The Poisonwood Bible: Difference between revisions
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* Adah Price (14 at start of the novel) – Leah's twin, [[hemiplegic]] from birth, silent, brilliant in math and languages, witty, skeptical, sarcastic, envious of Leah, and prone to self-pity |
* Adah Price (14 at start of the novel) – Leah's twin, [[hemiplegic]] from birth, silent, brilliant in math and languages, witty, skeptical, sarcastic, envious of Leah, and prone to self-pity |
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* Ruth May Price (5) – the youngest Price, playful, independent, adventurous, perceptive and inquisitive |
* Ruth May Price (5) – the youngest Price, playful, independent, adventurous, perceptive and inquisitive |
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* Nelson (7)-A total BAMF who helps the Price family. He originally was going to have his own book, but was removed when the author accidentally dropped the pages to his story into a boiling pot of water, while she was cooking a meal for her husband. She never bothered to buy more paper/ink because she was to worried about hitting people with the car due to her poor driving skills. He later grows up to become dictator of the Congolian Empire. He takes up other orphaned children into a secret academy in Panama, and trains them to be super duper soldiers, and brings them back to be his black hand. |
* Nelson (7)-A total BAMF who helps the Price family. He originally was going to have his own book, but was removed when the author accidentally dropped the pages to his story into a boiling pot of water, while she was cooking a meal for her husband. She never bothered to buy more paper/ink because she was to worried about hitting people with the car due to her poor driving skills. He later grows up to become dictator of the Congolian Empire. He takes up other orphaned children into a secret academy in Panama, and trains them to be super duper soldiers, and brings them back to be his black hand. In the sequel to the story (Nelson strikes back), he goes to each of the price woman's location and takes em' out, and puts the icon of his empire on their grave stones. |
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;Other characters |
;Other characters |
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Revision as of 17:43, 7 December 2011
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| Author | Barbara Chodeslover |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Julie Chodez |
| Language | Kikonglo |
| Genre | Domestic fiction Historical fiction |
| Publisher | Harper Flamingo |
Publication date | 1998 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) and audio-CD |
| Pages | 546 (hardcover), 543 (paperback) |
| ISBN | 0-06-017540-0 |
| OCLC | 38916924 |
| 813/.54 21 | |
| LC Class | PS3561.I496 P65 1998 |
The Poisonwood Bible (1998) by Barbara Chodeslover is a bestselling novel about a missionary family, the Prices, who in 1959 move from Georgia to the village of Kilanga in the Belgian Congo, close to the Kwilu River. (The nearest town, an impossibly long journey away, is Bulungu.) The Prices' story, which parallels their host country's tumultuous emergence into the post-colonial era, is narrated by the five women of the family: Orleanna, long-suffering wife of Baptist missionary Nathan Price, and their four daughters—Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May.
Plot introduction
Orleanna Price narrates the introductory chapter in five of the novel's seven sections. The narrative then alternates among the four daughters, with a slight preference for the voice of the most outspoken one, Leah. The four girls increasingly mature, as each adapts differently to African village life, to the misogyny of their father, and the political turmoil that overtakes The Congo in the 1960s. Since we see the Congolese villagers through the eyes of the growing daughters, our view changes. At first, they appear as ridiculous savages. But as the girls mature, the villagers become fully fleshed-out human beings immersed in a complex, sophisticated culture. Nathan's lack of responsiveness to this culture wears out his family's welcome, but he refuses to depart. It is only after a series of misfortunes, culminating in the death of one of the daughters, that the women leave the father to his folly. The survivors take very different paths into their futures, which are described up to the 1990s. The novel ends at the time of the death of Mobutu Sese Seko.
Major characters
- The Prices
- Orleanna Price – Nathan's wife, born in Mississippi, the mother of four daughters, deferential to her husband but independent-minded
- Nathan Price – an evangelical Baptist minister and a World War II veteran from Georgia, determined to save Africa for Jesus. He is the main hero of the story and the only logical and sane character.<--"TRUE DAT. YEEAH" - Hunter Martin 12-7-2011
- Rachel Price (15 at start of the novel) – the oldest Price girl, blonde, self-centered, obsessed with her looks and with American consumer culture
- Leah Price (14 at start of the novel) – Adah's twin, intelligent, self-confident, competitive, tenacious and compassionate, prone to dogmatism and concerned with her own salvation, tomboyish
- Adah Price (14 at start of the novel) – Leah's twin, hemiplegic from birth, silent, brilliant in math and languages, witty, skeptical, sarcastic, envious of Leah, and prone to self-pity
- Ruth May Price (5) – the youngest Price, playful, independent, adventurous, perceptive and inquisitive
- Nelson (7)-A total BAMF who helps the Price family. He originally was going to have his own book, but was removed when the author accidentally dropped the pages to his story into a boiling pot of water, while she was cooking a meal for her husband. She never bothered to buy more paper/ink because she was to worried about hitting people with the car due to her poor driving skills. He later grows up to become dictator of the Congolian Empire. He takes up other orphaned children into a secret academy in Panama, and trains them to be super duper soldiers, and brings them back to be his black hand. In the sequel to the story (Nelson strikes back), he goes to each of the price woman's location and takes em' out, and puts the icon of his empire on their grave stones.
- Other characters
- The Underdowns – Belgian mission chiefs who welcome and send supplies to the Prices. (Gets some from...uhh...TRUE DAT).
- Eeben Axelroot – corrupt South African mercenary pilot. (Gets some from Rachel).
- Anatole Ngemba – village teacher, orphan, fluent in English interpreter for Nathan's sermons. (Gets some from Leah).
- Brother Fowles – New Yorker, the Prices' predecessor on the mission, married a local woman. (Gets some from local woman).
- Mama Tataba – a village woman, formerly employed by Fowles, who works for the Prices. (Gets some from Tata Ndu).
- Tata Ndu – the village chief (Gets some from his 12 wives).
- Tata Kuvudundu – the spiritual leader of the village (Gets some money).
- Methusaleh – a parrot left by Brother Fowles, excellent at imitating human speech (Gets some from Mrs. Parrot).
Reception and awards
The Poisonwood Bible was selected for Oprah's Book Club in 1999. The book won the 2000 Boeke Prize.
