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A review by jade_smith
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
dark
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Quite simply, I'm in awe of Barbara Kingsolver's ability to tell a story. Each of the characters in this book had such a distinct character voice -- I don't think I've ever read a novel that balanced adajcent character POVs so masterfully. The development of the way these women understood the world around them (and indeed the refusal to understand the world around them in the case of Rachel) felt true to life, and provided a grounded core for a intricate piece of historical fiction.
I've been obsessed with Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" ever since I read it in high school because of it's complex position as a piece of early post-colonial literature written from a (contemporaneously) critical Western perspective. "The Poisonwood Bible" is the successor that I've been unconsciously searching for since then -- a rich and raw examination of Africa's interior, grounded in themes of womanhood, community, and exploitation of power. Kingsolver's descriptions of nature are just as vivid as Conrad's, evoking the humid extremes of the Congo. But, Kingsolver's work is also self-conscious in an immensely important way -- it understands discourses of whiteness, and mythologies of the so-called civilised West. It centers women, and quite justly draws together ideas of racism, misogyny, and class oppression as different heads of the same beast. The villain is not the dark of the Congo, and the problem is not individual men driven to madness by the darkness, but rather it is systems, invented, controlled and perpetuated by Western hegemony. This is something that I believe Kingsolver characteristically does well -- she understands the role of systems in a broken society.
This is one of those rare books that make me want to sit down and write an essay about it. The word I keep coming back to is "rich", because that's what this novel is. From the characters, to the prose, to it's malleable moral compass and multitude of themes, "Poisonwood Bible" is quite simply, very, very good.
Also, any work of fiction that comes with a two-page bibliography at the back instantly has my heart.
I've been obsessed with Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" ever since I read it in high school because of it's complex position as a piece of early post-colonial literature written from a (contemporaneously) critical Western perspective. "The Poisonwood Bible" is the successor that I've been unconsciously searching for since then -- a rich and raw examination of Africa's interior, grounded in themes of womanhood, community, and exploitation of power. Kingsolver's descriptions of nature are just as vivid as Conrad's, evoking the humid extremes of the Congo. But, Kingsolver's work is also self-conscious in an immensely important way -- it understands discourses of whiteness, and mythologies of the so-called civilised West. It centers women, and quite justly draws together ideas of racism, misogyny, and class oppression as different heads of the same beast. The villain is not the dark of the Congo, and the problem is not individual men driven to madness by the darkness, but rather it is systems, invented, controlled and perpetuated by Western hegemony. This is something that I believe Kingsolver characteristically does well -- she understands the role of systems in a broken society.
This is one of those rare books that make me want to sit down and write an essay about it. The word I keep coming back to is "rich", because that's what this novel is. From the characters, to the prose, to it's malleable moral compass and multitude of themes, "Poisonwood Bible" is quite simply, very, very good.
Also, any work of fiction that comes with a two-page bibliography at the back instantly has my heart.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Cursing, Death, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Police brutality, Medical content, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Murder, Pregnancy, War, and Classism