Book Review: Poisonwood Bible

A couple of days ago I finished reading The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I had entered into the book with some trepidation after seeing it on someones "worse books ever" list on Good Reads, but it is just proof that to each their own, as I found it interesting and compelling.

The Poisonwood Bible is the story of a Baptist preacher whon drags his wife and four daughters into Belgian Congo on a mission trip in 1959. It is told from the point of view of the women of the family (actually, mostly the daughters, while each section begins with a chapter, half narration, half philosophy and remembrance, by the mother). The father is a stubborn man, convinced of the superiority not only of the Lord and Jesus Christ, but also of his interpretation of Christianity, faith god's will, and his western ways.

The daughters are more or less, willing or unwilling, along for the ride. The family, of course, quickly discovers they had no idea what they were getting into, and they each deal with it in their own way. The youngest, Ruth May, sees it with a child's innocence and makes the best of it, loving to teach the children games and catching animals, not dwelling on the bad things. The eldest, 16 year old Rachel, despises the place and plays a stereotype- materialistic, racist, and ignorant, believing whatever the official story is and set on nothing more than returning to her own material comfort that she feels she deserves. The middle two, supposedly 15 years old, though to me Leah's section reads more like a 10 or 12-year-old each offer a unique voice. Leah is adventerous and eager to please, seeking approval from authority figures. Adah, a mute, is the closest the book has to an objective narrator, though of course she brings her own perspective as well.

The book was, of course, depressing. How could a book about the Belgian Congo (later Zaire, later Democratic Republic of Congo), not be depressing? There is a whole field of American history that is not taught, not publicized, that the average person does not even know exists - and it embodies among other things the horrible things that the American government did in the name of stopping "evil communism". Tearing down democratic regimes and replacing them with despots, as happened in the Congo and is discussed in the book, was par for the course. Arming rebels to start civil war was par for the course. Better a dictatorship than a socialist democracy was the theme. It was not until the 1990s that the U.S. begin to sing the policy of "freedom and democracy for everyone" so fervently. People do not know this. Die hard patriots do not think about this, about our historical hypocrisies and the way we destroyed so many lives. Some readers think that The Poisonwood Bible is too preachy, driving the point to far. If anything it does not drive it far enough. I wonder how many people read this book and still do not really understand the atrocity of what America did in this time period, the suffering we caused. It would be quite easy to read this book and focus so much on the personal tragedies and forget or lose the overarching tragedies.

Anyways, enough ranting. Some final quotations to finish off the post:

"Illusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet. They are what we call civilization" - Adah

"To live is to change, to aquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know" - The Mother