A fabulous book

The last two novels I read fell short of my expectations, so it was an absolute pleasure to find myself on vacation last week totally immersed in a luminous work of fiction by Barbara Kingsolver.

Yes, I know, I should have read "The Poisonwood Bible" long ago, considering it was published in 1998. But, then, I've often lagged behind when a book is either new or at its peak of popularity. By the time I picked this one up, I really didn't know what to expect, given the unlikely storyline: An evangelical Baptist minister takes his wife and four daughters on a mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959, a year before it became an independent country and long before it became modern-day Zaire.

Over some 543 pages, the story is told in alternating chapters through the eyes of the mother and her four girls as the family's patriarch does just about everything wrong in trying to win over the indigenous population. He fails utterly and completely as a consequence of his own cultural ignorance and self-righteous arrogance. Meanwhile, his wife -- raised to be a traditional homemaker subservient to her husband -- copes with isolation and loneliness while the couple's four daughters try in their own ways to make the best of their situation as the only white family in their speck of a town.

Their strategies are as different as they are: Rachel, 15, is a Barbie-like princess who detests life in the village carved out of a jungle; Leah and Adah, 14-year-old twins, adapt to their surroundings with the resourcefulness of "gifted" children; and little Ruth May barrels forward with the pluck and innocence of a 5-year-old. (Adah's perspective is particularly compelling, as she was born mute and crippled -- her term, not mine.)

Kingsolver brings together so many different threads in such convincing fashion that you find yourself transported to this west-central African nation, marveling at her grasp of colonial history and politics, of culture, language and religious traditions. She creates a cast of memorable characters -- American, African and Belgian -- and calls on her training as a biologist to write authoritatively about the region's flora and fauna.

And the woman can flat out write. Here's a taste, written in the voice of Orleanna Price, the minister's wife:

That's how it is with the firstborn, no matter what kind of mother you are -- rich, poor, frazzled half to death or sweetly content. A first child is your own best foot forward, and how you do cheer those little feet as they strike out. You examine every turn of flesh for precocity, and crow it to the world.

But the last one: the baby who trails her scent like a flag of surrender through your life when there will be no more coming after -- oh, that's love by a different name. She is the babe you hold in your arms for an hour after she's gone to sleep. If you put her down in the crib, she might wake up changed and fly away. So instead you rock by the window, drinking the light from her skin, breathing her exhaled dreams. Your heart bays to the double crescent moons of closed lashes on her cheeks. She's the one you can't put down.

I could hardly put the book down myself. I started it on the ferry ride from Anacortes to Orcas Island and a week later finished it on the ferry ride back to the mainland. Though it took me 12 years to get to it, it's earned a spot on my list of ten favorite books. It's a marvelous novel that reflects Kingsolver's love of language and masterful storytelling.

My thanks to August, a fellow blogger who writes at Perfect Sand, for recommending the book. For an in-depth review, check out the take by Caribousmom, another blogger.

Photo of Barbara Kingsolver: http://bookpage.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/barbara-kingsolver-is-back/