Pigs in Heaven

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Summary: A Tapestry Of Woven Characters and Plots
Review: A Tapestry of Woven Characters and Plots I am very impressed with Barbara Kingsolver's ability to cleverly link most of the characters and plots presented in Pigs in Heaven. Everything is so intricately webbed together that the idea of linkage represents a great deal of symbolism in the novel. Fate rules the outcome of the story at the start of Chapter Two. The plot spills like a domino effect right after Taylor decides to turn the car around and listen to Turtle. Saving Lucky Buster prompted Turtle to be seen on Oprah by Annawake Fourkiller. Annawake then assumes and comes to find out that Turtle's adoption is in fact illegal, and the whole idea of the Nation having jurisdiction over child custody proceedings becomes a huge ordeal in the book. The fact that the Cherokee nation is such a unified tribe comes to our attention very often. Annawake says that family is the heart of the tribe. She states that the Cherokees love their children more than money. We soon come to find out that everyone in the tribe is related in some way or another to everyone else. Alice comes to notice that there is a tight bond between the generations on the reservation when she visits her friend Sugar. Alice feels accepted for the first time while she is in Heaven. She sees children respecting their elders with huge amounts of love and politeness, and children being shared from one mother to the next. As Sugar explains, the families themselves stick together like glue. Very rarely do you not see a plot of land with generations of an Indian family living together, "Well, because they'd just end up coming back anyway, because this is where the family is...listen, in the old days they didn't even go across the yard. They just added onto the house. When you married, the daughter and the husband just built another room onto her folks house"(220). The Cherokee Nation is one huge building block of generations. The existence of such a tight Cherokee family connection is the reason Cash feels totally lost in Jackson Hole. He is studied by fascinated tourists as if he were a freak of nature. Cash starts to regret his leaving the Nation, "It was a purely crazy thing for him to want to move up here two years ago. Oklahoma Cherokees never leave Oklahoma. Most don't even move two hickory trees away from the house where they were born"(114). He feels outcast and shamed and can easily identify with the pigeons who are displaced like he is in Jackson Hole. His heart draws him back to his family where his soul can be found. He is so incredibly linked to the tribe, that it is a security blanket for him: The massed reds flecked with gold are Indian blanket; Cash recalls this name with pleasure, like a precious possession lost and retrieved. He fixes the radio on the sweet, torn voice of George Jones and breathes deeply of the air near home(175.) The funny thing is that all of his immediate family is dead, his wife and his daughters, but he refers to those Cherokees even very distantly related to him as family. The idea that Cash is "found" by the Cherokees seems ironic. An individual is found by a community according to the tribe. One person versus many, the terms seem like opposites to me, but this is what Barbara Kingsolver was most interested in. In a documentary seen in class, Barbara Kingsolver says that one of the most intriguing connections is autonomy versus community in her books. The Cherokees feel that the individual is brought out among the community. A link exists between the self and the Nation. Everything is shared from children and homes to adoption decisions by the tribe. Another example of individual acceptance within the community is Boma Mellowbug. The Cherokees cherish the way she puts empty bottles on trees, in fact, the whole community gets involved and comes together to help create the bottle trees. The myth Annawake constantly tells others about the boys who wouldn1t listen to their mother has a linked meaning. The Indians see the six linked stars and refer to the constellation as the six pigs in heaven. White people see seven stars, the extra star Annawake said may be the mother who refused to let go of her children. Of course the mother portrayed in Pigs in Heaven who would do anything to keep her child was Taylor. Ironically, Taylor is then linked with the Cherokee myth. Whether there are six stars or seven stars the quantity of stars can be connected with the number main characters in the book; Alice, Taylor, Turtle, Annawake, Sugar, and Cash. Then in the end of the novel when Annawake decides joint custody would be the best alternative for Turtle, a sharing is being exchanged. In the end, the start of an acceptance between the Cherokee and the White people is being exerted.

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Summary: Who decides what is right?
Review: Barbara Kingsolver deals extensively with the importance of togetherness in a family in her book Pigs in Heaven. Through different twists and turns in the intricate plot she manages to have all of her characters end up being related to almost every other character in the book. She compares and contrasts the involvement of family in both the Cherokee nation as well as the white world. She demonstrates how togetherness even in the hardest of times help bring a person through a difficult situation. Kingsolver's using both obvious examples such as Alice's being separated from a number of husbands and Taylor's abandoning her devoted boyfriend to demonstrate how little the white society seems to value family. The first line of her book accurately describes this scenario throughout the whole book: "Women on their own run in Alice's family... Her husband, Harland is sleeping like a brick and snoring. To all appearances they are a home free couple sliding into their golden years, But Alice knows that's not hoe its going to go." (3 Kingsolver) However, when reading further into the book the reader gets a great sense of community when Alice and Taylor visit the Cherokee town Heaven. Everyone knows everyone else's family history, children, and especially gossip. Kingsolver stresses how important being close to family is in her description of the neighborhoods in the small town of Heaven. "It was Roscoe's mama's homestead land, sixty acres. Every one of them got sixty acres, back in the allotments. Most of them sold it or give it away, or got it stole out from them in some way. I don't know why she didn't, probably didn't get no offers. So we ended up here. When the kids each one got big, we told them to find a place to set a trailer house and go ahead." (221 Kingsolver) Family is the important theme that ties all of the characters together in the book. This is evident in the title which is the precedent for the book Pigs in Heaven. We learn of the story of the six pigs in heaven which is a constellation which both white and Indian people know. Constellations are connects to other stars just the way that family connects people. A star can exist alone just as any person can, but it is much more recognizable and beautiful if it is connects to other stars in a constellation formation.

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Summary: An entertaining and Page turning novel
Review: In the novel Pigs in Heaven, Barbara Kingsolver has demonstrated her outstanding ability to captivate the reader. However, this novel produces many controversial issues that are prevalent in the world today. The issue of Turtle, for example, is surfaced when Annawake comes across the young Cherokee, appearing on Oprah. This incident sets off a series of events that constructs the rest of this extraordinary novel. Kinglsolver uses common, everyday language in order to relate this story to her readers. The book's two main characters, Taylor and Turtle Greer, immediately captivate anyone who opens this novel. Even though there is an extreme moral dilemma about whether or not Turtle should stay with Taylor, the reader has the tendency to sympathize more with Taylor as opposed to Annawake. Annawake, a young lawyer, fresh out of law school, is very determined to keep the Cherokee nation intact. This determination partially comes from the loss of her twin brother Gabe, who was taken away by a white family. Unfortunately, these dilemmas went unanswered at the end of the novel. Although uplifting, the ending seems somewhat convenient and unrealistic. Overall this novel was a joy to read and I would be more than willing to recommend it to a friend.

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Summary: The Custody of Indian Children
Review: I recently read Pigs in Heaven for a twelfth grade english class and I found it very enjoyable. It was completely heartbreaking when Taylor Greer discovers that she may have to give up her adopted child, Turtle, whom is Native American. Turtle however, was literally given to Taylor after she had be sexually abused and could not walk or speak. I thought it was somewhat ironic that Native American tribes, such as the Cherokee tribe in Pigs in Heaven, can claim a child and take them back into their tribe after the child has been adopted by another family. When a Native American child is taken back, they are taken back by their tribe, not nessecairily their immediate family. Native Americans have many reasons to take a child back into their tribe. In this case, it was Annawake Fourkiller who brought it to Taylor's attention that Turtle's adoption papers may not be valid and that as recent as the 1970's, a third of all Native American children were taken from their families and put into white American homes. Annawake feels that this is one reason why Turtle may need to be with her tribe, the Cherokee Indians. However, Annawake seems to have internal angst against white families adopting Native American children because her twin brother, Gabriel, was taken out of their family when he was very young. These are two examples which I can agree with Annawake for wanting some justice. But I still cannot feel that it would be right if Turtle was to go back to the community which abused her and had given her up to a total stranger, which she has grown to know as her mother. Although it seems as if Taylor's world is ending as she drives across country, Pigs in Heaven has a promising ending. I discovered that this book shows the true importance of relationships and the complications that come along with them.

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Summary: disturbing the balance
Review: One of the key issues brought into light in Barbara Kingsolver's novel Pigs in Heaven, is the seemingly insurmountable problem of to whose care should a formerly abused child be placed under. With this question in consideration, the characters Turtle and Taylor come to mind. Due to Turtle's ethnic orgin, the young ambitious lawyer, played as Annawake Fourkiller, sees Turtle on TV with her adopted mother and has an epiphany. Not only is this her big opportunity as a lawyer to heighten her career and aspirin the pain of the loss of her brother, but she could help bring a sense of strength back to the Cherokee Nation. She plans on doing so by returning the diplaced Turtle back to where she belongs regardless of whether or not it would break Taylor and Turtle's spirits. This reoccuring theme is often brought up in everyday life. Often a child is raised for years by foster parents of different racial background but later taken away to be replaced with his or her biological parents due to fear that the child will lose touch with the richness of its' culture. On many occasions children have been placed back into the homes of abusive and/or irresponsible parents. Even though Pigs in Heaven did not end so tragically and instead has a rather pleasant ending, the issue remains.

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Summary: Beautifully written and enthralling
Review: This book was incredible, I love Kingsolver's writing style and I couldn't pull myself away from the story. I highly recommend reading it if you're the kind of reader that values beautiful, lyrical and descriptive writing.

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Summary: Makes you think past yourself
Review: This book is worth reading to help realize the signifigance of family history and culture and to see the possible difficulties (emotional and otherwise) in adopting a child from a 'different' culture. It may also make you realize how important your own heritage is, or should be!

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Summary: Why oh Why????/
Review: Some of my best anonymous work was deleted from the bean tree review page. That stuff was better than all of the serious reviews posted put together.

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Summary: Predictable and Sappy
Review: Stupid predictable book...don't waste your time or money

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Summary: Asi-asi
Review: Being a big fan of _The Bean Trees_, the blatant opportunity to get that "more" I was left wanting was irresistable. Did I like the book? Sure! Did I love it? Not exactly. The big mess that ensued cleaned itself up like an episode of "The Brady Bunch", and as nice and quaint as the romance between Alice and Cash was, it didn't thrill me. Taylor's constant fear of attachment to anyone but Turtle was simultaneously relatable and maddening. Annawake was given little chance to develop beyond one and a half dimensions, and all I want to say about Jax and Gundi is that I was left haunted by how simple infidelity can be. That scene made me fear for my then long-distance relationship, and I never quite liked Jax as much afterwards. The story itself was good enough, and as real as the characters all are, my appetite for their world was satiated.

However, I adore Kingsolver's style of writing. She really has a way of drawing me in with her stories, presenting characters who partake in political endeavors without seeming self-righteous, making me think about the world around me but still providing an enjoyable read. I would not recommend this book to anyone who hasn't read _The Bean Trees_, 99% of all men, or those who seek concrete realism in what they read. Kingsolver's storybook outlook on life is what makes me love her writing so much. I see no impossibility in living such an existence.

For the record: I do not find soaps entertaining, have never touched a romance novel, and never will. I still love Barbara Kingsolver's books. So there!