The Poisonwood Bible
Where to buy The Poisonwood Bible books online?
Product Description
The Poisonwood Bible is a tale told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Fee, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family tree and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they judge they will need from home, but soon find that all of it—from garden seeds to Scripture—is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family tree’s tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.
The novel is set against one of the most dramatic political chronicles of the twentieth century: the Congo’s fight for independence from Belgium, the murder of its first elected prime minister, the CIA coup to install his replacement, and the insidious progress of a world economic order that robs the fledgling African nation of its autonomy. Against this backdrop, Orleanna Fee reconstructs the tale of her evangelist spouse’s part in the Western assault on Africa, a tale indelibly darkened by her own losses and unanswerable questions about her own culpability. Also narrating the tale, by turns, are her four daughters—the self-centered, teenaged Rachel; shrewd adolescent twins Leah and Adah; and Ruth May, a prescient five-year-ancient. These sharply observant girls, who arrive in the Congo with racial preconceptions forged in 1950s Georgia, will be marked in surprisingly different ways by their father’s intractable mission, and by Africa itself. Ultimately each must strike her own separate path to salvation. Their passionately intertwined tales become a compelling exploration of moral risk and personal responsibility.
Dancing between the dark comedy of human failings and the breathtaking possibilities of human hope, The Poisonwood Bible possesses all that has distinguished Barbara Kingsolver’s previous work, and extends this beloved writer’s vision to an entirely new level. Taking its place alongside the classic works of postcolonial literature, this ambitious novel establishes Kingsolver as one of the most thoughtful and daring of modern writers.Amazon.com Review
Oprah Book Club® Selection, June 2000: As any reader of The Mosquito Coast knows, men who drag their families to far-off climes in pursuit of an Thought seldom come to any excellent, while persons familiar with At Play in the Fields of the Lord or Kalimantaan know that the minute a missionary sets foot on the fictional stage, all hell is about to break loose. So when Barbara Kingsolver sends missionary Nathan Fee along with his wife and four daughters off to Africa in The Poisonwood Bible, you can be sure that salvation is the one thing they’re not likely to find. The year is 1959 and the place is the Belgian Congo. Nathan, a Baptist preacher, has come to spread the Word in a remote village reachable only by airplane. To say that he and his family tree are woefully unprepared would be an understatement: “We came from Bethlehem, Georgia, impact Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle,” says Leah, one of Nathan’s daughters. But of course it isn’t long before they learn that the tremendous damp has rendered the mixes unusable, their clothes are unbefitting, and they’ve arrived in the middle of political disruption as the Congolese seek to wrest independence from Belgium. In addition to poisonous snakes, treacherous animals, and the lack of sympathy of the villagers to Nathan’s fiery take-no-prisoners brand of Christianity, there are also rebels in the jungle and the threat of war in the air. Could things get any worse?
In fact they can and they do. The first part of The Poisonwood Bible revolves around Nathan’s unyielding, bullying personality and his effect on both his family tree and the village they have come to. As political instability grows in the Congo, so does the local witch doctor’s animus toward the Prices, and both seem to converge with tragic consequences about middle through the novel. From that point on, the family tree is dispersed and the novel follows each member’s chance across a span of more than 30 years.
The Poisonwood Bible is arguably Barbara Kingsolver’s most ambitious work, and it reveals both her fantastic strengths and her weaknesses. As Nathan Fee’s wife and daughters tell their tales in alternating chapters, Kingsolver does a excellent job of differentiating the voices. But at times they can grate–teenage Rachel’s trend towards precious malapropisms is particularly annoying (students practice their “French congregations”; Nathan’s refusal to take his family tree home is a “tapestry of justice”). More problematic is Kingsolver’s trend to wear her politics on her sleeve; this is particularly evident in the second half of the novel, in which she uses her characters as mouthpieces to explicate the intricate and tragic history of the Belgian Congo.
Despite these weaknesses, Kingsolver’s fully realized, three-dimensional characters make The Poisonwood Bible compelling, especially in the first half, when Nathan Fee is still at the center of the action. And in her treatment of Africa and the Africans she is at her best, exhibiting the acute perception, moral engagement, and lyrical prose that have made her previous novels so successful. –Alix Wilber
Buy Cheap The Poisonwood Bible Online
Related posts:
This book was okay but I really can’t know all the tremendous hype. For my money (which isn’t much) the character I liked best was Nathan. The women were weak, simpering fools and, as a ex- reviewer noted, it is hard to identify with fools. I wish the leader had done more with Nathan. He was strong. A real man. I liked the way he dominated the women. But Kingsolver rarely let us see much of this enigmatic and fascinating man. Had the book all ears on the wonderful character of Nathan and his thoughts and feelings I probably would have agreed it five stars. But it was still an appealing tale.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
Please don’t buy this book unless you don’t mind 200+ pages of Anti-American, Pro-Communist diatribe! The first part of the book was okay, although I establish the voice shifts irksome after a while (okay, only Adah’s). Perhaps most tiresome, though, is the attempt to have the Fee family tree be the embodiment of all whites (the Prices were especially bigoted and ignorant).
(FYI, Barbara Kingsolver, not all Christians are evil missionaries. The last part of the book tries to imply that anything Christian is terrible.)
The second half, but, was highly annoying with it’s continual Anti-American sentiment. But amusing, too, because of the hypocracy of the leader: (1) Just because the Congolese do things differently than Americans doesn’t mean they’re terrible or stupid: they’re just different, so don’t judge. (2) Anything done the way of American norms is not Congolese and is therefore BAD
YOU CAN’T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS!!!
Perhaps the saddest thing was that I didn’t care a fig for what happened to the Fee women
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
As excellent as the writing style and character development is, Barbara Kingsolver uses the Poisonwood Bible as a vehicle to support a viscous murderer. Anyone who would purposely seek out the input of a cowardly murderer to critique their book doesn’t deserve to get it published, no matter how excellent it is.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
There is no way that there is more than 5 people out there that visit this site each day. There must be some prankster out there who keeps clicking on the “no, this review was not helpful’ button. Stop doing it or post your own reviews that I can object to of.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
This book was horrible I wouldn’t give it a 1 star but there is no zero don’t waste your time or money on it. It just drags. Yes the Congo was an vital part or the work history but putting it into the perspective of Christanity was too much….and slightly offinsive if you ar not a chirstian as I am not
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5