Ollie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
commonpeople1) wrote2011-02-06 08:01 pm
commonpeople1) wrote2011-02-06 08:01 pm
A Lot of Crosses to Bear
Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible, 1998
Kingsolver's novels are like symphonies that keep playing in your head long after they are finished. Say whatever you want about her style (which can be overly poetic sometimes), there's no denying the rigorous research she puts behind her stories and the life she blows so easily into her characters. She has an axe to grind with the way politics and religion (specially the ones originated in the U.S.) smash human life, and she's not afraid to put her characters through hell and brimstone for the sake of exposing the 20th Century's forgotten crimes in Africa. (If she's not careful though, Glenn Beck will be calling her a commie bastard very soon.)
A family of white American missionaries descend on the Congo in 1960 for a year of Bible thumping, ignorant of the culture they are entering and the dangerous politics that's shifting power from Belgium's colonialist rule to a chaotic independence. The narrative moves between the four daughters, who range between 16 and 6 years of age, and the mother years later, back in Georgia, U.S. They struggle to adapt to this new culture as well as bear the ignorance and fanatism of the family's father, who believes he can bring salvation to all those African heathens. We know early on from the mother's narrative that one of the daughters eventually dies, but we don't know which and for what reason, and it's partly this suspense that drives the story forward. Village life slowly gets harder and the mysteries of the Congo swallow the family whole, and the reader.
Some of this novel's pleasures: Kingsolver's ironies, ranging from the book's title down to the way the sections are divided; the way this Southern family's differing points of views build an image of the Congo and the 60s (like Faulkner transposed to Africa, actually); the rich Bible symbolism turned on its head; and the beautiful and redeeming love story at its core.
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Do you want to pose me some questions and I'll come up with some for you? :-)
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did nathan price's demise surprise you at all? do you wish you'd ever gotten his narrative or was his portrayal through other people enough for you?
did adah's recovery disappoint you? inspire you?
no one in the family was able to let africa go after ruth may's death. whose reaction did you most understand? least?
do you see any change at all in rachel, from start to finish?
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- It took me a day or two after finishing the novel for the penny to drop re. the snake bite and its symbolic connection to the Bible. What did you think of the religious symbolism in the novel, its use and so forth? Even if you haven't read much of the Bible, did anything stand out for you from knowing about it through films, books, etc?
- Did you know anything about the Congo or Zaire before reading this? If yes, did your perception remain the same or change? If no, do you think you know enough about the country now?
- Did you like the novel? Why?
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did nathan price's demise surprise you at all? do you wish you'd ever gotten his narrative or was his portrayal through other people enough for you?
Actually it did! I thought he'd just disappear into the bush and never be heard of again - the family left to wonder how he died. The fact that they learned his life post-family, and his demise, was another way to show us the closely-knit life in those communities, how people know of each other. His demise was in contrast to the other priest before him (one attracted children, the other repelled them).
I didn't feel like I needed a narrative for himself; I thought the point was to use only female points of views in an ironic way to show up the Bible's male-only gaze. Plus, they were all fairly in agreement as to what a bastard he was!
did adah's recovery disappoint you? inspire you?
I don't think her recovery was given enough time. Who was this fellow student who helped her recover? I can't remember a thing about him. It seemed like something major in her life, and the image of her crawling around her flat was quite striking... I think I wanted to learn more about that, her feelings and whether she felt anything resembling love to this man.
Adah in general fit my perception that she was some kind of harbinger of death. Her choice to work with viruses cemented this. She and Leah are probably Scorpios (the sign that can either mean spiritual rebirth or obsession with biological termination) - I'd be curious to actually find out if Kingsolver knew when were the birthdates of all her characters! (how deep was her research?)
no one in the family was able to let africa go after ruth may's death. whose reaction did you most understand? least?
I understand all of their reactions: it was such a traumatic, transformative experience - like a trauma or a birth - that it was impossible for them to escape it. I suppose it was strange that Rachel stayed behind, though she did explain that she couldn't face America again and explain to them what she had suffered. Her passages in South Africa interested me because that was the period my father moved there, met my mom in Brasil and then I was born. From what my parents tell me South Africa was exactly like that - a lot of white (and often racists) living wealthy lifestyles that they wouldn't be able to have if back in their home countries.
I liked Leah's choices and decisions the best - her narrative was the most satisfying to me because it had that love story at its centre which was redemptive and beautiful.
do you see any change at all in rachel, from start to finish?
Yes, for the worse. Perhaps she was handed bad cards, or didn't know how to make the right choices, but her life was ultimately the worse one out of the three surviving sisters (though perhaps the wealthiest?) I suppose she wouldn't think she had had a bad life.