Avoidable Self-Abuse

Women put up with a great deal from men. This is a truism which can’t be reinforced too frequently, if only to remind women that they often collaborate with masculine arrogance to their own - and the world’s - disadvantage. Getting out from under, as it were, requires hitting them where it hurts - not in the private parts but in the intimacies of family life. Essentially, men have no defense against feminine dismissal of their pretensions as merely foolish.

Most of the common male presumptions are contained in The Poisonwood Bible - superior intellect, more serious spiritual existence, greater ability to organise and act, and a keener insight about what it takes to survive in the world. These are observed, suffered, and analysed by a family of four girls who are dragooned with their mother to a remote mission station in the Congo in the early 1960’s. They submit because they have been taught to do so. Submission is a requirement of their interpretation of love, loyalty, and family commitment.

Reverend Paterfamilias is of course incompetent in every aspect of the family’s African endeavour. From his doctrinaire dismissal of local culture, to his refusal to take advice on gardening, he is a persistent failure. The women compensate. The man considers he has learned. He hasn’t. He remains as fundamentally ignorant as he has always been.

“Our Father“, as the disabled daughter refers to him sarcastically, is a misogynistic religious fanatic who would crumble into a heap of ash without the constant hidden and unappreciated support by his female family members and the other women of the village they inhabit. The Reverend is yet another species of animal which thrives in Africa: the parasite.

It takes their African life and its cultural dislocation to demonstrate to the women just how parasitical the man is. Their experience slowly relativises the certainties of their previous cultural existence. From the rationalisation of racism, to the Calvinist mores of work and dress, to the subtleties of their own subservience, they begin to recognise the elements of the cultural prison which encloses them and the oppressive tactics of their chief warder.

“How we wives and mothers do perish at the hands of our own righteousness.” This is the point of revelation for the Reverend’s wife. Unlike her husband, she recognises her true helplessness, her profound vulnerability to the world as it is without the mythical protections of either religion or technology. She also begins to understand that most of those purported protections are beneficial not to her but to her husband.

One by one all the women of the family come to recognise the sole male as the exploitative fool he is. “Everything you’re sure is right can be wrong in another place.” Is how one daughter puts it. In fact he was wrong anyplace, as many men are, men who wield power, who coerce and make victims of those who do not. They need not be fundamentalist preachers of course; but they generally have the same kind of ambition to dominate.

Oddly, this realisation leads to guilt. In part perhaps because it is as much about the culture from which they have emerged and to which they will not return. But mainly because their historic subjugation has led to avoidable tragedy. They should have known better than to have confidence in this man and his delusions. They couldn’t, of course, without the experiences he had imposed upon them. Hence the paradoxical guilt.

This book made a very deep impression on me when I read it years ago. I think I knew then that the author was being a little too didactic in her effort to highlight the huge problems caused by the colonizers and missionaries but I ignored all that and concentrated instead on the stories of the downtrodden wife and her daughters, taken like slaves into the heart of the alien poison wood by her deluded and power hungry preacher husband.

I am not going to rate “The Poisonwood Bible” because I have attempted to read this book 3 times! I at least made a huge effort to wrap my head around the book but failed. There are so many amazing books I would prefer to spend my time reading...good-bye “The Poisonwood Bible”.

Set primary in the Congo (DR) as it transitioned from Colonialism as the Belgian Congo to independence, then into the despotic regime of Mobutu (Zaire), we trace the Prices, a missionary family who come to spread the good word. The story takes us back to the States, but also to the Republic of Congo & Angola.

There is, of course not much that is new to tell in a book which has been reviewed over 25,000 times on GR, but I will waffle for a bit before giving it 4 stars...

There are strong primary themes - fanatical religion and great lessons on how not to apply it to people whose culture you have no idea about. The classic of incorrectly applying translation and totally changing the meaning of what you are trying to teach bears out for the whole novel. Similarly attempting to coerce children into a river to be baptised while they are told constantly that crocodiles await should they go there - flawed teaching. foreign intervention not only the atrocities that were carried out in the name of the Belgian Congo, but the interventions the USA seems helpless to stop making into newly independent countries where they "secretly" support an usurper who inevitably turns out to be a dictator of the worst kind.

Secondary to these, we witness the dynamics of the Price family - the unlikeable Nathan, his passive wife and 4 daughters Rachel, twins Leah & Adah and Ruth May. The story, told through the women - mostly the children - but also Orleanna. We see how different the daughters are, and while a little exaggerated, the writing styles and thought processes of the individuals all manifest differently in the writing. Nathan however falls away throughout the book, having no voice in this book (as nobody talks about him) and becomes a fairly shallow caricature.

Rachel was hilarious, although a little obvious, with her incorrect use of 'big' words. There are some amusing quotes to be found - two I made note of:

“It is my girlfriends here in Joburg that have taught me how to give parties, keep a close eye on the help, and just overall make a graceful transition to wifehood and adulteration.”

“I’m willing to be a philanderist for peace, but a lady can only go so far where perspiration odor is concerned.”

There is, of course, a breaking point to a passive wife, and we see rebellion within the family in various ways.

Unsurprisingly it is the Congolese people who come away from this novel looking the best, although as the girls thrive in adulthood in their own, quite individual ways, they have found their own strengths and goals. Where most of the understanding of the Congo and the Congolese comes is from Leah, as her own family adapt to the Congo, and she assesses where her father made no connection with, and failed to understand, the local culture.

There is enough of the setting to keep the context, rich in description, but perhaps not in as much depth as could have been, but at over 600 pages, there was perhaps enough going on without deeper description. Mobutu, quite rightly, is seen as a despicable figure, his human rights record, his funnelling foreign aid to line his pockets, taking from the people who could least afford it, and not paying civil servants for years, yet propped up by America. A quick google search shows photos of him with Nixon and Bush (Sr), lapping up the praise.

The novels wrap up is gradual, but fades out a little, although I can't think how it could have been better concluded... like my review, I guess.

4 stars

Sometimes, when I write reviews on certain books, the words I need are so far out there somewhere I can't grasp them all long enough to use them. Or I cannot gather them at all. The task almost feels heavy. Perhaps I won't know how to capture my emotions and thoughts. They are unnamed. I know some of you relate. There are books, and then there are BOOKS. The Poisonwood Bible is one of those BOOKS for me. It hits a little too close to home. And though I have not been a full-time missionary, I have done some mission work and known the faces of beautiful people who remain misunderstood and forgotten. I have had versions of toxic Christianity ingrained in the fibers of my being. I am thankful I am no longer that person. I didn't run in the opposite direction. I just learned the truth of who God is and how He loves. Stories like this are real. I never copy another's book synopsis, but I cannot say it better than Goodreads:

"The Poisonwood Bible is a story 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. They carry with them everything 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. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa"

I have known every character in the Price family - each girl, each boy, each woman, each man. I found myself voice-acting while reading aloud. It helped me move forward and give each character a more distinct quality throughout this epic story. I wanted revenge on Nathan Price. I wanted Rachel to be humbled. I wanted Orleanna to learn her worth. I wanted Adah to soar above everyone else. I wanted Leah to have peace. And I wanted Ruth May to be free. These characters are so complex! This is my second Kingsolver novel. She has an unbelievable skill in convincing you that her characters are real. I remain awestruck at her brilliant intuition and creative instincts. I continue to ask myself the same questions when I read her stories: "How can she know? How does she have such an accurate file for that mind, that circumstance, or that character's makeup?" I marvel at her ability to keep the reader captivated for days, even after the reading is complete. I still have much thinking to do about this one. I will leave you with this quote from the text:

"If chained is where you have been, your arms will always bear marks of the shackles. What you have to lose is your story, your own slant. You’ll look at the scars on your arms and see mere ugliness, or you’ll take great care to look away from them and see nothing." - Adah Price, The Poisonwood Bible

How ironic that I would read The Poisonwood Bible immediately after publishing a blog post defending the merits of YA books. One individual commented about how literary fiction takes themes/motifs/messages and pushes them to the edge. I can see that with Barbara Kingsolver's work.

Yes, the book preaches about anti-Westernization and the plights of religion. Even though I agree for the most part with Kingsolver's descriptions of Christianity and colonialism, I can see why those who disagree or dislike her writing style in general would criticize the story. I myself had to trudge through the first 150 pages to get a solid grasp of the characters; I often had to flip to the beginning of each chapter to remind myself whose narration I was reading.

But the characters won me over. It would be easy to write a book report or literary analysis regarding how Kingsolver incorporates themes and motifs like the burden of guilt, the failures of religion, light v. darkness, etc. The way Kingsolver crafted her characters earns this book its four star rating. Reading Leah's perspective in the last 100 pages in comparison to the first 100 pages feels like reading two different people, but Kingsolver made the massive transition smooth. Each narrator shares her perspective of the events in Africa, growing along the way. Even Rachel, who didn't develop at all, maintained her voice throughout the story and contributed a thoughtfully thoughtless perspective.

Overall, a time-consuming yet ultimately worthy book about a missionary who travels to Africa with his wife and four daughters. It rarely takes me over a week to finish a work of fiction, but I don't regret reading The Poisonwood Bible at all.

*review cross-posted on my blog, the quiet voice.

I started this book around 4 or 5 years ago and couldn’t get into it. My psyche was trying to tell me not to bother. I decided to finish it (for some reason picked it over a classic like Les Miserables) and I did like the writing style and I did like the story, but it is very much anti-American, anti-Christian, and pro-communist! I should have expected exactly that from an Oprah book club book.

The book praises Patrice Lumumba (the Congo’s first democratically elected prime minister) for being a communist who believes in democracy and conversely vilifies Mobutu Sese Seko (the man who took power after Lumumba was assassinated) for being a dictator who believes in capitalism. Mobutu was not a capitalist. He was a dictator who ran a kleptocracy (a government that extends the personal wealth and political power of government officials and the ruling class at the expense of the population). Dictatorships are bad and Mobutu was no exception. He made the people of the Congo suffer enormously, but the book does not make him a villain for being a dictator, it makes him a villain for being a so-called capitalist (Dictatorships are okay for Liberals due to their favorite communist dictator Fidel Castro).

The incessant glorification of communism and the opposing drawl of America (and Christianity) is bad in this book is sickening. The Christian minister is portrayed as a controlling father and husband who puts his whole family in danger by staying in Africa in an unstable political climate and who ends up going crazy. The previous Christian minister is someone who actually lives Christian principles, but was kicked out of position of minister by his own church for cavorting too closely with the natives. Leah defines communists as people who “do not fear the Lord, and they think everybody should have the same kind of house” and from her standpoint “it is hard to fathom the threat” of communism (oh please as if millions of people haven’t died due to communist rule). Rachel, who argues with her sisters against communism, is portrayed as a dumb blonde who misuses words and who also happens to be shallow and heartless. Adah who is seen as the smart one of course agrees with whatever Leah thinks. This theme culminates near the end of the book the sisters get together and go sight-seeing. They go to a palace in Africa where human bones and remains were used as building materials. Leah suggests that we shouldn’t judge the chief for murdering all those people to build his palace just because we are from the West and don’t understand. She says that what looks like “mass murder to us is probably misinterpreted ritual. They probably had ways of keeping their numbers in balance in times of famine”. Both Rachel and the Bible are then made fun of by Leah and Adah when Rachel points out ‘thou shalt not kill’. So … if you are a chief in Africa facing elimination by starvation it is okay to knock off a few people to save the rest, but if you are an American in a world full of nuclear weapons capable of eliminating life on this planet you shouldn’t take out one man who may increase the chances of nuclear holocaust (according to the book Lumumba’s assassination was orchestrated by Eisenhower to eliminate an additional communist threat during the Cold War). If you think one is okay, you have to think the other is too. You can’t justify one just because of where you live or what color your skin is. Nice hypocritical message Barbara Kingsolver.

I once was recommended an excellent book by a father at a kids party.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

A few years on the kids had another party and the parents got to chat again. The dad who had talked books to me previous was keen for more chat and so was I. This time he recommended this one.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver is one of the best thematic books I have ever read. Narrated in the first person by the women of the family the themes challenged my reading senses. Colonialism and its effects, post traumatic distress disorder that leads to guilt and religious mania, humanistic awakenings, feminism, ecology and consumerism. There is no doubt better minds than mine will note further themes such is the depth of ideas. It can be very difficult to write anything new about a book that has over 670,000 reviews and is rated so highly so all I can do is recommend it to those that are looking for a book to challenge them.

Long may kids parties happen and long may the attending dads recommend me such thoughtful readings.

I usually love Barbara Kingsolver (although I think she's gotten a bit self-important, but that's another story), and of course I was looking forward to this book. I learned some about Africa, and I appreciated all her research.

But her characters were false. It was as though Kingsolver had decided what each character would represent and then forced each one to adhere to that representation. For example, one character is supposed to represent Americans in all their materialism and lack of understanding of other cultures, etc., but she makes this character not just blond but stupid and selfish. Now, I'm a brunette and all, but I would think that a more sophisticated (and supposedly feminist) writer could do more than that--it felt distinctly anti-female in her writing.

A little while after I'd read this book, I read an interview in which Kingsolver said she'd had to drag the characters from the mud, kicking and screaming. I think this is the main problem with this book--she didn't allow the characters to be themselves, to let *them* tell *her* who they were or what they were about. And it shows.

Also, the character of Adah seriously got on my last nerve. Don't even get me started.

Totally hypnotic; I lost days in this novel. Once started, I found it impossible to interrupt my reading with silly things like daily life. Kingsolver drew a picture of the Congo which filled me with awe. I have read this mesmerising novel many times; include it in my best-of-the-best shelf and will no doubt read it again in the future. Kingsolver is a literary genius. 5★

There's plenty of Goodreads reviewers who felt differently, but I found The Poisonwood Bible to be a very strong and very different piece of historical fiction. It's a slower story than I normally like, something you might want to consider before deciding whether to try this 600+ page exploration of colonialism, postcolonialism and postcolonial attitudes, but I very much enjoyed this incredibly detailed portrait of a family and a society set in the Belgian Congo of 1959. And I, unlike some other readers, didn't see evidence of a narrow-minded agenda in Kingsolver's tale. I didn't really see this as a book about lessons or morals, I saw it as a close look at the reality of this time and the different way it can be perceived depending on your point of view.

I like writers who explore without trying to impart a lesson, who lay out a canvas but let the reader draw their own conclusions from it. This adds depth and a layer of complexity to the novel that allows for that dreaded word - interpretation - to rear its head. But different interpretations make for very interesting conversations. And I love it when reading a book creates a two-way stream of ideas, those of the author and those of the reader, the kind of book that asks me to think instead of proceeding to think for me. Lectures on colonialism? Been there, done that, give me this more thought-provoking method any day.

I particularly like what Tatiana said about the different POVs of the Price family and how each showed a different side and a different attitude to colonialism. From those who saw it as the West's duty to educate and industrialize "savages" and rid them of such damaging practices as genital mutilation and infanticide; to those who feel embarrassed at what the West has done to the postcolonial world and believe in the need for cultural respect. It's complex because there isn't a simple answer to the questions raised by colonialism. Do objective, absolute truths ever exist? Where does culture end and universal human rights begin? Is humanitarian intervention a responsibility or an excuse to impose Western beliefs and values on postcolonial societies? Kingsolver shows the many sides to this issue and lets you draw your own conclusions.

The story is about Nathan Price and his family. Nathan is an evangelical Baptist from Georgia who believes God has sent him on a mission to save - through religious conversion - the "savage" citizens of the Belgian Congo. With him are his wife and four daughters and the novel alternates between each of these five perspectives. I'm not usually a fan of any more than two POVs but this book turned out to be a rare exception. Maybe because Kingsolver spent the necessary time developing each individual character so none of the perspectives felt unnecessary or like filler.

I've spent a lot of time comparing this book to another I read recently - A Thousand Splendid Suns. They are both books about countries and cultures that I was only vaguely familiar with and they are both about a very specific turning point in each country's history. And while they are both good, in my opinion, they are also two very different kinds of novels. A Thousand Splendid Suns is a fast-paced, emotional, dramatic page-turner that has you constantly on the edge of your seat. I read it in a single day and wanted to recommend it to every person who hadn't read it. The Poisonwood Bible, on the other hand, is a slower, more complex, more demanding work that is even more satisfying when you look back over it and observe its clever details as a whole. It's not for everyone and I'm sure my Empire and Decolonization course helped prepare me somewhat for it.

Ultimately, I really liked how Kingsolver uses the different perspectives to take on the different attitudes to postcolonialism. For me, this is a clever and thought-provoking novel that goes beyond what many other books of its kind have achieved.

I adore this book!! The Prices, an American family led by a missionary father, travel to the Belgian Congo in 1959 to live among the natives and spread the word of God. The story is told from the point of view of the mother and the four daughters (all written with very distinct personalities), and they quickly learn how much they don’t know. The narration takes you through each one’s experience in the Congo and how the events of that misguided missionary trip reshaped their beliefs and impacted the course of their lives. As Rachel Price said, “You can’t just sashay into the jungle aiming to change it all over to the Christian style, without expecting the jungle to change you right back.”

This book covers so much – religion, history, family, politics, race, poverty, arrogance, greed – but it is all woven together in such a compelling and readable way. The characters are so well-written, and I was deeply invested in all of them. The father is the villain of the story, and you can feel the shame and sense of loss in the poignant observations of the mother and daughters as they begin to see him in a new light. I also loved how the author used the Kikongo language throughout the story. The Kikongo words have so many different meanings, and some of the daughters used the language to acknowledge their naivete and help them reconcile how the Congo was altering their perception of themselves, their family, and the world.

I’ll avoid spoilers but I do want to mention some of my favorite parts of the book. These are the sections that have stuck with me, and I look forward to re-reading them every time I pick up the book. The first is the end of Book 4, the climax of the story. This is one of the most beautifully written scenes I have ever read in a book. The grief of all the characters is so deeply felt and the imagery is so vivid, I find myself crying every time. I would love to say more, but you just need to read it. The second is the night of the "nsongonya" at the end of Book Three. Each family member’s reaction to the events is so well written and so on-point with how the author has developed the characters. And Adah’s re-telling of the night is truly heartbreaking.

I like to periodically re-read the books I have deemed my “favorites” to see if they have withstood the test of time as I explore more books and continue to refine my criteria for what makes a great read. Some books don’t survive the re-read test, but The Poisonwood Bible is not one of those books. I’ve read The Poisonwood Bible three times over the last fifteen or so years, and I still love it as much as the first time I read it. If you haven’t read the book, you definitely should!