Poisonwood Bible (complete)

Eh, it was an okay book. I mean, I can't say it was a favorite considering the fact that I'm a die hard fantasy fan, but I still liked it.

So, starting from where I left off last time, the Price family is trying their best to fit into Congo life, espeacially the girls (Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May). Fortunately, they get to know the locals, especially Nelson and Antalone, Nelson being their servant, and Antalone is the teacher of the only school in the village, who also gets to be Leahs best friend. But, like any good story, there is always a turning point for the worst. Just as the Price family gets accustomed to Congo life and their time in the Congo is just a few months from leaving the continent, political leader Lamamba decides to unite the provinces of the Congo and rise as an independent nation. In retaliation, the U.N sends troops to surpress the uprising since they had control of the precious diamond mines located in the Congo. With a miniture war occuring, with violent agressions occuring all over the country, all of the white settlers, priests and all, are evacuating. But do the Price family leave? No, sir, Nathan Price (father) is more than happy to stay with his dismayed family, claiming that running away from God's sacred mission to baptize the Congo children would bring them eternal shame. Just as when things have seemed to hit rock bottom, fate just keeps on digging. One morning, when the girls heard a rickis going on in their chicken coop, they rush over to see a green snake killing their chickens. Then, in a blink of a second, the snake takes a leap and kills Ruth May with its poison fangs. Dismayed over the lost of their youngest child, Orleanna (the mother) enters a fragile state between grief and sudden brakedown while the only words Nathan could mutter were, "she wasn't even baptized". When hearing these words, in just a few days, Orleanna takes her children and leave the house, abondoning her stubborn husband in hopes of a better future, away from this tempest of insanity and violence.
In a way, that's exactly what happens, except for the fact that each of the children take their seperate paths. Rachel marries a man, gets a divorce, and marries a more wealthy hotel owner who dies and wills the hotel business to her and lives the rest of her life in luxury, just like the snobby little girl she was when she first stepped into the Congo. Leah, however, decides to marry Anatole and has four of his children. (I felt kinda awkward when I read this chapter). Orleanna decides to take Adah and go back to the states, where Adah finally cures her condition of walking crooked and is more social when exposed to a more educated enviroment in one of the top medical universities. It's kind of interesting to see how their futures were connected to their personalities: Rachel being the rich snobby girl, Leah being stubborn enough to make Anatole finally agree to the message, and Adah, the quiet yet silent one, being a doctor to help others.
So, around the time where the girls turn close to their fifties, the have one last reunion in the Congo where they share information and catch up. Leah informs them that their old father, good old Nathan, was treated as a demon, since he tried to baptize a whole boat of children when it tipped over and all the children died of either drowning or getting devoured by crocidiles. When villagers finally caught Nathan, he was on a wooden tower, which they set on fire and killed him. The ladies found it ironic that not only how Nathan died for his "sacred duty" of baptizism but also because he rehearsed the Bible's verse pertaining about the "end of the world" or whatever (yeah, I'm not much of a biblical person, as you can see). After their reunion, they take their dying mother to go visit the village they first came to when they ask a local for directions. The funny part is that the woman claimed that the place didn't exist and she didn't recall any village in the area they mentioned, since the war most likely lead to the destruction of it.

To be honest, I enjoyed the ending of the book. I interpreted the ending as a message to the girls, saying that after all of the suffering they went through and all of their efforts to try to make life better in the Congo, the only result is nothing and that all of their efforts were for nought, which humored me in a sick sense of humor. Kingsolver incorperates more human lessons in her novel as well. For example, in a chapter where all of the residents of the village, including the Price family, participate in a hunt where they burn the forest and kill fleeing animals. While this is going on, Rachel describes what she saw as barbaric, saying that men were jumping at the sight of blood and that they fought amoungst themselves for meat, showing the negative sides of human nature.

Overall, not my favorite but certainly an enjoyable book to read. If this is coming from me, who is strongly against historical fiction, it just goes to show the skill of Barbara Kingsolver's narration.