The Poisonwood Bible

Title: The Poisonwood Bible

Author: Barbara Kingsolver

Pages: 543

Genre: Historical Fiction

Grade: B+

Synopsis: Nathan Price is an evangelical Baptist minister from Georgia that decided to take his family on a mission to the Belgian Congo. They were discouraged from going because of the political climate in the country. Nathan Price, his wife, and four daughters arrive in the small town of Kilango, where Reverend Price quickly alienates all of the locals for their immodest dress, plural wives and refusal to be baptized in the river. The story is told through the viewpoints of Orleanna Price (Nathan's wife) and his four daughters, Rachel, Leah, Adah and Ruth May. The different viewpoints and writing styles make for a choppy story at times but also give intriguing insight into what each girl is thinking. They all have issues with their abusive father and find their own ways of coping with their suffering. Nathan is slowly destroying their family while preaching the gospel of love to the natives in the Congo.

My Review: In my opinion, this book was about 200 pages too long. It took a while to get used to Kingsolver's writing style but I quite enjoyed it by the end. Fittingly, I most enjoyed the chapters written from Adah's viewpoint. She could see things frontward and backward and looked for palindromes in everything. The book makes a political statement about how the West attempted to culturize and democratize Africa, destroying their culture and ignoring their history.

From the Book: "(p. 114, Leah) In exchange for his first taste of powdered milk, Pascal showed me a tree we could climb to find a bird's nest. After we handled and examined the pink-skinned baby birds, he popped one of them into his mouth like a jujube. It seemed to please him a lot. He offered a baby bird to me, pantomiming that I should eat it. I understood perfectly well what he meant, but I refused. He did not seem disappointed to have to eat the whole brood himself."

"(p. 474, Leah) But we've all ended up giving body and soul to Africa, one way or another. Even Adah, who's becoming an expert in tropical epidemiology and strange new viruses. Each of us got our heart buried in six feet of African dirt; we are all co-conspirators here. I mean, all of us, not just my family. So what do you do now? You get to find your own way to dig out a heart and shake it off and hold it up to the light again."