soil.I must admit I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy this. It's told from the pov of five different people, alternating, and there's a bit of back-and-forth with time too, bu-u-ut it turned out that didn't matter at all, because every single person added something different to the story, a different perspective, and it was as much about the different ways they saw things as it was about what happened to each of them, and being Barbara Kingsolver it was beautifully written.
I rushed it a bit - it's a book group book, and they're due back today, so no extensions, so I have a bit of a book hangover, but like most book hangovers, it was very much worth it! With the added bonus that I had half an eye out for what was happening in the Congo/Angola when Bodie would have been around... *g* It's mostly a story about a family though, and their past that made them, and where they're going now. There are hints of what's going on around them, but they're self-centred enough (for various reasons) that they're not really paying attention to this - which is precisely the point, because they absolutely are affected by it, for all their white-ness and faith (or not) in their Christian god, and comparative wealth.
The Congo itself is beautifully painted (and I wonder if the author's been there) in all its glories and terrors, and the way the people of the Congo understand it, and live with it and love it for what it is rather than for what other people tell them it should be is beautifully drawn too - as is what happens when those other people try to make it something else. There's one character, the minister who "went native" before the Price family arrived, who has a line I liked alot too. He's trying to explain to the girls why he feels the Congolese are really already Christians in many ways: When I want to take God at his word exactly, I take a peep out the window at His Creation. Because that, darling, He makes fresh for us every day, without a lot of dubious middle managers. I'm neither Christian nor religious, but I think that if you want to be, that's the sort of thing you should be starting from... and as in most things, fewer middle managers sounds like a good idea... *g*
It's not an area I've ever known much about in any depth, and I realised I didn't have much idea what was happening over there right now either, so I nipped to Wiki for at least a brief sort of clue. I am headdesking that I hadn't quite consciously taken in the change of name back from Zaire to the Congo, in 1997. After years of civil wars, Wiki says, As of 2015 elections are scheduled for late 2016 and a tenuous peace holds over the Congo.
no subject
Date: Thursday, 7 January 2016 10:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, 7 January 2016 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, 7 January 2016 11:46 pm (UTC)I was very surprised though that out of 10 of us at bookclub, only 4 liked it!
Oh now, why was that?
no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2016 08:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2016 04:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2016 08:17 am (UTC)The people who didn't like didn't really explain why not, though one person said she didn't like any of the characters and another person said the made up words irritated her (but she didn't mean Adah's backwards-words, she said, she thought there were other made up words in there, and I can't think what she might mean...), but that's as far as anyone got. Mostly they just said they'd tried to read it and couldn't. Such a shame!
no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2016 11:06 am (UTC)Like your book group people I remember not really being engaged with the characters in Poisonwood, not finding them very realistic. The language quirks (like the backwards words and the malapropisms) didn't bother me, and the characters all had their own very distinctive voices that are cleverly done, but I got caricature out of that rather than character. Great, unsettling, atmospheric setting and all (she really does nature beautifully) but I thought it got a little preachy (heh). And it was too long!
Also, in defence of your book groupers who didn't explain properly why they didn't like it, I do think many people are very instinctive about books and actually analysing why they don't like a particular book or writer (the language? the style? the characterization? the author voice?) is not necessarily something that comes naturally. I get a bit frustrated at my book club, too, when it's mostly loved it/hated it/meh. While a couple of us might tentatively witter on about structure, pacing, blah, whatever, for the others it generally boils down to whether they 'liked' the story. Some of it might be to do with having been specifically taught that kind of comment and analysis as Literature students, I dunno. Or for us perhaps it's that, as writer-y people (and people who actively enjoy discussing fic, for example) it's just more fun!
(edited for html fail)