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Summary: One of the best books I've read
Review: I am an avid reader, particularly women's fiction. I have been a Kingsolver fan from her first novel. This book is her absolute best. Not only does she produce a fabulous story, her story-telling technique adds so much dimension to her characters. I could not put it down.
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Summary: Read This Book!!
Review: Rich and beautiful language combined with a fascinating and thought provoking story. Kingsolver knows her stuff, both in writing and in the history of the Congo/Zaire. The use of multiple narrators is extremely valuable. I have been waiting what seems years and years for a new Kingsolver novel, and this was more than worth the wait.
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Summary: A magically written piece of literature.
Review: I have read all of Barbara Kingsolver's previous novels and while I enjoyed them all, I feel this is her strongest and most powerful work yet. The characters in this book were so well developed that I could anticipate their thoughts and actions as I might those of a family member or close friend. I was transformed by this magic book and highly recommend it.
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Summary: Quite simply the best book I've read in years
Review: Transporting, mind-expanding, thought-provoking novel exquisitely written. Read it. I found the intense, evolving struggles within this family to be wonderfully vivid in all their disturbing intricacies.
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Summary: Definitely Her Best!
Review: I loved this book. Barbara Kingsolver perfectly evokes Africa in all of its complexities in each of the daughters' voices. I agree that she can oversimplify the politics, but when stripped down the politics ARE as brutally simple as she makes them.
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Summary: With patience, this book is worth reading.
Review: I had been anxiously awaiting this new Kingsolver novel and looked forward to delving once again in the Southwest culture which she brought to life so vividly in her previous novels.I was initially disappointed when I discovered that the subject of her new novel was Africa. It took a while for me to get into the "flow" of the book but when I did I was delighted. She made each character believably unique. My only criticism is that the final chapters became political lectures which were tedious and unnecessary.
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Summary: Wonderful story weaving until the preachy end
Review: As an audio book experience it was very rich. The different characters each had a cadence and speech pattern that was immediately identifiable. Rachel's malapropisms got wearying and Scarlet O'Hara - like. Adah's reading and talking backward fortunately stopped near the end of the book. The Congo has never interested me very much but after reading this book I'd be much more interested in reading more about it or even going there. The last quarter of the book is why I didn't give the book 5 stars: it is a diatribe of narrative completely unrelated to what has gone before. If I'd wanted a biased history lesson I'd have reached for nonfiction. All in all it was nice to have the 5 girls/women do the storytelling, even if Ms.Kingsolver never did get into the nitty gritty of how they handled first menstruations and other rites of passage that were oddly ignored in a novel rich with mundane uniqueness. I have read the author's other books and found this one to be a treasure. But next time Barbara, trust your readers to draw their own conclusions - even if they do not agree with yours!
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Summary: Grab your library card: Kingslover encourages more reading
Review: I find myself with the need to research. After completing Kingslover's The Poisonwood Bible, the library calls me for more reading. Perhaps this is an author's greatest accomplishment: to stir us to learn more. With a wonderfully sketched story of a missionary family in the heart of the Congo, Kingslover has brought to the forefront of her reader's mind a country which all to often escapes the page of history textbooks. In the literary sense, Kingslover has excelled. Her tale, told through the eyes of five individuals, is able to capture five different reactions and five different attitudes to life in the Congo. Therefore, Kingslover creates an almost omnicient story-telling capability. But, besides the story, politics seep into her writing, specifially in the final chapters. This is where I question her tale. This is why in feel the need to learn more. If Kingslover's goal was to send us to the library, in search of more information on the Congo; she succeeded. But, if this was meant to be an all-encompassing plot, heralding the history of the Congo, I am afraid she left too many questions in my mind. I desire to meet her after reading this book. There are so many symbols and theories that I fear I would need her explanation. But,my mind has been provoked. Thank you for a taste of a world so different from my own.
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Summary: Wonderful book, but not 100% complete
Review: I just finished this book and I loved it as I knew I would. The physical description of this part of Africa and its people was lovely in its detail and respect for the subject matter. I also enjoyed the way the book was written, through the voices of the different women. More than once I was moved to tears. Ms. Kingsolver is a terrific writer.I did have some problems with the simplistic politics. While I enjoyed the history lesson, it screamed for balance. Leah reminded me of so many white guilt types I found in college, as I studied international relations. I don't argue that the white man brought great despair to Africa, but please, we're not the source of all evil. Ms. Kingsolver's attempt at balance, the girls' reunion at the Abomey palace, wasn't enough. Leah cut the natives a bit too much slack when confronted by Rachel about all the death in that palace. World history is full of individual villains and saints and lots of people in between. Leah's worldview is too black and white and not big enough. The actions she railed against made sense to someone else. I'm not defending colonialism or despotism, I'm just saying that history tells many different stories. Who you are and what you have lived color what you remember and believe. In the author's world, the darker you are the more noble you are. The world is a little more complicated than that. Ms. Kingsolver's political voice in this book reminded me of Isabel Allende in The House of the Spirits, another great book. Her description of Salvador Allende was just a little too whitewashed to believe. The book is great, but don't let it define African history for you. The story must be more complicated than presented in this book.
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Summary: Cultures in confrontation, religion/obsession, language love
Review: I began with "The Bean Trees" not long after it was published, and I've been a devotee of Barbara Kingsolver ever since -- even "High Tide in Tucson." "The Poisonwood Bible" is a quantum leap -- in language, in complexity of characters and setting and story, in depth of theme. It's a BIG book, and it took control of my mind, my imagination for nearly a week. The story of a Free Will Baptist preacher and family who go to the Congo in 1959 for a missionary year driven by the father's towering obsession and blinding ignorance, the novel is a series of overlapping monologues/soliloquies by the missionary's wife and her four daughters. What I always find compelling about Barbara Kingsolver is the depth of her truth-telling about human lives and incidents both minute and earthshaking. In "The Poisonwood Bible" she has stretched her truth-telling even further, to profound themes of contact/conflict/otherness; social justice issues of race, poverty, colonialism, greed, and ignorance; and the ways our lives interconnect across time and space. It's brilliant -- something like a cross between "As I Lay Dying" and Dostoevsky, with some Nabokov for flavoring. The language is intoxicating, and the spell continues.
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