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The Poisonwood Bible A Novel Barbara Kingsolver 9780060786502 Books

Download As PDF : The Poisonwood Bible A Novel Barbara Kingsolver 9780060786502 Books

The Poisonwood Bible A Novel Barbara Kingsolver 9780060786502 Books

So many people are judging this book based on their personal feelings about a certain subject, mostly Christianity or America. But I'm giving my review based on the story and writing. Both were excellent. It was a great story and it made you question everything you've ever thought or believed. Did BK have an agenda, of course. It was obvious. But it didn't sway my opinion of the writing or the story. There are two reasons I'm not giving this a 5 star. 1 - she contradicts her agenda more than once. At times Africa is nothing but innocent, then she goes on to tell stories of how they kill and maim, and are just as human as everyone else on the planet. 2 - I feel, and quite frankly this is a first for me, that she took the story too far. Reading on a kindle, I don't know how many pages a book is. And I love that. Some books will seem daunting based solely on their size, It can discourage a lot of people from reading it. (Example, Cutting for Stone - for me 5 stars and still my favorite book to date) But I digress. I still felt she could have wrapped up this story after they left the village but before we got fully engulfed into their adult lives - that portion just didn't capture me as a reader. All said, it was an excellent read and I will recommend it as one of my favorites.


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The Poisonwood Bible A Novel Barbara Kingsolver 9780060786502 Books Reviews

This came to me as one of the "got to read this book some time in your life" and I agree. Poignant, incredibly perceptive with its occasional glimpses into African, world and religious politics of the day (gave me a different view of colonial Africa I can tell you!), beautiful writing and very real characters that just carried me along. Emotionally engrossing - I wanted to slap him and carry them all away....
This book started slow for me, but it soon began to capture my attention. The characters are well developed and very complex. The story is engrossing...the struggles of a white mission family in the Belgian Congo in the 1950's. It is told alternately by the wife and daughters of an pious but abusive husband and father. It follows the characters over several years and describes the impact that time in the Congo had on their lives as some return to the US and others remain in Africa through the rebellion and beyond.
This is a beautifully written book with inspired prose and deep insights. It looks at Africa and Africans with open eyes and a sensitivity to their heritage and culture. It also examines the role of missionaries in Africa, some of whom are good and some terrible. It is not a book for the deeply religious who cannot stand to see their own beliefs challenged or to acknowledge that there are other belief systems out there that are held just as dearly by their followers.

I would like to site some of my favorite passages.

I could never work out whether we were to view religion as a life-insurance policy or a life sentence.

Mama says their skin bears scars different from ours because their skin is a map of all the sorrows in their lives.

I pictured hands like those digging diamonds out of the Congo dirt and go to thinking, Gee, does Marilyn Monroe even know where they come from? Just picturing her in thr stain gown and a COngolese diamond digger int he same universe gave me the weebie jeebies. So I didn't think about it anymore.

God doesn't need to punish us. He just grants us a long enough life to punish ourselves.

Illusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet.

There are a lot of other passages and verbal images that I loved but I can't copy the whole book here. However, there is one last thing I want to say and this is a complaint.

Here is the quote
A parasite of humans that extinguished us altogether, you see, would quickly be laid to rest in human graves, So the race between predator and prey remains exquisitely neck and neck.

As always, it is impossible for people to understand evolution. This passage was supposed to have been said by a researcher at the CDC. It fails to understand that evolution is not forward looking. It is highly likely that this scenario has played out over the millennium for species that no longer exist. In fact, the Tasmanian devil is currently facing extinction from a viral form of cancer that fits this description. This kind of thing is more likely in small populations where genetic diversity is limited. Probably the human race has little to fear on this account.
I am very skeptical of books written about Africa by non Africans. I believe that our own people should be the voice of the continent. This is not the case with this book. It is an humorous, tragic, heart-rending, intricately woven tale. Kingsolver is phenomenally talented and her gift shines through the Poisonwood Bible. Several years after a good friend first lent it to me, it is still my most revered and recommended novel. This volume was a gift to my mother in law and I even liked the revised cover.
I teach this novel in a course for college juniors and seniors. I’ve just finished reading it for the fifth time. It remains one of my favorite contemporary novels, a brilliant, evocative, beautifully written tour-de-force. It is novel about experience, growth, the resiliency of women, the harshness of a world with little justice, and the inevitability of change. Set in the Congo of the the 1960s-1980s, it recounts the terrible history of imperialism, universal quest for freedom, and strength of tradition and spiritual bonds. The ultimate religion, Kingsolver believes, is the embrace of nature, and acceptance that we, too, are part of a living, biological world, past and present, whose muntu (being) we share.

My students love this novel. I look forward each time spring semester to rereading a wonderful book and introducing 20 or so undergraduates to Kingsolver’s work. Five stars (one for each of the five Price women).
So many people are judging this book based on their personal feelings about a certain subject, mostly Christianity or America. But I'm giving my review based on the story and writing. Both were excellent. It was a great story and it made you question everything you've ever thought or believed. Did BK have an agenda, of course. It was obvious. But it didn't sway my opinion of the writing or the story. There are two reasons I'm not giving this a 5 star. 1 - she contradicts her agenda more than once. At times Africa is nothing but innocent, then she goes on to tell stories of how they kill and maim, and are just as human as everyone else on the planet. 2 - I feel, and quite frankly this is a first for me, that she took the story too far. Reading on a kindle, I don't know how many pages a book is. And I love that. Some books will seem daunting based solely on their size, It can discourage a lot of people from reading it. (Example, Cutting for Stone - for me 5 stars and still my favorite book to date) But I digress. I still felt she could have wrapped up this story after they left the village but before we got fully engulfed into their adult lives - that portion just didn't capture me as a reader. All said, it was an excellent read and I will recommend it as one of my favorites.