Pigs in Heaven

Rating:
Summary: Two sides to every pig
Review: I love a book that can show me more than one side of an issue and have me come down on both sides at once. The issue is adoption. Is there any reason for an adopted child to be taken away from a loving parent when the child and the parent are clearly bonded to each other and the child has only bad and distand memories of her previous life? On first blush, no. On second blush, maybe. This book is a simple tale with two sides to the same story. Within it is told the Cherokee fable Pigs in Heaven. It too is told two different ways. I liked the fable and I liked this simple story with the easy lesson. I recommend "Pigs in Heaven."

Rating:
Summary: Not her best
Review: This book just didn't live up to The Poisonwood Bible in terms of character development and plot line. That said, there is some very interesting background about the Native American struggle to regain their cultural heritage and how that plays out against other challenges their tribes are facing. The storyline didn't seem very realistic to me (altough perhaps it is, given Kingsolver's penchant for detailed research)which was somewhat disappointing. She's an excellent writer but if you're only going to read one of her novels, this isn't it.

Rating:
Summary: Pigs in Heaven - an English view
Review: This book (along with The Bean Trees) came to me through the mail from a friend in Canada, otherwise I'd probably never have read it. As it happened, I'd recently finished a course in American History so I was ready for a perspective on the Native American situation. I hadn't appreciated its complexity and whilst I'd consider myself a liberal, I'd also come to care deeply for Taylor and Turtle, I'm a mother myself, and I was ready to kill anyone who tried to part them. Gradually this wonderful writer chipped away at my prejudices and got me inside the skin of a completely unfamiliar community.

What do I love about this book? It's unputdownable. It's full of memorable, beautifully realised characters. It doesn't write anybody off as too boring, too old, too screwed-up or too anything to have feelings and be fascinating. I've rarely come across a relationship more beautifully portrayed than the growing and richly deserved love between Cash and Alice. The ending made me want to run around the garden whooping. If it has any faults it's (a) an over-reliance on the long arm of coincidence but heck, Dickens did that as well and nobody blamed him for it and (b) a tendency to make the Indian characters maybe a little too likeable in the interests of political correctness. But both these pale into insignificance beside the beauties of this wonderful book.

I had no problem understanding why Taylor hung on so long before surrendering the child she thought of as hers - she'd become a mother, and she was damn stubborn. I like the way this book contrasted the individualism of the American Dream with the human need for more social connection without falling into trite and oversimplistic solutions. The wonderful chat between Jax and Anawaukee got this across very powerfully. And I understood why it only took a seemingly trivial thing to make Taylor finally give up her fight - but then I have a lactose-intolerant (and completely Anglo-Saxon!) child.

"The Poisonwood Bible" has just appeared over here and I hope we're going to hear a lot more of Kingsolver. We Brits might think the Indian issue isn't our business but we're postcolonials struggling to find our identity too. These themes are universal.

Rating:
Summary: A thought provoking book
Review: Barbara Kingsolver's Pigs In Heaven is a work of art which weighs individual concerns against community concerns. Should a Native American child be returned to her tribe at the age of six after having been adopted by a white woman three years ago? What about the child? What about the tribe? How could we tear a child from the arms of a loving mother? How could we tear a child from a tribe whose rich way of life is slowly dying? These questions and more are provoked and analyzed in this novel. All of us go in with pre-judgements, all of us will come out knowing that life is not that simple; we all need to have a sense of community, a group that understands us, pulls for us, is there for us to fall back on without making us feel ashamed of needing help. After reading Pigs In Heaven you may come out with the same opinion as you went in with, you may come out with a different opinion, but your opinion will be based on a thorough "thinking through" of the matter. This book, like all of Barbara Kingsolver's novels is incredibly well written in breathtaking detail. The characters are remarkably well-developed. The richness of Native American culture shines through as does the richness of the American Southwest and Midwest. Pigs In Heaven is a novel that deserves to be read and re-read, it justifies its own existence.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful book you must read!
Review: One early morning, with my coffee in hand, I picked up this novel and began to read...I could not put it down until late that night when I had finished! This is truly a masterpiece of literature. Barbara Kingsolver has proven yet again the value of her words. It is a great story of Native Americans trying to keep their people together, while a mother struggles to understand their ways, and find the best situation for her daughter Turtle. Beautifully written, with a fabulous ending where everyone wins. I wont give too much else away- just trust me and read this book, you wont regret it!

Rating:
Summary: Worth It
Review: When I began reading the book, I was a feeling a little disappointed that it just couldn't reproduce the perfection of The Bean Trees (admittedly a tough task). But for everyone who fell in love with Taylor and Turtle and wished the Bean Trees would never end, this is a wonderful continuation after all. Kingsolver does introduce a rather mind-boggling number of characters this time around, which slows the novel down in the middle, but I'd advise any reader to stick with it! I've always been interested in Native American families, and the later chapters in particular give a taste of life and people on a reservation that I doubt you could receive anywhere else, short of visiting one--It was magical and satisfying. The development of Alice, Taylor's mother, who was only given brief lines in the last book, was another incredible, enjoyable accomplishment by Kingsolver. If you read The Bean Trees--read Pigs in Heaven.

Rating:
Summary: Altogether a fabulous book!
Review: When a librarian suggested I try this book, I had no idea that I would get so much out of it. Wow! Most people who reviewed it said that it was really unimaginable that all the characters could be connected. This happens to me all the time. The only problem I had with the book was that I found it unimaginable that Taylor and Turtle would stay in such a dismal situation for so long and not even try to come home. Anyway, this is definitely worth your time.

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Summary: Social Issues Books With Unjust Endings Make For Bad Books
Review: There are two important parts to a good book: good style, and the actual plot/characters/themes part. Kingsolver ranks as above average in style and, other than the characters part, below average in the other part. If you're going to write a book about a social issue and compare it to a timeless issue like motherhood, frankly, the timeless issue better win out or your book's message stinks. I would have called it an utterly average book except for the awful ending, and I'm talking Dreamworks' The Haunting bad. Kingsolver's decent style is wasted because she forces her lame political agenda on us, and her lame political agenda isn't even an original lame political agenda, it's the same lame political agenda you can get from any so-called 'liberal' and I assure you this is not a republican writing.

Rating:
Summary: Unrealistic Characters
Review: I was fairly disappointed by "Pigs In Heaven." I was expecting much deeper writing, rather than the simplistic, primative style that Kingsolver adopts for this novel. Furthermore, I found the characters far too ideal; they were very unrealistic. It seemed as though Kingsolver had a very good plot and well drawn characters going for her until she decided to round off the corners and sand everything down. The book also came to a close far too neatly for my taste.

Rating:
Summary: Pigs In Heaven Was Heaven
Review: This was the second novel that I have read from Ms. Kinsolver. "Animal Dreams" being the first one. I found the novel well written at times and a little boring at others. It's about this 6-year old girl who discoveries that a boy had fallen down a hole near the hoover dam. When people found out that she had told the truth, she became popular and was feautured on the "Oprah Winfrey Show". Doing this, an attorney finds out and realizes that there's a chance that Turtle (the daughter) was never legally adopted. This story goes back to the first book, "The Bean Trees" Taylor (her mother) had adopted her after a lady coaxed her into taking her. It was a cherokee baby girl and now that Taylor realizes this she decides to fled the place that Turtle has known and everyone she knows as well...