{"id":676,"date":"2004-10-24T13:38:51","date_gmt":"2004-10-24T18:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alevin.com\/?p=676"},"modified":"2004-10-24T13:38:51","modified_gmt":"2004-10-24T18:38:51","slug":"poisonwood-bible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/?p=676","title":{"rendered":"Poisonwood Bible"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Poisonwood Bible<\/a> is the Heart of Darkness, 100 years later, reversed, with some inverse Faulkner in the mix.
\nA missionary family moves to the Congo, just before the end of colonial rule. From the colonial\/southern gothic genre, Barbara Kingsolver inherits the trajectory toward doom; the family descends from darkly comic misadventure (birthday cake mix ruined) to escalating disasters, flood, vermin, plague, hunger, madness. Objects of affection are introduced in early chapters, and are destroyed one by one.
\nBut the moral of the gothic classics is inverted. Rather than miscegenation as the dark secret, interracial love is a redemptive force. The tragic outcome isn’t going native, it’s failure to recognize and adapt to a culture that is rich despite physical hunger.
\nThe writing in the different voices of the four female characters is strong, and carries the novel, along with the downward cascade of the plot. The transformation of the main characters in the crucible of African experience is moderately compelling, though somewhat schematic; the submissive wife who finally finds the strength to leave her brutal husband; the pious daughter who finally sees through her father’s illusions; the cynical daughter who learns a bit of hope, the shallow beauty who becomes a tough survivor and irredeemable racist. The women have some complexity; the men are cardboard cutout villains or heroes.
\nThe first two thirds of the book is an agonizing slide toward the dissolution of the family and transformation of the characters over 14 months. The last third rushes through 30 years in cartoon illustration of the author’s politics, and should have been cut by a good editor.
\nI read Poisonwood Bible at the recommendation of a friend. I think I want to read Achebe next on African tragedy when sufficiently brave. Things Fall Apart<\/a> is in an Amazon list next to Night<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Poisonwood Bible is the Heart of Darkness, 100 years later, reversed, with some inverse Faulkner in the mix. A missionary family moves to the Congo, just before the end of colonial rule. From the colonial\/southern gothic genre, Barbara Kingsolver inherits the trajectory toward doom; the family descends from darkly comic misadventure (birthday cake mix … Continue reading “Poisonwood Bible”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prDRq-aU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}