Poisonwood Bible, The

Poisonwood Bible" is set in the Congo and its exotic aspects, encountered at random, often as terrifying surprises, are a strength in this depressing story. But the multiple perspectives, and the overall thrust of the plot, are thoroughly American. I listened to the audio recording of Dean Robertson which captured the several voices that narrate the story. The pacing and enunciation were excellent.

In one aspect it is a pioneer story, the attempt of the father, followed by his reluctant women, to conquer the wilderness. Like the Donner Party, it ends in failure and pathos, reflecting not the Hollywood version of pioneer life so much as the tragic vision that emerges from stories like Bret Harte’s “The Luck of the Roaring Camp.” In the contest of will versus nature, human will sometimes comes up short. In another aspect, it is an Ugly American (Burdick & Lederer 1958) story of a man whose insensitivity to local language, culture, and customs and refusal to integrate defeats his purpose of missionary outreach: arrogance trumps the benevolent pretensions. In still another sense it is a coming of age story for the 3 of 4 daughters who actually come of age, detached from their American lower middle class context and thrust into the challenging, stressful, and ultimately fatal context of rural Congo. The assumption that young people must reject the values of their parents in order to be themselves is reflected in the political back story of Congolese rejecting European values on principle. The inner logic (sometimes called counter-dependence) is “I know I am me because I am not you: therefore whatever you are for, I am against.” Related to this coming of age is the raised consciousness story so characteristic of stories of the feminist era. The mother, Orleanna, becomes aware (or convinced) that she is “conquered land,” like the Congo which white men, like her husband, have exploited for their own selfish purposes. Her loss of belief in her husband’s respect and love for her leads to empowerment to leave.

It all adds up to a depressing story of a Baptist preacher, Nathan Price, whose faith is indistinguishable from Nietzsche’s Will to Power. His faith in God means never taking no for an answer, and this approach seems to have worked for him through much of his life. Although we are given glimpses of his life- football hero, young revivalist preacher, World War II veteran who narrowly escaped Bataan and death, suffering survivor’s guilt, tyrannizing his family with a religion that stresses demands for righteousness over any message of forgiveness, and using the Bible for punishment (writing 100 verses is typically assigned to his refractory daughters). He has courage born of obstinacy, and persists in his self-appointed mission even after the death of his youngest, the rebellion of his wife, and the desertion of his family. He dies, burned by tribesmen, who are convinced he is a danger to their children who he has attempted to baptize in the crocodile-infested river. His story is told unsympathetically by the voices of his wife and four daughters. He is given no voice of his own.

The narration technique is perhaps the most impressive aspect of the book, and Kingsolver’s greatest exhibition of writing skill. Maintaining five different voices, manifesting five contrasting perspectives, three of which characters change dramatically, is no mean accomplishment. The youngest, Ruth May, is the child of the family whose words are plain and unself-conscious. Unaware of dangers she wanders and is rescued at least once, and ultimately is killed in a trap set for someone else. The mother, Orleanna, begins in passivity, believing that God is really behind her husband’s fanaticism, but as dangers develop and his plans fail to materialize, she doubts him until the death of Ruth May causes her to take control of her situation and leave. Her narrations trail off after she returns to Georgia, confined to reminiscence of the Africa days, and her development into a political organizer is described by the daughters.

Rachel is the oldest daughter, 15 turning 16 at the time of the family removal to the Congo, and resenting all that was left behind. Her narration is characterized by misused words, a crass, self-centered approach to life, and the assumption that she is all that matters: hence a stream of often petty complaints results, particularly when she is asked to be responsible for her youngest sister. She escapes Congo at 17 and must fend for herself and this leads her to an embrace of sex and romance for manipulation, and she develops a certain entrepreneurial spirit which results in her establishing a successful hotel for western visitors to Africa. She provides what little comic relief is to be found in this dreary tale.

The twins, Adah and Leah, are a year or so behind Rachel and are a special case. Leah is the dominant twin in that she was bigger in prenatal development, and the younger, Adah, has what was diagnosed as only half a brain, accounting for many developmental disabilities such as failure to fully develop the left side of her body (she never crawled, just walked haltingly, dragging the left side), and her inability to speak (growing up the sister Leah often spoke for her). This however turns out to be mistaken as the girls are tested and discovered to be gifted and given advanced schooling, until the shift to Congo. Leah is her father’s admirer and often companion by her choice; but eventually even she can not deny the dangers that he is ignoring and the family’s growing peril. As she takes lessons from, and eventually assists, the local teacher Anatole, she eventually falls in love with him and transfers all her hero worship of her father to him. Like her father, Anatole labors for a cause bigger than himself, Congo’s nationhood; and like her father, Leah carries a burden of guilt, in her case for being white when whites (like her father and President Eisenhower) are responsible for exploiting Africa.

Adah’s is by far the most complex and challenging character. It turns out that she is mute by choice and takes things in that others barely notice. She keeps her thoughts to herself and without a dominant side (actually she lacks a subordinate side) she sees things backwards as well as forwards and is always writing and thinking in palindromes (“Evil I live”), and seeing things from opposite perspectives. She comes up by herself with the French Enlightenment view of religion as irrational, and eventually, after escaping to Georgia with her mother, goes to university (a case for home schooling?) becomes a doctor of medicine who studies epidemiology with a philosophy that sees no more intrinsic worth to human as opposed to other forms of life.

I have said that the thrust of the plot is thoroughly American. Americans are idealistic and see themselves traditionally as exceptional, and they are prone to disillusion, distrust, and resentment when their leaders fail their expectations. This may be because Americans expect their physician to cure every condition, and their government to fix every problem in the world, and when they don’t someone is going to pay. Thus, while there are a few individuals who had suffered mutilation at the hands of the Belgians decades earlier, the death of infants, the danger of crocodiles, the prevalence of malaria and sleeping sickness, and the poverty and contingent lives the people of the village suffer, are somehow America’s fault, due to CIA interference in Congo politics, as if the better leader would have solved the infrastructure, health, and political problems faced by this emerging nation.

The other characteristic of this novel that makes it thoroughly American is the contempt for the familiar and the respect extended to the exotic. More respect and forbearance is shown toward the tribeswomen who dispose of the their twins than for the preacher who wants to baptize them in the river, the same crocodile-infested river that is fled to as a refuge from marauding ants. The witch doctor who actually plants the snake that kills a child incurs less blame than the father who felt that his work of saving souls was more important than the risk. This contempt for the familiar begins at the beginning of the narrative with its portrait of four women who resent their father, have no sympathy with what drives him, and extend the same attitude to a lesser extent to each other.

Kingsolver follows a well-worn tradition (Handmaid’s Tale, 1985) of portraying Christians, at least fundamentalist Christians, as superstitious, irrational, fanatical, and fundamentally self-serving. The one missionary who is portrayed sympathetically is shown to incline toward universalism, if not syncretism, and uses his time with the Price family to call into question some of their confidence in the Bible. He takes the verse, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven,” and explains that the Aramaic for yarn and camel are the same word and maybe you could, with difficulty, get yarn through the eye of the needle, and maybe righteousness was not as impossible as we assumed. Of course, the only extant version of the verse is in Greek where there is no ambiguity, but this speculation is presented as “insight.” It is actually the worst kind of Biblical literalism because it ignores the obvious context which turns on the hyperbole (the apostles respond “How then can anyone be saved?”) and assumes that Biblical religion is all about law and obedience rather than about Jesus and the cross (and something to do with forgiveness). Our current cultural situation is similar to early church days when Christians were regarded as cannibals who ate body and blood in their secret meetings, would not burn incense to the Emperor or other gods, objected to abortion and child abandonment, discouraged promiscuity, and placed their hopes in deliverance from beyond and only they were saved.

These thoroughly American traits, dressed up in the exotic, account for this novel’s popular success. Like many a popular success it satisfies contradictory desires/assumptions on the part of the audience. It asserts our virtue in withholding judgment of non-western cultures while enabling us to feel superior to those “backward” folks in our own culture with whom we may have had to compromise. The affirmation of freedom versus an affirmation of obligation allows us to escape the sacrifice that fanatics call us to make. The living our best life now, unencumbered by considerations of the transcendent, is fitting for western liberals who want that easy life for others, and will support the gospel of public health over what they regard as Western (i.e. Christian) superstition. Ironically, despite the strongly implied suggestion that fundamentalist Christian missions were doomed to fail in Congo, they have since claimed the allegiance of over 95% of the people.