The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel

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Summary: Letter to a sister
Review: You really have to start reading some of the great contemporary novels, which deal with one's childrens' fates, and how they interact with ours, and after a few of them, you start to realize, there are people out there who have been through it, really been through it, just as we are going through it. I suggest Barbara Kingsolver and Iris Murdoch, for instance. At first you think "WHAT?" but then you find out, they know what it is to endure marriage and child-raising, and THEY HAVE SEEN IT ALL. It's so important to read. Otherwise we think that we are keeping secrets that must not be revealed, for shame. But believe me, we women in-the-thick-of-it-with-not-much-time-to-read are not alone. There are those who broke through and wrote books for us. We owe it to them to read their books! This is one of those books.

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Summary: I sympathize with the character of Rachael
Review: Of all the characters that were profiled in THE POISONWOOD BIBLE I felt that Rachael got to me the most. Her self-centeredness and inability to grow is reflected in alot of women I know today. Kingsolver has forced me to reach deep within myself: which way would I have handled that Congo experience? Pride keeps me from admitting that I may have acted like the materialistic and vain teenager who was always pining for the vapid things that fill up one's life - an yet...don't each of us have a little of Rachel's ugly, superior attitude in us?

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Summary: A fascinating read, weighed down by a father's insanity
Review: This is an ingenious look at many American's ethnocentric view of the world and insecurity made apparent by the inability to accept differences. When an obsessively rightous father fails to impose his values on a different culture he is unable to adjust and goes insane. Luckily his all-female, dependent family finds their own ways to adjust when is becomes obvious that they must to survive. Ms.Kingsolver seems to have a political and religious ax to grind, although she does balance the renegade "Baptist's" dogma with a Jesuit priest who understands the locals. It saves the book from making a complete mockery of Christianity. It will be interesting to contrast the comments at the Episcopal Church's book club in July with my mostly Jewish bookclub discussion next winter.

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Summary: Weak, At Best
Review: I have to say, first off, that I loved Kingsolver's earlier novels. But this diatribe, masquerading as a novel, left me cold and bored. I didn't think the characters ever evolved--instead, they came upon right and wrong answers in completely predictable ways. Yes, the politic ideology is mine. But I don't want to have it parading around in the guise of a story. I felt Kingsolver's complete disinterest in Reverend Price was disheartening, at best. He was no more than a pasteboard Bogeyman. And her grasp of Baptist religious rites was woefully inadequate. Why would a Baptist minister quote the Apocrypha? And why would he be interested in baptizing children? The lower churches, like the Baptists, consider baptizing only an external mark of an internal conversion--and therefore unnecessary for "eternal life." Furthermore, the last three books of her novel, once the Rev. Price is missing, devolve into a hideous set of "tellings." I am constantly told "what has happened," not allowed to experience it as an upfront narrative. I simply felt that Kingsolver may have believed she has outgrown the need for a good editor. Someone needed to bring a sharp pair of pruning sheers and a good sense of narrative development to the project.

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Summary: tired
Review: This book was a major disappointment to me. The first hundred pages were slow and hard for me to get into. It got more interesting around the middle but ended horribly with boring, trite, and preachy politics along with a lot of guilt. The historical background on the African Congo was a good history lesson for me, but not enough of a reason to suffer through it. Yawn.

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Summary: Highly improbable with some factual inaccuracies
Review: Ms. Kingsolver obviously has an agenda to bash evangelicals, most men and American conservatives while whitewashing the virtues of Marxism,animism and anticolonialism. Granted that some men have probably sacrificed their families in the pursuit of saving their own souls, as she had the pathetic Nathan Price portrayed, but I find it impossible to believe that anyone could be dedicated to serving humanity and God to the absolutely total exclusion of any feelings or concerns for his family as had Mr. Price. She was very impressive with her knowledge of the Congo and world politics, but I would point out that smallpox was eradicated from the world in the mid 1970's' while the book depicts the disease as having been present in Angola in the mid 1980's. The story was very fascinating when told from the perspectives of the different women in the Price family (I guess the message is that men don't have feelings that matter since there were no first person narratives except of women). A very interesting, even exciting but distorted and unrealistic.

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Summary: LISTEN to The Poisonwood Bible. The narrator is amazing!
Review: Not since I listened to Angela's Ashes narrated by its author have I felt that the audio version was superior to that of the written. This is an audiobook that made me want to do long errands in my car, or take longer walks with my walkman just to have more time listening to this beautiful book. The narrator's subtle changes in the soft Georgian accents of the characters makes this book a great "listen". Don't miss it!

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Summary: This book will be a classic some day--soon.
Review: Barbara Kingsolver brings her typical finely-honed writing to Poisonwood, along with humor and her social conscience all in one. Even if you don't agree with everything she says, you have to love how she says it. Five hundred years from now Kingsolver will still be read, and, I'm guessing, best-known for The Poisonwood Bible.

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Summary: Nothing short of brilliant
Review: I have read all of Kingsolver's other novels and enjoyed them, but I was not prepared for the sheer brillaince of Poisonwood Bible. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and her writing is for lack of a better word, brilliant, and on so many levels. The book is narrated by five distinct voices, not unlike the Bible, and when you put them together, you realize you still don't have the whole truth on what happened. One of Kingsolver's messages is that story telling is difficult, words are difficult, and that even actual experience will not allow you to know all that is happening around you. It is the writer's dilemna in novel form. So much is happening in Poisonwood, in so many ways. It's a novel about sisters, about families, about Africa, about religion, about truth, about stories and ultimately, about love.

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Summary: Kingsolver's Best Yet!
Review: Once again Barbara Kingsolver shrugs off conventional storytelling to refresh the reader with an original plot. I loved the mystery that runs throughout the book. Barbara, keep writing!