The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

⭐10/10

My goodness, what a book. I have said it before, but there are books that inspire me to get writing, and then there are books like this that make me want to give it up altogether. I could never do this! What an impressive example of beautiful prose meeting unfathomable research, brilliant insights with an artful touch. 

This is a story about an American missionary family travelling to 1960s Congo to convert a tribal people group that they don't understand. However, it's the overzealous father who drags his family there, but you only get the experience from the POV of his 4 daughters and occasionally his wife. It's definitely a book that focuses on the experiences of women as they process all the hardship and tragedy that unfolds around them. 

I will also add that this plotline takes up about 2/3 of the book, and the final third tells the story of the sisters after they leave. I don't think my description sounds super compelling, but this is a brilliant, brilliant book with super complex characters, an exploration of colonization, oppression, exploitation and corruption. I knew little of Africa's modern history, so I learned a ton reading this book and then scouring wikis after. 

I think a criticism might be that the book lacks a bit of subtlety when it comes to what Kingsolver values, her predominantly leftist, anti-colonial beliefs. I can be sensitive to preachiness, but I never really felt that here. Maybe it's because these characters were so well realized, or because she helped me understand the human element of all of this, but more likely it's because I found her case super compelling! She made a convert out of me! I think the most glaring example of this was the progression of one of the daughters who is harmlessly ignorant to begin, but it devolves into a racism that is so incredibly familiar if you've ever talked to someone with this attitude, taking all the wrong lessons from very real lived experiences. 

This book reminded me a bit of No Country for Old Men which I read recently, where it tells a fascinating story with an engaging plot, but then the author takes the last portion to lay out their view of the world in beautiful prose through their characters. Simply stated, I think Kingsolver is a brilliant mind with endless insights. It's hard to argue with her characters, and you see what they go through and everything seems so shallow in comparison. She acknowledges the multifaceted complexities to all of this, and how so many parties are to blame for all the suffering of a hurting nation. It's pretty bleak, but also garnered a desire for compassion for me.

But again, this isn't a history book and it's not an essay on the nature of being. It's a beautifully written novel that surely has a lot to say, but it didn't feel like a sermon to me. Actually, one last point on that I'll mention sermon-wise is that while I don't think this is an anti-Christian book, it certainly highlights how this misguided form of evangelism is destined to fail. Kingsolver certainly knows her Bible, but I was hoping some character would come to understand that Jesus makes promises that align so beautifully with her worldview! I highlighted this quote from a character:

I anticipate rewards for goodness, and wait for the ax of punishment to fall upon evil, in spite of the tears I've rocked in this cradle of rewarded evils and murdered goodness.

Well, Leah, I know a guy who promises to right all wrongs and dry all tears. It was a thought I kept coming back to in all this talk of senseless suffering - the very religion they abandon in this book promises to bring a final justice and a comfort for the least of these. Obviously I'm not hurt by her exclusion of the true Jesus, but I felt it a little ironic. 

This is a long review. But it's a good book that will challenge and stretch you and I couldn't recommend it more.