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Summary: 650 pages in 5 days
Review: I loved this book. I bought it while on vacation with my husband and 3 year old daughter and couldn't put it down. I read it front to back in 5 days!
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Summary: Unrealistic and historically inaccurate
Review: This book contains so many historical inaccuracies and untruths that it is barely tolerable reading. The author continually exploits cliches of race whether they apply or not just to manipulate the reader's emotions. Leave this book at home, and read "AFRICA", the true history is so much better than this weak fabrication.
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Summary: An exceptional piece of work
Review: Few novels have inspired me, enthralled me and captivated me like this one. The writing, as with all of Barbara Kingsolver's stories, is wonderful, and the story, though dark and heart-wrenching, underscores both the triumph of human courage and the author's progressive excellence as a writer.
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Summary: the poisonwood bible
Review: Growing up in the south and southern baptist, of course, I felt an immediate connection to the family and felt as though I had been transported to the congo to share in their lives. Barbara Kingsolver has done an outstanding job of bringing each character to life. By the time I had finished reading this book, it was as if I knew each character personally. Thanks Barbara for a great hit! I was sitting with pen in hand when Oprah announced this was her pick, but I had already recommended this book to my friends a few months ago. Cannot wait for your next novel!
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Summary: A vivid portrait of Africa
Review: This is an excellent book and paints a vivid portrait of colonial Africa. The descriptions are both colorful and perfect. The characters are especially well drawn and each is unique and memorable. Telling the story from the viewpoint of each of the women is a masterful touch and the author makes wonderful use of this device. I enjoyed reading about African politics and thought Kingsolver did a good job of weaving them into the story. The only reason I deducted a star was because the story seemed to go on for too long. Cutting back fifty to seventy-five pages would have made this book a perfect five-star read.
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Summary: good prose, PC pieties
Review: Barbara Kingsolver is a gifted prose writer with an unfortunate penchant for didacticism-- in the service of a multicultural agenda that I generally support, but which I find weakens her artistic achievement. A casual inspection of her work from, say, ANIMAL DREAMS to the present book suggests that she's becoming ever more polemical, ever more like Price in this novel, the fanatical preacher she so despises, only on the opposite end of the political spectrum. This increasing politicization is probably what attracted Oprah's cadre of self-appointed pundits, who, in their well-meaning effort to instruct the masses in literary taste, seem to have forgotten that the greatest literature has always been written in the service of truths far subtler than those black and white ones on which politics has purchase. If Oprah really wants to raise the bar of popular opinion, this is what she needs to lead her audience to see.
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Summary: Preachy False History
Review: I sampled this book recently because I heard Oprah chose it. I was frustrated by the lack of historical integrity. I felt preached upon by a story with a narrow and faulty point of view. If this was simply left as a piece of fiction I might have been able to swallow it. I write this review because a previous reviewer stated some of the same points. And I'd like others to know that it just isn't one persons' view. The book is well written trash, preachy at best!
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Summary: The poisonwood bible excellent!
Review: interesting story, very different from the other kingsolver books but one of her best.
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Summary: Fascinating!
Review: A Missionary and his family in Africa. The author combines religious zeal, politics, rebels, war, separation and survival into a moving, graphic tale of redemption. Alternately tragic, harsh, yet beautiful. Highly recommended reading. You won't be able to put this book down.
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Summary: NO ANTIDOTE NEEDED FOR POISONWOOD BIBLE
Review: This is the first book I have read by Barbara Kingsolver and, like many other readers, became an immediate fan. I love to read books that take me places where I've never been before and probably will never get to in my lifetime. In Poisonwood Bible, the location is the Belgian Congo and is set in a time when the people of the Congo are seeking independence from Belgium. The novel covers a span of almost 40 years following each of the characters' lives, thoughts, up and downs, and finally their discovery of self and their strengths. Nathan Price, a missionary, has been sent to convert the heathens in the Congo and brings his wife and four daughters along on his mission. They move from Georgia to the Congo and the scene in which they are packing what they'll need while there is nothing short of a comedic routine. Just picture leaving "junior league" Georgia -- destination "the jungle". I keep remembering the scene where they are told to pack very little so they decide to layer their clothing in order to be able to bring more attire than they could fit in their suitcases. One of the daughters is layered about 5 deep so you can just imagine how hot she is upon her arrival in the Congo. Kingsolver's descriptions of the heat, destitution, disease, insects and overall political unrest are unparalleled. The plight of the mother Oleanna and her four daughters is told through their own voices chapter by chapter. This is a writing style that I particularly enjoy. Since no voice is given to the father, the reader is left to dislike him intensely as he is protrayed as a religious fanatic as well as a domineering and tyranical husband. The correlation between the African slaves and the obedient wife who becomes a slave to her callous husband's idealogies is duly noted. There is so much depth to this book that you will find yourself writing down quotes from the book from time to time. While it's sometimes hard to keep a reader's interest going in a book of this magnitude, Kingsolver does it masterfully. Having known nothing of the author prior to this reading, it was obvious throughout that she was making a political statement. I was glad that my eyes were opened to the travesty that exists in this other part of the world. If I have one complaint about the book, it is in the author's note where she is acknowledging individuals for their help and refers to Mumia-Abu-Jamal and states "he read and commented on the manuscript from prison; I'm grateful for his intelligence and courage." She obviously didn't add that he is on death row, convicted of killing a Philadelphia policeman some years ago. This one sentence clouded my ultimate enjoyment of the book before it even started as I can picture the widow and children that this cop left behind. Politics aside, it is a masterful work by a talented and gifted author.
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