The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

I purchased this novel from a charity book shop for £1.75 whilst in one of those moods where I felt I had better buy something since I was there and couldn't find anything I was looking for. Usually my impulse buys turn out awfully and I end up stuffing 'that hideous dress' or 'boring DVD' to the back of my wardrobe or under my bed. However, this impulse buy is, without a doubt, my best ever.

When I first began reading, I thought the novel would be a typical postcolonial lament about how the American missionaries attempted to 'civilise the heathens'. I was pleasantly suprised. The missionary cause is rapidly exposed as futile as it becomes clear that the villagers of Kilanga care only for basic survival, and any means of. They live by experience: believing in anything that grants a pattern of fortune. This is of stark contrast to the Price girls, through whose eyes the narrative unfolds, who suffer through blaming any misfortune on personal sins, yet slowly shed their religious beliefs.

Their father, Nathan Price is an omnipresent threat until the death of one of the children (I'll let the finer detail remain ambiguous as you need to read it), when his authority dwindles. He seems to symbolise God himself. We never hear direct speech from him, just paraphrases sections of the Bible and he has no narrative voice to give opinion himself.

Another element that I found fascinating in the novel is that, to me, the colonial struggle becomes overshadowed by gender battles. Orleanna Price mentally battles against the colonial power of Nathan Price, and eventually physically overthrows him by leaving. When Leah wants to shoot in the hunt, there is no problem with her being white, it is solely that she is a female. I found these issues to be much more potent than the colonial theme throughout the book.

I could talk about this book for a long time, as it really struck a chord with me. If you're interested in history at all, it provides a good spring board for exploring that further. Anyway, if you are ever wondering what to read, I promise this will not let you down.

Here are some images of the Congo that I found from a Google search (below). I love finishing a book, and then seeing how my visualisations of the landscape described in the novel match up to the actual landscape (if it is not . I think I was pretty spot-on with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, although I'm sure the horrors of civil war and poverty are unimaginable to a Westerner like me. I shan't pretend I can understand.

An example of the American attitude to the Congo. I'll let you judge this for yourselves in relation to the actual images of the Congo, and the American visualisation.