The Poisonwood Bible

One of my favorite ways to spend a lazy Saturday afternoon is on the couch, under a quilt, reading a good book. I'm more of a fiction reader unless there is something I want to learn. Non-fiction for me is generally utilitarian - how to raise chickens, how to grow food in raised beds, how to quilt and such. 

I think I enjoy fiction so much because it is a way to leave real life for a while. A time to explore another time, another life, other relationships. I prefer a softcover book to a hardcover or ebook. I like to bend back the cover and break the spine. I need to be comfortable with my book. When my children were young and I was traveling to music lessons, school concerts and plays I made sure my purse was big enough to hold my book for all the times I had to wait.

This winter break I read three books. I just finished reading The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I have been feeling very melancholy since starting this book. I guess part of the reason is that although the story is fiction, the historical context is not. I can't say I knew too much about the history of the Congo although much of the story takes place during my lifetime. It isn't a pretty history.

Kingsolver is so adept at bringing characters to life that I began looking for their characteristics in my own personality and their deeds in my own life. Maybe it's the fact that I'll be half a century old soon that makes me more introspective. The idea that we often take our beliefs, ideals and even prejudices and place them on others. There is so much we don't know or understand about other people, especially when their ancient history is different than our own. 

The other concept that I have been pondering is how our actions or inactions have far reaching effects. This isn't necessarily a positive or negative force but an inevitability. I am a great believer in not lamenting past actions but in learning from them and moving forward. Otherwise this short life we have been given seems to be wasted in regret and sorrow. The characters in the book spend a lot of time wondering how they impacted events and have a very difficult time moving through them. Of course the death of a child is involved so this difficulty on their part is understandable. 

Well, if you were thinking you were going to get a book review I guess you have been misled! I haven't had this much feeling from a book in a very long time. The other book that has had this power over me is The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russel. In fact both books have some similar themes.

I think the real sorrow I feel from reading The Poisonwood Bible is the horror that those in power can shower upon the masses in the name of progress or most often, profit. To know that this continues to occur over and over in our human history is depressing. It parallels the negativity that can happen in families and how one person can carry that weight of those negative relationships throughout life. 

Although I found this book to be ponderous emotionally, it is one of the best books I've ever read. I do highly recommend it. On a positive note, I really enjoyed learning about another culture and looking at how their spoken language has so much meaning beyond mere words. That one word can mean so many different things but yet be tied together if one takes the time to delve deep. This is, again, another parallel to The Sparrow - thinking about the subtleties of cultures that are so different form our own. I like to think that these are the little things that make us better people - more understanding, more open to difference and more willing to take the time to understand each other.