poisonwood
You know you've read a truly great book when you're contemplating picking up all your loot and running off half-naked into the jungle.
For some time, I've been both plauged by the bulldozing of America (my town for one, the entire nation for two), in which our amber fields of grain have been systematically steamrolled into endless, barren blacktops, shiny, metallic strip-malls or gawdy, unstable mini-mansions.
Yet, I know in my heart that I'm living so hunky-dorily in picturesque suburbia because, once upon a time, some enterprising chum decided to turn the farmland of central NJ into a town, and then a little later a money-eyes architecht built up all around this little town center, that resolved in the very house I'm sitting in. But am I supposed to feel guilty for living in a house? And going to the supermarket? I always have sort of shrugged, let the philosophical musings slip off my shoulders, and clicked on the widescreen HDTV in our basement to drown my ponderings in some form of electronic mindless entertainment.
I try not to let my status as a greedy American bother me too much, but I know it seeps through my blood. Just yesterday, I was lamenting that I barely earn anything working at Camp X where I work, where my friend who works at our temple's camp earns a whopping nine dollars an hour. And, I bet when you read that I only get $25 dollars a day, or about $3 an hour, you whimpered a little. Or felt annoyed. I do, too. It is annoying. But, honestly, then you think, why does it matter? We'll both be doing fine in the long run.
And that's where The Poisonwood Bible kicks in. For years, I've cherished Barbara Kingsolver-- she's been with me all throughout high school; I read The Bean Trees for the first time the summer before freshman year--and now, I figured, was an appropriate time to take the plunge and read her most "challenging" work (according to my mother). Everyone knows I devoured her other novels, which were peppy, light-hearted, and always very "You go, girl!" Yes, they too were quick to point out the faults of American life, and ran thick with political undertones. But, all-in-all, they had were a little more play and a lot less work.
The Poisonwood Bible is nothing short of a bible itself. Set in the unruly Congo in Africa, the Price family goes in 1959 as missionaries (per Reverand Price's fierce demand) and so the story unfolds. In it, Ms. Kingsolver provides nearly spiritual passages on all aspects of materialistic life as we know it. She uses the five very different voices of four daughters--the eldest materialistic and vain, the second brave and powerful, the third wise and wry, the fourth naive and uninhibited--as well as the narration of Orelenna, the suffering but determained mother, to weave together beautiful book, a fabric of so much breath-taking prose.
Barbara Kinsolver has long had a way with language. Give her a molehill, she'll describe to you the most beautiful and lyrical mountain. Everyday life becomes poetry in the sure hands of Ms. Kingsolver; she breathes wisdom of nature and the world into the simplest of daily matters. In describing a flower, a canyon, a broken plate, she is a master of words. But Poisonwood allows her to do something more. Here, she is not only using her mastery of the English langugage to describe nature; more, she's doing it to describe our existence, our way of living. The passages stick in your head, because they toss away all the extraneous fat and meat of daily life and give you the raw and naked bone of the issue. You can't forget some of the paragraphs you read, even though everyday life might be a little more peachier if you could.
For me, I feel this way most about a paragraph from the narration of Adah, my favorite daughter. She is the wise and wry child, who grows up to be a strong-willed and inspiring adult. (Like in Prep, I enjoyed seeing the entire span of the lives of the four daughters--from childhood to death or old age. You get the full portrait of a person, and the story of their lives, though not the whole story, is richly embedded in the pages.) Anyway, from the mouth of Adah, just after she has returned home in America for the first time since living in the Congo for over two years:
"It is impossible to describe the shock of return. I recall that I stood for the longest time starting at a neatly painted yellow line on a neatly formed cement curb. Yellow yellow line line. I pondered the human industry, the paint, the cement truck and concrete froms, all the resources that had gone into that one curb. For what? I oculd not quite think of the answer. So that no car would park there? Are there so many cars that Amierca must be divided into places with and placees without them? Was it always so, or did they multiply vastly, along with telepohnes and new shoes and transitor radios and cellophane-wrapped tomatoes, in our absense?
...The world seemed crowded and empty at the same time, devoid of smells, and extremely bright. I continued to stare at the traffic light, which glowed red. Suddenly a green arrow popped on, pointing left, and the row of cars like obedient animals all went left. I laughed out loud."
Besides examining materialism, race is also central to this book, mostly through my second-favorite sister, Leah. Leah, who loves and is loved by a black, African man, sees her white skin as a burden and a curse (it is). She remarks, "My skin glows like a bare bulb..." and causes her many unwanted stares and glares and feelings of hate. I know the way you feel, Leah. Sometimes, I too wish I were black or brown or anything but white so I could walk into an inner-city camp and not be treated like the white girl I am; so I could go to the places that Leah went and not be exiled the way she was, but I know I would be. And, as Leah states, we, the white race as a whole, should be scorned by the others for all the harm we have done. States Leah of her husband: "My white skin craves to be touched and held by the one man on earth I know has forgiven me of it."
If you are looking for an easy-breezy summer-fun beach read, maybe read another one of Barbara's fabulous books. Or read Prep, or Sloppy Firsts. By no means is Poisonwood light and cheery. But because it is none of these things, it leaves you with something much greater than just a chuckle or a smile. I honestly believe I have gained a greater wisdom and expanded my view of the world by reading this book. Which may be a testament to how short my view is, how narrow my binoculars are. Even so, I believe this book will have a profound impact on anyone. As Barbara Kingsolver concludes, so will I: "Walk forward into the light."
For some time, I've been both plauged by the bulldozing of America (my town for one, the entire nation for two), in which our amber fields of grain have been systematically steamrolled into endless, barren blacktops, shiny, metallic strip-malls or gawdy, unstable mini-mansions.
Yet, I know in my heart that I'm living so hunky-dorily in picturesque suburbia because, once upon a time, some enterprising chum decided to turn the farmland of central NJ into a town, and then a little later a money-eyes architecht built up all around this little town center, that resolved in the very house I'm sitting in. But am I supposed to feel guilty for living in a house? And going to the supermarket? I always have sort of shrugged, let the philosophical musings slip off my shoulders, and clicked on the widescreen HDTV in our basement to drown my ponderings in some form of electronic mindless entertainment.
I try not to let my status as a greedy American bother me too much, but I know it seeps through my blood. Just yesterday, I was lamenting that I barely earn anything working at Camp X where I work, where my friend who works at our temple's camp earns a whopping nine dollars an hour. And, I bet when you read that I only get $25 dollars a day, or about $3 an hour, you whimpered a little. Or felt annoyed. I do, too. It is annoying. But, honestly, then you think, why does it matter? We'll both be doing fine in the long run.
And that's where The Poisonwood Bible kicks in. For years, I've cherished Barbara Kingsolver-- she's been with me all throughout high school; I read The Bean Trees for the first time the summer before freshman year--and now, I figured, was an appropriate time to take the plunge and read her most "challenging" work (according to my mother). Everyone knows I devoured her other novels, which were peppy, light-hearted, and always very "You go, girl!" Yes, they too were quick to point out the faults of American life, and ran thick with political undertones. But, all-in-all, they had were a little more play and a lot less work.
The Poisonwood Bible is nothing short of a bible itself. Set in the unruly Congo in Africa, the Price family goes in 1959 as missionaries (per Reverand Price's fierce demand) and so the story unfolds. In it, Ms. Kingsolver provides nearly spiritual passages on all aspects of materialistic life as we know it. She uses the five very different voices of four daughters--the eldest materialistic and vain, the second brave and powerful, the third wise and wry, the fourth naive and uninhibited--as well as the narration of Orelenna, the suffering but determained mother, to weave together beautiful book, a fabric of so much breath-taking prose.
Barbara Kinsolver has long had a way with language. Give her a molehill, she'll describe to you the most beautiful and lyrical mountain. Everyday life becomes poetry in the sure hands of Ms. Kingsolver; she breathes wisdom of nature and the world into the simplest of daily matters. In describing a flower, a canyon, a broken plate, she is a master of words. But Poisonwood allows her to do something more. Here, she is not only using her mastery of the English langugage to describe nature; more, she's doing it to describe our existence, our way of living. The passages stick in your head, because they toss away all the extraneous fat and meat of daily life and give you the raw and naked bone of the issue. You can't forget some of the paragraphs you read, even though everyday life might be a little more peachier if you could.
For me, I feel this way most about a paragraph from the narration of Adah, my favorite daughter. She is the wise and wry child, who grows up to be a strong-willed and inspiring adult. (Like in Prep, I enjoyed seeing the entire span of the lives of the four daughters--from childhood to death or old age. You get the full portrait of a person, and the story of their lives, though not the whole story, is richly embedded in the pages.) Anyway, from the mouth of Adah, just after she has returned home in America for the first time since living in the Congo for over two years:
"It is impossible to describe the shock of return. I recall that I stood for the longest time starting at a neatly painted yellow line on a neatly formed cement curb. Yellow yellow line line. I pondered the human industry, the paint, the cement truck and concrete froms, all the resources that had gone into that one curb. For what? I oculd not quite think of the answer. So that no car would park there? Are there so many cars that Amierca must be divided into places with and placees without them? Was it always so, or did they multiply vastly, along with telepohnes and new shoes and transitor radios and cellophane-wrapped tomatoes, in our absense?
...The world seemed crowded and empty at the same time, devoid of smells, and extremely bright. I continued to stare at the traffic light, which glowed red. Suddenly a green arrow popped on, pointing left, and the row of cars like obedient animals all went left. I laughed out loud."
Besides examining materialism, race is also central to this book, mostly through my second-favorite sister, Leah. Leah, who loves and is loved by a black, African man, sees her white skin as a burden and a curse (it is). She remarks, "My skin glows like a bare bulb..." and causes her many unwanted stares and glares and feelings of hate. I know the way you feel, Leah. Sometimes, I too wish I were black or brown or anything but white so I could walk into an inner-city camp and not be treated like the white girl I am; so I could go to the places that Leah went and not be exiled the way she was, but I know I would be. And, as Leah states, we, the white race as a whole, should be scorned by the others for all the harm we have done. States Leah of her husband: "My white skin craves to be touched and held by the one man on earth I know has forgiven me of it."
If you are looking for an easy-breezy summer-fun beach read, maybe read another one of Barbara's fabulous books. Or read Prep, or Sloppy Firsts. By no means is Poisonwood light and cheery. But because it is none of these things, it leaves you with something much greater than just a chuckle or a smile. I honestly believe I have gained a greater wisdom and expanded my view of the world by reading this book. Which may be a testament to how short my view is, how narrow my binoculars are. Even so, I believe this book will have a profound impact on anyone. As Barbara Kingsolver concludes, so will I: "Walk forward into the light."