Barbara Kingsolver - The Poisonwood Bible' and 'Prodigal Summer'

Reviews by Linda Wornes on show 11th March
Poisonwood Bible:
The setting for The Poisonwood Bible is the Belgian Congo in the late 1950’s.
The story is narrated by the wife and 4 daughters of Nathan Price, an evangelical Baptist who uproots his family from their comfortable home in Georgia, Atlanta and sets them down in Kilanga, a small village in the midst of the Congo. While he proceeds to bring salvation to the native population, Orleanna Price, his wife, has to make supreme efforts to “push her husband and children alive and fed through each day”. Water has to be carried a mile and a half and boiled for at least 20 minutes over a roaring fire on an old stove. Fire means forays into the forest, stealing fallen branches from under the blunt-eyed gaze of snakes, just for one single bucket of drinkable water. At first the family has the help of a local Congolese woman who performs miracles with their very meagre rations but she walks out because she cannot tolerate Nathan’s stubbornness and insensibilities towards the local population.
Whilst African village life was alien to Nathan’s family, his evangelical preachings were alien to the his congregation and the village chief. Not only were the words of his sermons often lost in translation, Nathan would have to accept their culture of polygamy before the chief would endorse his church. Nathan was also obsessed about baptising the local children in the river but failed to understand that their parents would never allow this because a child had been attacked and eaten by a crocodile.
Apart from the story of survival by a white American family, Kingsolver weaves a strong political thread throughout the story. In June 1960 the Congo became independent and in his inaugural speech the new PM, Patrice Lumumba spoke to a jubilant crowd that the days of oppression under colonial rule were over.
However, it wasn’t long before there was political unrest. There was little sign of a fairer society, white trade in minerals and diamonds continued unabated and a plot was hatched between the Americans and Belgians to depose the elected Congolese government. The family are told they should leave the Congo but the Reverend is intransigent and announces that they will stay – despite the dangers and the fact that they will no longer receive their regular stipend from the Mission. Nathan forges ahead with his mission work, oblivious to the failing health of his wife and youngest daughter.
As well as living in fear of reprisals against whites and the daily grind, the Price family had to endure the night of ants and presumably what happened to them really does occur in the jungle. They were awakened by their Congolese friend and as soon as they left their house it was like wading through very hot water. But it couldn’t be water. “Ants. We were walking on, surrounded, enclosed, enveloped, being eaten by ants. Every surface was covered and boiling, and the path like black flowing lava in the moonlight. Dark, bulbous tree trunks seethed and bulged.” Alongside all their neighbours they headed for the river to escape in boats. It was only after the army of ants had passed through the village of Kilanga that everyone could return home.
But the family was not to survive intact for much longer. Tragedy struck at their heart. This is the beginning of the end for Orleanna and she leads her daughters on foot out of the jungle, taking only what they can carry on their backs. It is at this point I think that some readers feel the story should have ended. The climax had been reached but the story continues. I think the author wants her readers to know how the events in the Congo shaped the future lives of the Price family and the impact the political upheaval had on the lives of the Congolese.

Only criticism is that Kingsolver does wear her politics on her sleeve and at times through her characters she does tend to preach. As one reviewer has pointed out on the Internet, Anatole, the Congolese who eventually marries one of the daughters, is a paragon of virtue and he wonders if the author was afraid to create a flawed African.
Lumumba, the elected leader was a socialist who believed in democracy. He was brutally murdered and replaced with Mobutu, a soldier with attitude who believed in capitalism and dictatorship. He was promoted to high rank, worked in collusion with the Europeans and Americans and became extremely rich at the expense of his own people.
The white sap from the bark of the bangala or poisonwood tree causes serious inflammation.
Kingsolver is an American biologist turned writer and this dynamic combination makes her words sing on the page and transports the reader to a world inhabited by innumerable bugs, insects, birds and mammals that co-exist with humans on an equal footing.
Prodigal Summer:
‘Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives inhabiting the forested mountains and struggling small farms of the southern Appalachian mountains in Alabama. From her outpost in an isolated mountain cabin, Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist, watches a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the region. She is caught off-guard by a young hunter who invades her most private spaces and confounds her self-assured solitary life. On a farm several miles down the mountain, Lusa Landowski finds herself unexpectedly marooned in a strange place where she must declare or lose her attachment to the land that has become her own.
And a few more miles down the road, a pair of elderly, feuding neighbours tend their respective farms and wrangle about God, pesticides, and the possibilities of a future neither of them expected.
Over the course of one humid summer, as the urge to procreate overtakes the countryside, these characters find their connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with whom they share a place.’
This synergy between human beings and the natural world is reflected in the way Kingsolver cleverly charts the lives of her main characters. The chapters relating to the wildlife biologist are entitled Predators – her top predator being the young hunter and sheep rancher out to kill her beloved coyotes because they threaten his livelihood.
Lusa’s story is told under the chapter headings ‘Moth Love’. An entomologist, living with her tobacco farmer husband, she is acutely aware how humans, like moths, are attracted by scents or pheromones and how powerful these remain in the human memory even after death.
The story of the elderly neighbours is related under the chapter headings, Old Chestnuts. Though this might suggest their age, Garnett wants to reverse the fate of the old American chestnut which has succumbed to disease by trying to cross breed a new tree resistant to blight.

Main themes are conservation, environmental responsibility and our role as caretakers and the amazing cycle of life and interdependency of creatures and humans.
Similarities between both books –1. Kingsolver’s love of the natural environment even though at times it can endanger human beings. For example, in PB she is able to justify the march of the ants.
2. Author’s concentration on one character per chapter in both books. Allows that person to develop a distinct personality and voice.