Lisa's review
recommended for:
anyone with a heart for Africa, anyone thinking about becoming a missionary
status:
Read in November, 2007
** spoiler alert **
I think I will start with my thoughts about Africa and then go from there.
This quote particularly stood out to me:
"No other continent has endured such an unspeakably bizarre combination of foreign thievery and foreign goodwill."
- Adah Price
I have long had a heart for this continent. Before I ever thought about marriage I always kind of imagined going there and trying to do something to help the people. Even before I became a Christian. It just doesn't seem fair that so many people have to suffer so much.
I remember briefly wanting to become a doctor or nurse (and then the urge for the legal profession came back to me) and work in a clinic there.
When I did become of an age where marriage was something I was thinking about I started doing research on diamonds and diamond mining. I soon learned of the attrocities that have occured in Sierra Leone, Côte d'Ivoire, Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, etc. I just could not bring myself to own something th...more
I think I will start with my thoughts about Africa and then go from there.
This quote particularly stood out to me:
"No other continent has endured such an unspeakably bizarre combination of foreign thievery and foreign goodwill."
- Adah Price
I have long had a heart for this continent. Before I ever thought about marriage I always kind of imagined going there and trying to do something to help the people. Even before I became a Christian. It just doesn't seem fair that so many people have to suffer so much.
I remember briefly wanting to become a doctor or nurse (and then the urge for the legal profession came back to me) and work in a clinic there.
When I did become of an age where marriage was something I was thinking about I started doing research on diamonds and diamond mining. I soon learned of the attrocities that have occured in Sierra Leone, Côte d'Ivoire, Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, etc. I just could not bring myself to own something that doesn't even have any real value and has caused so many people such pain. So when Stephen proposed I asked that he donate money to World Relief, one of the many organizations working to help people recover from the civil wars and other problems in Africa. And when we got married we chose simple bands without much adornment.
OK. Sure. I see other really beautiful rings and I want one. I like how they sparkle and sometimes I question myself or what other people think. But reading this book confirms it for me that I did the right thing. Not that this book really focuses on the problems that diamonds have created or even really goes into it, but it still reminded me of them.
I think the second thing about this book is that never before have I read something that came close to representing the craziness that was my childhood. And the fact that there were four girls and a mother all telling it from different perspectives.... This book, along with Jung Chang's Wild Swans really made me want to gather up all of my sisters' perspectives and tell our story.
But somehow I don't think I could even begin to tell it as eloquently or with the woven-in poetry like this book has. There are so many little literary gems in this book that just keep you wanting more to devour.
I think Kingsolver does a very good job of differentiating between each character. There wasn't a single point where I was lost as to which character's perspective I was getting, even without the names. I usually tend to skip over headings when I am reading (I think it is a leftover studying tatic to get more information in or something), so often I wouldn't even really "see" which of the four girls was talking, but I would know usually by the first or second sentence because they were so distinct.
Rachel is very superficial and concerned about things that I can't even imagine being concerned about if I were in her position. And yet by the end of the book you sort of grasp that maybe she isn't completely shut off in her uppity little world. Make no mistake, these circumstances have had an impact on her life:
I had my bags packed more than once. But when push came to shove I was always afraid. Of what? Well, it's hard to explain. Scared I wouldn't be able to fit back in is the long and short of it. I was only nineteen or twenty at that time. My high school friends would still have been whinning over boyfriends and fighting for carhop jobs at the A&W. Their idea of a dog-eat-dog world was Beauty School. And now here comes Rachel with stained hair and one dead sister and whole darn marriage behind her already, not to mention hell and high water. Not to mention the Congo. My long tramp through the mud left me tuckered out and just too worldly-wise to go along with the teen scene. "What was it like over there?" I could just hear them asking. What would I say? "Well the ants nearly ate us alive. Everybody we knew kept turning up dead of one disease and another. The babies all got diarrhea and plumb dried up. When we got hungry we'd go shoot animals and strip them of their hides." Let's face it, I could never have been popular again at home. The people I'd always chummed around with would stop speaking to you if they so much as suspected you'd ever gone poo behind a bush.
Meanwhile Leah is so stubborn and strong willed, much like her father. Adah rambles on in her strange way, but it does a part in telling the story. And Ruth May is the childish voice, so innocent. Always innocent.
By hearing the story sort of in retrospect from each sister and their mother, the story unfolds slowly, drawing the reader in. You get a better sense of how deeply the circumstances have shaped their lives. Much better I think than if the book had been told from the all knowing narrator position with the author describing how each sister felt or what they had to face. This way you get inside each of their heads to know how they really feel.
I saw bits of myself in each girl and how they handled things. I can look to certain situations in my life and see how I handled it similarly to how any one of these girls handled it. I really get a sense and understanding of what they are going through and how they react seems a resonable response.
I think there is a lot of significance in the title and how little effort Nathan Price put into understanding the culture of these people. This book is definitely a "how not to be a good missionary" guide book in my opinion. There were times when I just wanted to reach into the pages and shake the man.
I also thought it particularly interesting how the author chose to depict Nathan Price's demise and how the girls connect it to "The Verse" punishments that he doled out.
All in all I loved this book.
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The Poisonwood Bible 
