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The Poisonwood Bible

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The Poisonwood Bible The Poisonwood Bible (Questions) 1 What are the implications of the novel’s title phrase, the poisonwood bible, particularly in connection with the main characters’ lives and the novel’s themes? How important are the circumstances in which the phrase comes into being? 2 How does Kingsolver differentiate among the sisters, particularly in their voices? What does each sister reveal about herself and the other three, their relationships, their mother and father, and their lives in Africa? What is the effect of our learning about events and people through the sisters’ eyes? 3 What do we learn about cultural, social, religious and other differences between Africa and America? To what degree do Orleanna and her daughters come to understand those differences? Do you agree with what you take to be Kingsolver’s message concerning such differences? 4 Why do you suppose that Nathan Price is not given a voice of his own? Do we learn from his wife and daughters enough information to formulate an adequate explanation for his beliefs and behavior? Does such an explanation matter? 5 How does Kingsolver present the double themes of captivity and freedom, love and betrayal? What kinds of captivity and freedom does she explore? What are the causes and consequences of each kind of captivity, freedom, love and betrayal? 6 At Bikoki Station, in 1965, Leah reflects, “I still know what justice is.” Does she? What concept of justice does each member of the Price family and other characters hold? Do you have a sense, by the novel’s end, that any true justice has occurred? 7 In Book 6, Adah proclaims, “This is the story I believe in…” What is that story? Do Rachel and Leah also have stories in which they believe? How would you characterize the philosophies of life at which Adah, Leah and Rachel arrive? https://www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/fiction/799-poisonwood-bible-kingsolver?start=3 The Poisonwood Bible (About the Author) Author: Barbara Kingsolver Born: April 8, 1955 Where: Annapolis, MD Education: B.A. DePauw University; M.S. University of Arizona Awards: Orange Prize Currently: Lives on a farm in Virginia Barbara Kingsolver grew up in the part of eastern Kentucky between the opulent horse farms and the impoverished coal fields. She has always been a storyteller: “I used to beg my mother to let me tell her a bedtime story.” As a child she wrote stories and essays and, at the age of eight, kept a journal religiously. Still, it never occurred to Kingsolver that she could become a professional writer. She left Kentucky to attend DePauw University in Indiana where she majored in biology. She also took one creative writing course, and became active in the last Vietnam War protests. She graduated in 1977. In the early eighties she pursued graduate studies in biology and ecology at the University of Arizona in Tucson, where she received a Masters of Science degree. After graduate school, a position as a science writer for the University of Arizona, soon led her into feature writing for journals and newspapers. Her numerous articles appeared in NY Times, The Nation and Smithsonian. Many are included in her book High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never. In 1986 she won an Arizona Press Club award… and in 1995 she was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters from her alma mater, DePauw University. Kingsolver credits her careers in scientific writing and journalism with instilling in her a writer’s discipline and broadening her fictional possibilities. From 1985 through 1987 she was a freelance journalist by day and wrote fiction by night. Bean Trees was published in 1988 and was re-issued in 1998. It was enthusiastically received by critics… and with delight and even passion by ordinary readers. She told Publisher’s Weekly “I have a commitment to accessibility. I believe in plot. I want an English professor to understand the symbolism while at the same time I want the people I grew up with to read my books.” The Bean Trees was followed by: Homeland and other Storms (1989), Animal Dreams (1990), Pigs in Heaven (1993), and the best-selling High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never (1995). She also published a collection of poetry Another America: Otra America (1992), and a non-fiction book Holding the Line: Women in the Great American Mine Strike of 1983 (1989). The Poisonwood Bible (1998) earned accolades at home and abroad, and was an Oprah’s book club selection. (Adapted from Barnes & Noble) https://www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/fiction/11371-unsheltered-kingsolver?start=1 The Poisonwood Bible (Book Reviews) Kingsolver’s new book is actually an old-fashioned nineteenth century novel, a Hawthornian tale of sin and redemption and the ‘dark necessity’ of history. Michiko Kakutani – The New York Times A powerful new epic… she has with infinitely steady hands worked the prickly threads of religion, politics and race, sin and redemption into a thing of terrible beauty. In her most complex novel to date, Kingsolver presents her five narrators – the wife and daughters of a Baptist missionary sent to the Belgian Congo in 1959. The characters are fully developed and their compassionate telling of their beautiful story is truly memorable. Los Angeles Times Book Review It’s been five years since Kingsolver’s last novel (Pigs in Heaven), and she has used her time well. This intense family drama is set in an Africa on the verge of independence and upheaval. In 1959 evangelical preacher, Nathan Price, moves his wife and four daughters from Georgia to a village in the Belgian Congo, later Zaire. Their disfunction and cultural arrogance proves disastrous as the family is nearly destroyed by war, Nathan’s tyranny, and Africa itself. Told in the voices of the mother and daughters, the novel spans thirty years as the women try to understand each other and the continent that tore them apart. Kingsolver has a keen understanding of the inevitable, often violent clashes between white and indigenous cultures, yet she lets the women tell their own stories without being judgmental. An excellent novel that was worth the wait and will win the author new fans. Ellen Flexman, Indianapolis-Marion City P.L. Library Journal https://www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/fiction/799-poisonwood-bible-kingsolver?start=2 The Poisonwood Bible (Enhancements) The novel's title refers to Bible errata. The father of the family creates his own "misprint" of the bible. He concludes his sermons with the Kikongo expression "Tata Jesus is bängala" with the intent of saying "Jesus is most precious". In his hurried mispronunciation , he actually says "Jesus is poisonwood". The Poisonwood Bible was selected for Oprah's Book Club in 1999. The book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. It won the 2000 Boeke Prize. Hbo is in the works of getting this book onto our screens! In March 2019, Bond Group Entertainment – a production company launched by actress Amy Adams and her manager Stacy O'Neil – secured a first-look deal with HBO to develop a TV adaptation of Kingsolver's novel. Adams and O’Neil will executive produce the limited series, while Anya Epstein and Kingsolver are writing the screenplay. The Congo Crisis: It was a period of political upheaval and conflict in the Republic of the Congo (today the Democratic Republic of the Congo)between 1960 and 1965. The crisis began almost immediately after the Congo became independent from Belgium and ended, unofficially, with the entire country under the rule of Joseph- Désiré Mobutu. Constituting a series of civil wars, the Congo Crisis was also a proxy conflict in the Cold War, in which the Soviet Union and the United States supported opposing factions. Around 100,000 people are believed to have been killed during the crisis. A nationalist movement in the Belgian Congo demanded the end of colonial rule: this led to the country's independence on 30 June 1960. Minimal preparations had been made and many issues, such as federalism, tribalism, and ethnic nationalism, remained unresolved. In the first week of July, a mutiny broke out in the army and violence erupted between black and white civilians. Belgium sent troops to protect fleeing whites. Katanga and South Kasai seceded with Belgian support. Amid continuing unrest and violence, the United Nations deployed peacekeepers, but UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld refused to use these troops to help the central government in Léopoldville fight the secessionists. Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, the charismatic leader of the largest nationalist faction, reacted by calling for assistance from the Soviet Union, which promptly sent military advisers and other support. The involvement of the Soviets split the Congolese government and led to an impasse between Lumumba and President Joseph Kasa-Vubu. Mobutu, in command of the army, broke this deadlock with a coup d'état, expelled the Soviet advisors and established a new government effectively under his own control. Lumumba was taken captive and subsequently executed in 1961. A rival government of the "Free Republic of the Congo" was founded in the eastern city of Stanleyville by Lumumba supporters led by Antoine Gizenga. It gained Soviet support but was crushed in early 1962. Meanwhile, the UN took a more aggressive stance towards the secessionists after Hammarskjöld was killed in a plane crash in late 1961. Supported by UN troops, Léopoldville defeated secessionist movements in Katanga and South Kasai by the start of 1963. With Katanga and South Kasai back under the government's control, a reconciliatory compromise constitution was adopted and the exiled Katangese leader, Moïse Tshombe, was recalled to head an interim administration while fresh elections were organised.
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