Looking Back - The Poisonwood Bible

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Fiction
1998 HarperFlamingo
Finished in March 1999
Rating: 4.5/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

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.

The novel is set against one of the most dramatic political chronicles of the twentieth century: the Congo's fight for independence from Belgium, the murder of its first elected prime minister, the CIA coup to install his replacement, and the insidious progress of a world economic order that robs the fledgling African nation of its autonomy. Against this backdrop, Orleanna Price reconstructs the story of her evangelist husband's part in the Western assault on Africa, a tale indelibly darkened by her own losses and unanswerable questions about her own culpability. Also narrating the story, by turns, are her four daughters—the self-centered, teenaged Rachel; shrewd adolescent twins Leah and Adah; and Ruth May, a prescient five-year-old. These sharply observant girls, who arrive in the Congo with racial preconceptions forged in 1950s Georgia, will be marked in surprisingly different ways by their father's intractable mission, and by Africa itself. Ultimately each must strike her own separate path to salvation. Their passionately intertwined stories become a compelling exploration of moral risk and personal responsibility.

Dancing between the dark comedy of human failings and the breathtaking possibilities of human hope, The Poisonwood Bible possesses all that has distinguished Barbara Kingsolver's previous work, and extends this beloved writer's vision to an entirely new level. Taking its place alongside the classic works of postcolonial literature, this ambitious novel establishes Kingsolver as one of the most thoughtful and daring of modern writers. 

My Original Notes (1999):

Very good! Marvelous use of four (sometimes five) different voices, allowing the reader insight into the main (female) characters. I was so impressed with Adah's voice! Found humor in the vain voice of Rachel. Horrified by the scene of the ant attack! Heartbroken with the losses... I was a bit disappointed with the last part of the book. It was more political and just not as interesting. But overall, a well-crafted novel. Unforgettable, insightful and masterfully written.

My Current Thoughts:

I enjoyed Kingsolver's earlier novels (The Bean Trees and Pigs in Heaven) and must have been very enthusiastic about the release of The Poisonwood Bible since I bought it in hardcover (something I rarely do now). I remember how much I enjoyed the alternating voices of the main characters and learning about political climate of the Congo in the late 50s, but I also remember how the narrative got bogged down toward the end. Nearly 550 pages in length, this is quite a chunkster, but it's a book that I've been meaning to reread for many years. I'm about to start reading Unsheltered (Kingsolver's latest novel) for book club, so maybe that will inspire me to reread this old favorite sometime in 2020.