Reading Journal Entry #2
Title: The Poisonwood Bible
Author: Barbara Kingsolver
Pages Read: 11-49
Initial Reaction: This book is just fascinating. I'm enthralled by this family and their journey -- and this setting. Africa is so foreign to me, so unfamiliar and strange, I'm just enthralled reading about it. I don't know the first thing about Africa, but this book is making me feel like I've been there for a visit. It was hard to limit myself to 40 pages -- I wanted to read on, to learn more, to find out what happens next.
I don't think I've ever read a story told in this exact way before, with each chapter being from a different character's point of view -- oh, well, no, I take that back. The Gumshoe, The Witch, and the Virtual Corpse by Keith Hartman was also told from multiple perspectives...in fact, from many, many, many different characters' perspectives. Anyway. It works surprisingly well. It's a great way to get to know these characters really well -- the contrast between the concerns of each chapter lets you know exactly what's important to each character. It also gives you multiple perspectives on the events and, more importantly, on the setting, the African culture they've immersed themselves in -- vital for a novel where the main theme is cultural conflict.
Little Ruth May's chapter was simultaneously very cute -- she must be an adorable little girl -- and horrifyingly racist. A completely unconscious racism, though, without any malice or ill will behind it, or even any understanding of it -- she is a very young child. And this is a racism that's all wound up with religion, a particularly nasty perversion that made me really dislike her father even more than I already did. That awful "prayer"/sermon at the welcoming feast that Rachel describes! How contemptuous and rude! I wanted to slap him -- and cheer Orleanna for making the girls eat the goat! He's such a self-righteous, self-centered, narrow-minded, controlling little man! Blargh! Leah's hero-worship of him made me want to gag. I understand where it's coming from -- I also had (probably still have) a pretty strong case of hero-worship for my own father -- a very uncomfortable comparison. But Leah's just parroting his own opinion of himself back to him -- open your eyes, Leah! You're never going to be "good enough" to get his wholehearted love, and that's got absolutely nothing to do with you and everything to do with him and the kind of person he is. She's in for a rude awakening. Adah's chapter fascinated me -- so complex and mature and, like the opening, poetic. She's an enigma to me still, though. Rachel cracks me up, with her teenage drama and her vanity and her malapropisms. Heh.
Author: Barbara Kingsolver
Pages Read: 11-49
Initial Reaction: This book is just fascinating. I'm enthralled by this family and their journey -- and this setting. Africa is so foreign to me, so unfamiliar and strange, I'm just enthralled reading about it. I don't know the first thing about Africa, but this book is making me feel like I've been there for a visit. It was hard to limit myself to 40 pages -- I wanted to read on, to learn more, to find out what happens next.
I don't think I've ever read a story told in this exact way before, with each chapter being from a different character's point of view -- oh, well, no, I take that back. The Gumshoe, The Witch, and the Virtual Corpse by Keith Hartman was also told from multiple perspectives...in fact, from many, many, many different characters' perspectives. Anyway. It works surprisingly well. It's a great way to get to know these characters really well -- the contrast between the concerns of each chapter lets you know exactly what's important to each character. It also gives you multiple perspectives on the events and, more importantly, on the setting, the African culture they've immersed themselves in -- vital for a novel where the main theme is cultural conflict.
Little Ruth May's chapter was simultaneously very cute -- she must be an adorable little girl -- and horrifyingly racist. A completely unconscious racism, though, without any malice or ill will behind it, or even any understanding of it -- she is a very young child. And this is a racism that's all wound up with religion, a particularly nasty perversion that made me really dislike her father even more than I already did. That awful "prayer"/sermon at the welcoming feast that Rachel describes! How contemptuous and rude! I wanted to slap him -- and cheer Orleanna for making the girls eat the goat! He's such a self-righteous, self-centered, narrow-minded, controlling little man! Blargh! Leah's hero-worship of him made me want to gag. I understand where it's coming from -- I also had (probably still have) a pretty strong case of hero-worship for my own father -- a very uncomfortable comparison. But Leah's just parroting his own opinion of himself back to him -- open your eyes, Leah! You're never going to be "good enough" to get his wholehearted love, and that's got absolutely nothing to do with you and everything to do with him and the kind of person he is. She's in for a rude awakening. Adah's chapter fascinated me -- so complex and mature and, like the opening, poetic. She's an enigma to me still, though. Rachel cracks me up, with her teenage drama and her vanity and her malapropisms. Heh.
Labels: books, poisonwood bible, reading journal
posted by She Who Reads | 1:38 PM
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