The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver, is a poignant tragedy set in the Belgian Congo in around 1960 when the colony
was transitioning towards political independence. It is the story of a Baptist
preacher from Georgia who takes his zeal-driven gospel-less religion along with his wife and four daughters to a remote Congolese jungle
village. Insensitive to the sacrificial welcome that the village offers, the preacher becomes less and less able to influence anyone. He can’t convince the village to believe in Jesus. He can’t achieve his pet objective which is to organize a public baptism in the river. He refuses to admit the validity of the villagers’ fear of the predatory crocodiles which killed several children in the river recently. He refuses the advice of the mission board at home and of its administrators in Africa both of which command him to evacuate the country to escape the volatile season of political unrest which is sure to come. When there is famine, he has no idea how to feed his own family. His wife and daughters adjust to the strange culture with various levels of difficulty but none of them retains respect, affection or even a relationship with their preacher husband and father. It is almost as if he doesn’t even notice.
Kingsolver never gives the man a voice, preferring instead to shift the narration among each of the female voices. This way, moving the story incrementally along- Michener-like-, the reader is made privy to each one’s hidden struggles. As the years pass and the girls age, the reader can see how profoundly her African experience impacted each woman. None ever is free from the pain which their father inflicted in his foolish, shallow, conceit which he thought was Christianity.
The real story is what happens in each woman’s heart, not what happens in the Congo. Like a tapestry, Kingsolver layers the background with the colorful botanical and zoological details of Africa. This becomes the context in which the cultures collide. She juxtaposes the ugly American stereotype against the more subtle story of growing up in a dysfunctional, disillusioning home and coping, somehow. It is a long book but it demands to be read and it provokes rage, disgust, tears and deep reflection. No one should miss it.