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Barbara Kingsolver: The Poisonwood Bible

i really liked High Tide in Tucson, and i have Small Wonders as yet unread.. i don't think i would enjoy Poisonwood Bible from what i have read here..
 
KristoCat = That's true, The Bean Trees had several lighthearted moments sprinkled throughout. It didn't crush the reader as much with the hopelessness of the injustice Kingsolver focuses on
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I never came away from a Kingsolver book with a feeling of hopelessness, KC. Which books of hers have you read?

zen = i really liked High Tide in Tucson, and i have Small Wonders as yet unread.. i don't think i would enjoy Poisonwood Bible from what i have read here..
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(Small Wonders was one of my all-time favorites, zen. It was written soon after 9/11/2001, and it was one of the things that gave me the courage to go on.)

Poisonwood Bible was not my favorite. Have I already said all this here? :eek:
 
StillILearn said:
I never came away from a Kingsolver book with a feeling of hopelessness, KC. Which books of hers have you read?
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I've read the Poisonwood Bible, The Bean Trees, Pigs in Heaven, and Prodigal Summer. And I guess I should clarify my earlier statement... I never come away from her books with a feeling of hopelessness, but I think Kingsolver is good at displaying huge social problems in their full complexities. This tends to make me feel a little depressed and hopeless sometimes. But, by the end of the book(s) there is always hope, because I think Kingsolver tries to portray humanity as essentially good, despite it all.
 
StillILearn said:
(Small Wonders was one of my all-time favorites, zen. It was written soon after 9/11/2001, and it was one of the things that gave me the courage to go on.)
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i should bump this one up in my TBR pile...
 
Still: I suppose she does a good job of it, but I'm thinking back to the Poisonwood Bible and her portrayal of how things were in Zaire when it first gained independence. Evil was everywhere. It was pretty clear (at least to me) that the perpetrators of the evil were often motivated by fear or desperation, but there were also quite a few players in the story that had no excuse, and were motivated by greed and the will to dominate. The fact that those latter parties were so successful for so long depressed me.
 
I have just finished reading The Poisonwood Bible. It is the first Kingsolver book that I have read so I have no other to compare it with. I just want to say that I really enjoyed this one. I think Kingsolver is very good portraying social problems. She must have done a lot of research. I also liked her characters. They all seemed very credible to me. Even the father seemed believable although perhaps more like someone from the Victorian era.

I have now acquired Prodigal Summer and I am looking forward to reading it.
 
i read this book just because I found it on my shelf, and although it only got interesting towards the end, I'd still have to say it's better then Pigs in Heaven, which is the only other book i've read by Kingslover. Of course i'm hopeless at noticing parallels so I didn't notice any, like the parallel between the daughters and the congo. but i was definately amazed by how much information the book included, while focusing on feelings and relationships.

what's prodigal summer about? is it a new book? i haven't heard of it.
 
I don’t know if Prodigal Summer is Barbara Kingsolver’s latest novel or not but it does seem to come after Poisonwood Bible. I exchanged another book for it while on holiday recently. The back cover says that ‘It weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives amid the mountains and farms of southern Appalachia.’

Hope this helps.:)
 
I guess PS was a little preachy, however, I didn't mind because I found to to be preaching i think a lot of people could benefit from hearing. I love that book. In fact, I might read it again.
 
Read this last month for my book club and found it to be pretty good. I felt that it could have been shorter with the post Congo sections dragging on somewhat. Some of Kingsolver's language was amazing. So much so that I wrote down and mentioned several of the quotes to the book club when we discussed the book.

The one thing I felt the book lacked was a chapter from the father. This might have given more insight into this character including his justification for his actions. I think that would have made for an intriguing chapter.
 
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