(No spoilers within this post).
We're reading the Poisonwood Bible
byBarbara Kingsolver.
She has her own
website
Where, among other things you can:
"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."
I was curious about the
Congo and I looked it up on Google maps.
It doesn't look like anything is there.
There are names hovering over things, but if you zoom in you can't see anything like roads and towns
Click for the
Wikipedia page
Facts from the
BBC,
- Full name: Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Population: 67.7 million (UN, 2011)
- Capital: Kinshasa
- Area: 2.34 million sq km (905,354 sq miles)
- Major languages: French, Lingala, Kiswahili, Kikongo, Tshiluba
- Major religions: Christianity, Islam
- Life expectancy: 47 years (men), 51 years (women) (UN)
- Monetary unit: 1 Congolese franc = 100 centimes
- Main exports: Diamonds, copper, coffee, cobalt, crude oil
- GNI per capita: US $180 (World Bank, 2010)
Curious how the US compares?
- Full name: United States of America
- Population: 317.6 million (UN, 2010)
- Capital: Washington DC
- Largest city: New York City
- Area: 9.8 million sq km (3.8 million sq miles)
- Major language: English
- Major religion: Christianity
- Life expectancy: 76 years (men), 81 years (women) (UN)
- Monetary unit: 1 US dollar = 100 cents
- Main exports: Computers and electrical machinery, vehicles, chemical products, food and live animals, military equipment and aircraft
- GNI per capita: US $47,390 (World Bank, 2010)
And here is a link of
Southern Baptist Beliefs.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1. What are the implications of the novel's title phrase, the poisonwood bible, particularly in connection with the main characters' lives and the novel's main themes? How important are the circumstances in which the phrase comes into being?
2. What do you think of the writing style used in this book and the various voices used to tell the story. Did you trust their interpretation of events?
3. Why do you suppose that Reverend Nathan Price is not given a voice of his own? Do we learn from his wife and daughters enough information to formulate an adequate explanation for his beliefs and behavior? Does such an explanation matter?
4. What differences and similarities are there among Nathan Price's relationship with his family, Tata Ndu's relationship with his people, and the relationship of the Belgian and American authorities with the Congo? Are the novel's political details--both imagined and historical--appropriate?
5. What do we learn about cultural, social, religious, and other differences between Africa and America?
To what degree do Orleanna and her daughters come to an understanding of those differences?
6. At the novel's end, the carved-animal woman in the African market is sure that "There has never been any village on the road past Bulungu," that "There is no such village" as Kilanga. What do you make of this?
