The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver tells the story of a missionary family in Congo during a politically polarizing and tumultuous period in the 1960s.   Kingsolver alternates points of view in this book among the mother and four daughters, which is not a style I care for much, but it does really get us inside the heads of each of the female characters and since the male gaze is so prominent in much of literature, it was a nice change of pace. The characters were not perfect and there was a time or two I wanted to hit the (fictional) oldest daughter in head to knock some sense into her, but I liked the reality of imperfect people as Kingsolver wrote them.

It's hard to read literature about colonialism without wondering about all the baggage the author is bringing along to it.  This novel presents a definite perspective on American interference in the politics of other countries (very bad), the role of missionaries (sometimes well-intentioned, but always patriarchal and bad), Christianity (always butting into perfectly adequate faith structures and interfering unnecessarily), and the role marriage plays in women's lives (can possibly be okay, but usually constrains women so badly they cannot realize their full potential).  I think I can live with Kingsolver's political viewpoints, but I suspect many cannot.

What I struggled with was how the Price women always knew what was going on politically in this very isolate village. There was always someone breezing in with the latest news or the girls were eavesdropping on a radio, even though we were told travel was very difficult and there was only a radio for one in every ten thousand people.  It was sooooooooooooo exposition heavy that I just found myself wondering when McGonagall was going to award ten points to the village teacher.  It was a lazy writing trick from an author who is generally not lazy.

I do find myself thinking about this book days after I've finished it, though. I think about the role of colonization in the world economy of today, I wonder what happened to tiny little villages in Congo after the civil unrest, and I think about my friends who are doing missionary work in Thailand and how much I would like to shake them into thinking about what they are really doing. In other words, it's a thoughtful book.  I am glad I read it. If you want to read a book told from a female perspective with a wide variety of types of women, go ahead and get this novel. If you're not into bluntly political perspectives, maybe let this one stay on the library shelf.