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List Price: $14.95Amazon.com's Price: $10.17 You Save: $4.78 (32%)Prices subject to change.
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780060786502
ISBN: 0060786507
Label: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 576
Publication Date: May 31, 2005
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Release Date: May 31, 2005
Studio: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Alternate Versions: Click to Display
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com Review:
Oprah Book Club® Selection, June 2000: As any reader of The Mosquito Coast knows, men who drag their families to far-off climes in pursuit of an Idea seldom come to any good, while those familiar with At Play in the Fields of the Lord or Kalimantaan understand that the minute a missionary sets foot on the fictional stage, all hell is about to break loose. So when Barbara Kingsolver sends missionary Nathan Price along with his wife and four daughters off to Africa in The Poisonwood Bible, you can be sure that salvation is the one thing they're not likely to find. The year is 1959 and the place is the Belgian Congo. Nathan, a Baptist preacher, has come to spread the Word in a remote village reachable only by airplane. To say that he and his family are woefully unprepared would be an understatement: "We came from Bethlehem, Georgia, bearing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle," says Leah, one of Nathan's daughters. But of course it isn't long before they discover that the tremendous humidity has rendered the mixes unusable, their clothes are unsuitable, and they've arrived in the middle of political upheaval as the Congolese seek to wrest independence from Belgium. In addition to poisonous snakes, dangerous animals, and the hostility of the villagers to Nathan's fiery take-no-prisoners brand of Christianity, there are also rebels in the jungle and the threat of war in the air. Could things get any worse?
In fact they can and they do. The first part of The Poisonwood Bible revolves around Nathan's intransigent, bullying personality and his effect on both his family and the village they have come to. As political instability grows in the Congo, so does the local witch doctor's animus toward the Prices, and both seem to converge with tragic consequences about halfway through the novel. From that point on, the family is dispersed and the novel follows each member's fortune across a span of more than 30 years.
The Poisonwood Bible is arguably Barbara Kingsolver's most ambitious work, and it reveals both her great strengths and her weaknesses. As Nathan Price's wife and daughters tell their stories in alternating chapters, Kingsolver does a good job of differentiating the voices. But at times they can grate--teenage Rachel's tendency towards precious malapropisms is particularly annoying (students practice their "French congregations"; Nathan's refusal to take his family home is a "tapestry of justice"). More problematic is Kingsolver's tendency to wear her politics on her sleeve; this is particularly evident in the second half of the novel, in which she uses her characters as mouthpieces to explicate the complicated and tragic history of the Belgian Congo.
Despite these weaknesses, Kingsolver's fully realized, three-dimensional characters make The Poisonwood Bible compelling, especially in the first half, when Nathan Price is still at the center of the action. And in her treatment of Africa and the Africans she is at her best, exhibiting the acute perception, moral engagement, and lyrical prose that have made her previous novels so successful. --Alix Wilber
Product Description:
The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden seeds to Scripture -- is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.
This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.
Average Rating: 
Rating: -
I did a little reading about Kingsolver and I found out that her parents were missionaries, which provides an interesting angle to this all ready interesting novel. The novel is set in Africa in the 1960's. A baptist minister, Nathan Price, brings his wife and 4 daughters to Africa to convert the locals into Christians.
The story is told through the women. At first, with so many narrators, I was a bit confused as to who was who, but after awhile each daughter's voice emerges and it became easier to tell who was telling the story. The mother's voice is heart-wrenching as she looks back at their life in Africa.
There are many layers to this book: sexism and racism being the biggest. But there is also the question of moral authority: who dictates it? Who is right? And who has the right to force it upon others? The women, regardless of culture, are not seeing as influencers of society, but rather as people living through it - getting the laundry done, taking ... Read More
Rating:  -
I read this book in high school. Not the kind of book most high school guys would enjoy. But I loved it. The story is certainly interesting, but I was more enamored with the writing style than anything else. Each chapter is told from the first-person perspective of a different member of the family. The chapters told my the mentally retarded daughter are the most fascinating. It is so interesting to see how each different character interprets events differently. A must-read for any fan of literature.
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This is a book folks have probably already described as one of those you'll compare all that you've read before and since. I will describe it as my introduction to literature, to writing. Perhaps I'm late to the party, what's new? The book was an Oprah book, so lots of us have already been all over this juan, and writefully so.
This story is told first person by 5 persons. I would say girls or women, but can't because it's not that simple, better than that and it wouldn't be fair. A mom and four daughters. Each and every one of them tell this story in turn. These ladies go to Africa with their baptist minister dad, Nathan Price. I want to tell you about these Prize girls and their mom. I'll let them tell you about brother Nathan Price and the other parts. This wheel has already been invented and perfected.
I was thinking earlier today that stories must dream of being told by Kingsolver, like (may god forgive me) an egg wants to be an Egg McMuffin in a corny McDonalds ... Read More
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A masterpiece of literary craft and social conscience. A well-researched and biting critique of American imperialism in Africa in the 1950s and '60s, and a matching parable of religion at its worst (and best, thanks to Brother Fowles), all rolled into a gripping story of growing up and finding meaning in life. The multiple first-person structure (wonderfully easy to follow) is pure writer's genius. (I fell in love with Adah!)
Rating:  -
This book might not have been bad. The idea of a missionary family (from the Jim Crow South, no less)moving to Africa had its merits. The idea of narrating from five different perspectives was original and might have been pulled off. Adah was a fairly interesting, if unrealistic and unsympathetic, character. Most of the prose was beautiful. But somehow, this just didn't work out. First of all, none of the characters were believable. The father was too heartless, the mother was too spineless, the daughters were too different and too stereotypical. The thirty pages of epilogue became tiresome, too. The author just didn't seem to know when to quit. The worst part, though, was the tone of the book, something I noticed even at the age of eleven. The author continually bashes America, white people/Europeans, Christianity, and democracy. She continually extols Communism and indigenous Africans. I'll freely admit that some criticisms of the former and some praises of the latter are accurate, ... Read More
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