Jade Keller

For my second entry for the Women Unbound challenge, I read Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible. As with my first entry, I’m not doing a traditional book review on these books, but instead discussing issues and thoughts that the book raised in my head. And hopefully I can provoke a discussion where I can hear and learn from the perspectives of others.

(As a side note: It was really interesting to read this one right after reading The Red Tent, because two of the main characters in this book are also named Rachel and Leah – two figures from Genesis. It made me think about the extent to which our names might shape our identity. Knowing that my name is Jade, does that compel me to be what I think a “Jade” should be? Would I be different if I were named Claudia or Brittany?)

To be honest, I was a little hesitant to post this review. I actually finished reading this a while ago, but took my sweet time before I posted it because it raises questions I wasn’t sure I wanted to deal with here. But I decided to not post it and not deal with what the book made me think about – however uncomfortable – would be dishonest. And what other point would there be of this challenge than to make us face things we should face, even if we’d rather not? It wouldn’t be much of a “challenge” otherwise. So, here it is.

Barbara Kingsolver’s novel is an exquisite work told from the perspective of the wife and four daughters of a Baptist preacher from Georgia on a mission to bring the Christian religion to the Congo. They come full of idealism and the smugness of good intentions, but soon find themselves consumed alive by the depth and mystery of the heart of Africa.

The novel tells a story of oppression on the family level mirrored on the nation level. The preacher, Nathan Price, is so full of his own assumptions: that he has all the answers and that he knows better than anyone else what is the higher good. He rules his family with an iron fist, refusing to listen to his wife and daughters, even when his actions bring them to suffering. Likewise, he attempts to impose the same rule over the natives. But his lack of understanding and refusal to listen and learn from others prevents him from seeing not only how his methods are ineffective (or sometimes positively dangerous) in helping the natives deal with their daily lives, but also how he makes a mockery of himself and renders him incapable of caring for even his own family. Kingsolver deftly weaves the various narratives, drawing forceful allusions to the character of U.S. foreign policy as well, as evidenced by Eisenhower and the CIA’s actions inserting the puppet dictator, Mobuto.

But to all these people who rule without understanding: the father, the preacher, the dictator, the imperialist, Kingsolver warns they will bring about their own demise. As she says, “Whether it’s wife or nation they occupy, their mistake is the same: they stand still, and their stake moves underneath them….Even a language won’t stand still. A territory is only possessed for a moment in time….What does Okinawa remember of its fall? Forbidden to make engines of war, Japan made automobiles instead, and won the world. It all moves on.” (384) (And isn’t that a fabulous turn of expression? That the processes of time are more powerful that the most iron-fisted tyrant? The occupier will cling, but the world will move on.)

The question that arises from the work for me, however, is what is the role of the oppressed? What do they do? What can they do? Price’s daughters offer each their own perspective: Ruth May, the innocent who is sacrificed; Rachel, the oblivious who makes her way anyway she can; Leah, the obedient who eventually becomes the disillusioned disciple hell-bent on repenting the sins of the father; and Adah, the cynic and martyr who sees all but can only survive by going her own way. Price’s wife, Orleanna, offers a final point of view: “To resist occupation, whether you’re a nation or merely a woman, you must understand the language of your enemy. Conquest and liberation and democracy and divorce are words that mean squat, basically, when you have hungry children and clothes to get out on the line and it looks like rain.” (383)

I often tell my students, in an effort to get them to become informed and active participants of the democratic process, that they need to be informed so they can protect themselves. I tell them they need to be engaged in politics to protect themselves from oppression – for how can you fight for your interests if you don’t even know how you’re being taken advantage of? But this is the story we tell ourselves when we live in a democracy. We tell ourselves the citizens have real power and that we can hold our leaders accountable. And this is true in theory, and it is true in anecdotes. But sometimes it is a little disingenuous because sometimes we don’t have such power. Sometimes we fight and fight, but there are higher powers in play, more powerful forces at work. And sometimes, I think we really need to be honest in admitting there might be a valid point to consider when someone asks – I mean, really, really asks the question: What is the point of knowing the chess master’s moves when you have no choice, whether he puts you in play or sacrifices you to silence at the side of the chessboard? Ignorance is bliss and sometimes it seems a blessing not to know the whys and wherefores of our pain.

Of course we want to inspire citizens to action. Of course we want them to feel empowered, to fight the good fight, and to not give up. But are we doing that to really empower them – including citizens with whom we disagree (or may even think are bat-sh*t crazy or impossibly naïve)? Or are we doing that to prove we’re right: that our ideology, democracy, really does work? And can we do that and still listen (without assuming we know better) and really hear them when they say, “Mama, it hurts”?

I ask this because sometimes the “language” people speak is not always the one we’re accustomed to listening for or hearing.

P.S. Incidentally, after posting this, I was listening to an interview with Anne Kornblut (author of Notes from the Cracked Ceiling: Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and What It Will Take for a Woman to Win) on NPR, where she mentioned that the US ranks 70th in the world when it comes to the proportion of elected representatives who are women. We rank 70th. Behind countries like Rwanda and North Korea – which, at least last I’ve heard, are not exactly the front-runners of social progress. So the question isn’t: “can women lead nations?” It’s: “Why, in the US, are women not leaders?” (Though, for my part, I think the reason people might not have voted for Clinton or Palin was not because they were women, but because they were those particular women. They did come with quite some baggage.)

P.P.S. I just have to add: I totally disagree with reviews that say this book is anti-Christian, anti-male because people don’t like the way she portrays Nathan Price. There are other Christians (including those who initially funded his mission) who behave very differently from he and meet with better success with the natives. As she says in the book, “There are Christians and then there are Christians.” It’s not Christianity she has a problem with, it’s Price’s attitude. Likewise with men. She has several other male figures who are more exemplary, Anatole, for instance. However, if I were to critique the book, I would say just about all of the last section could be lopped off and you wouldn’t miss much. It just went on and on and on…felt like she didn’t know how to end the book and so just kept writing.