Sunday, 30 May 2021 09:50 pm
Book Review: The Poisonwood Bible
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deckardcanineI saw this Barbara Kingsolver tome first on my parents' shelves and then on a list of notable books. Only after I began did I learn that Mom found it too depressing to finish and Dad never tried. But by that time, I was too hooked to back out.
In 1959, Baptist Reverend Nathan Price, his wife Orleanna, and their four daughters move from Bethlehem, Georgia, to Kilanga, Belgian Congo, for the purpose of converting the natives. In a sense, that's all you need to know. One-family (mainly one-man) missionary work in a very foreign land is obviously unpromising. The title alludes to a mistranslation of "precious" by someone unaccustomed to the tonality of Kikongo. And it won't be long before the "Belgian" part comes off with a great upheaval....
In truth, the revolution has only so much effect on a backwater village with no road. Nor are the locals all that hostile to the Prices; most get along okay, and a few may qualify as friends. But the natural and social downsides to living there are countless. Only Nathan's intransigence keeps the family in place for so long.
Nathan's a jerk, all right. Sometimes he engages in domestic physical abuse; more often, he assigns his daughters to write out 100 consecutive biblical verses, ending with the lesson he means to teach. I'd admire his ability to remember the text that well, except that it points to an unhealthy obsession. Lest you think that Kingsolver means him to stand for Christianity in general, know that he's ever at odds with the Southern Baptist Mission League, and not just for citing apocryphal texts too much. It sounds like he was a decent guy until World War II left him with PTSD and survivor's guilt, leading him to frame God as nigh merciless. He seems to think that even procreative marital sex is a sin to atone for.
Part of my enjoyment comes from a vivid look at an area I've never visited, so unfamiliar and yet so real. The one aspect I find difficult to believe is how rarely anyone starves to death. I still rather wish to go somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, but clearly I'll have to be more careful than the Prices. Mom hadn't reached the most dismal moments before giving up.
The other key component of interest is the first-person narration. Most chapters switch among the daughters, with Orleanna narrating a few section introductions. I'm glad that's all she gets, because she's the dreariest. Nathan's too one-note to narrate, even if he manages to surprise his family frequently. What makes the narration a little strange is that while it's generally in the past tense, the daughters always sound like they have the same mindset and maturity as they had during the events of the chapter, as if these were journal entries from right afterward. Also, Orleanna indicates early on that one of her daughters will die in a later chapter, so if the narration isn't immediate, then it's partially posthumous. And then there's the final chapter, told in such a bizarre way that I suspect Faulknerian influence.
The eldest daughter, Rachel, age 16 when they move to Kilanga, misses materialist luxuries the most. A platinum blonde, she may be a beauty by U.S. standards, but the Congolese stare at her for the opposite reason. Her accounts can be pretty amusing with their many malapropisms and occasional mixed metaphors. Sometimes, especially in periods of ennui, she can be funny on purpose. Alas, that's about all the good I have to say about her. The girl I first saw as Miss Average American Teen proves scandalously egotistical and shallow. Her idea of hard work comes nowhere close to others'. She never sees anything as her fault. And she's the most blatantly racist Price. I hate to think she got more so from experience.
Leah, 14 at the start, is way smarter, if also humorless. It figures that she finds work in education as a teen. At first, she's the one firmly in Nathan's corner, easily closest to his faith, but she can deny the disastrousness of his campaign for only so long.
Adah, Leah's twin, look much alike but lost half her brain in the womb, so she limps and rarely speaks. Such disabilities are not so uncommon in Kilanga. Regardless, Adah is about equally smart. She likes to write things backwards or in reverse word order and does a great job with palindromes and poetic flair in general. But she has a dark spirit, disdaining humanity and resenting Leah in particular for unintentionally causing her disability.
I don't recall anyone stating Ruth May's age, but she must be many years behind the rest; she usually refers to "Baby Jesus" as if he never grew up. Despite believing that Blacks are descendants of Ham, she has the easiest time making friends among them, if only because the local teen girls are homemakers and few teen boys dare talk to the Price teens. (Honestly, their sexism rivals Nathan's.) Her youthful errors are about as amusing as Rachel's, but for such a little kid to be exposed to the rigors of Kilanga is extra troubling.
The back cover of my edition says that the story covers three decades. It does, but more than two-thirds of it is limited to about 18 months, after which comes the last straw that sends the Prices off in different directions. Even then, it takes a while for a single decade to elapse. Sometimes their lives arguably improve, but they've all been changed forever by those 18 months.
Although the writing is so skilled that I never got bored, I had to question the wisdom of the last 100+ pages. There's no sense of progression toward a finale; Kingsolver appears to continue out of habit more than anything else. I also wondered whose eventual viewpoint, if any, reflects the author's own. They all get too ugly for my taste.
I will say that I developed a new respect for the Congolese, assuming their depiction's authenticity. Sure, their superstition is disagreeable, not least when they leave twin babies for dead (yep, Things Fall Apart is among the references), but they know how to make do with a really unfavorable situation. In a village where everybody has one set of clothes at maximum, they act about as content as us and no less generous. They have an intractable jungle to blame for their lack of progress, and they accept it for what it is. When they find democracy fishy, it's because their leaders try to satisfy pretty much everybody, not slightly more than half, and inadequate leadership is met with prompt exile. I can't claim to make full sense of their Weltanschauung any more than the Prices do, but I don't doubt its internal consistency.
Will I read more from Kingsolver? Maybe. Anyone who can take on such a downer subject -- without fantasy or sci-fi, for that matter -- and not drive me away is a superb writer to my mind. I'll just need a while to cleanse my palate.
And who's cleansing my palate now? Why, the late Beverly Cleary. I found an old copy of Runaway Ralph. It's rather different from the realistic fare I've associated with Cleary, and I'm curious to see how she handles talking animals. But I don't think I'll review it here.
In 1959, Baptist Reverend Nathan Price, his wife Orleanna, and their four daughters move from Bethlehem, Georgia, to Kilanga, Belgian Congo, for the purpose of converting the natives. In a sense, that's all you need to know. One-family (mainly one-man) missionary work in a very foreign land is obviously unpromising. The title alludes to a mistranslation of "precious" by someone unaccustomed to the tonality of Kikongo. And it won't be long before the "Belgian" part comes off with a great upheaval....
In truth, the revolution has only so much effect on a backwater village with no road. Nor are the locals all that hostile to the Prices; most get along okay, and a few may qualify as friends. But the natural and social downsides to living there are countless. Only Nathan's intransigence keeps the family in place for so long.
Nathan's a jerk, all right. Sometimes he engages in domestic physical abuse; more often, he assigns his daughters to write out 100 consecutive biblical verses, ending with the lesson he means to teach. I'd admire his ability to remember the text that well, except that it points to an unhealthy obsession. Lest you think that Kingsolver means him to stand for Christianity in general, know that he's ever at odds with the Southern Baptist Mission League, and not just for citing apocryphal texts too much. It sounds like he was a decent guy until World War II left him with PTSD and survivor's guilt, leading him to frame God as nigh merciless. He seems to think that even procreative marital sex is a sin to atone for.
Part of my enjoyment comes from a vivid look at an area I've never visited, so unfamiliar and yet so real. The one aspect I find difficult to believe is how rarely anyone starves to death. I still rather wish to go somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, but clearly I'll have to be more careful than the Prices. Mom hadn't reached the most dismal moments before giving up.
The other key component of interest is the first-person narration. Most chapters switch among the daughters, with Orleanna narrating a few section introductions. I'm glad that's all she gets, because she's the dreariest. Nathan's too one-note to narrate, even if he manages to surprise his family frequently. What makes the narration a little strange is that while it's generally in the past tense, the daughters always sound like they have the same mindset and maturity as they had during the events of the chapter, as if these were journal entries from right afterward. Also, Orleanna indicates early on that one of her daughters will die in a later chapter, so if the narration isn't immediate, then it's partially posthumous. And then there's the final chapter, told in such a bizarre way that I suspect Faulknerian influence.
The eldest daughter, Rachel, age 16 when they move to Kilanga, misses materialist luxuries the most. A platinum blonde, she may be a beauty by U.S. standards, but the Congolese stare at her for the opposite reason. Her accounts can be pretty amusing with their many malapropisms and occasional mixed metaphors. Sometimes, especially in periods of ennui, she can be funny on purpose. Alas, that's about all the good I have to say about her. The girl I first saw as Miss Average American Teen proves scandalously egotistical and shallow. Her idea of hard work comes nowhere close to others'. She never sees anything as her fault. And she's the most blatantly racist Price. I hate to think she got more so from experience.
Leah, 14 at the start, is way smarter, if also humorless. It figures that she finds work in education as a teen. At first, she's the one firmly in Nathan's corner, easily closest to his faith, but she can deny the disastrousness of his campaign for only so long.
Adah, Leah's twin, look much alike but lost half her brain in the womb, so she limps and rarely speaks. Such disabilities are not so uncommon in Kilanga. Regardless, Adah is about equally smart. She likes to write things backwards or in reverse word order and does a great job with palindromes and poetic flair in general. But she has a dark spirit, disdaining humanity and resenting Leah in particular for unintentionally causing her disability.
I don't recall anyone stating Ruth May's age, but she must be many years behind the rest; she usually refers to "Baby Jesus" as if he never grew up. Despite believing that Blacks are descendants of Ham, she has the easiest time making friends among them, if only because the local teen girls are homemakers and few teen boys dare talk to the Price teens. (Honestly, their sexism rivals Nathan's.) Her youthful errors are about as amusing as Rachel's, but for such a little kid to be exposed to the rigors of Kilanga is extra troubling.
The back cover of my edition says that the story covers three decades. It does, but more than two-thirds of it is limited to about 18 months, after which comes the last straw that sends the Prices off in different directions. Even then, it takes a while for a single decade to elapse. Sometimes their lives arguably improve, but they've all been changed forever by those 18 months.
Although the writing is so skilled that I never got bored, I had to question the wisdom of the last 100+ pages. There's no sense of progression toward a finale; Kingsolver appears to continue out of habit more than anything else. I also wondered whose eventual viewpoint, if any, reflects the author's own. They all get too ugly for my taste.
I will say that I developed a new respect for the Congolese, assuming their depiction's authenticity. Sure, their superstition is disagreeable, not least when they leave twin babies for dead (yep, Things Fall Apart is among the references), but they know how to make do with a really unfavorable situation. In a village where everybody has one set of clothes at maximum, they act about as content as us and no less generous. They have an intractable jungle to blame for their lack of progress, and they accept it for what it is. When they find democracy fishy, it's because their leaders try to satisfy pretty much everybody, not slightly more than half, and inadequate leadership is met with prompt exile. I can't claim to make full sense of their Weltanschauung any more than the Prices do, but I don't doubt its internal consistency.
Will I read more from Kingsolver? Maybe. Anyone who can take on such a downer subject -- without fantasy or sci-fi, for that matter -- and not drive me away is a superb writer to my mind. I'll just need a while to cleanse my palate.
And who's cleansing my palate now? Why, the late Beverly Cleary. I found an old copy of Runaway Ralph. It's rather different from the realistic fare I've associated with Cleary, and I'm curious to see how she handles talking animals. But I don't think I'll review it here.