January 19, 2006
"Poisonwood Bible" Book Review
This is the kind of book that strips away all my delusions and makes me realize that I'm not -- nor will I ever be -- a writer.
I don't deserve to call myself "a writer." Hell, I don't even deserve to be writing in the same language as Barbara Kingsolver. She's a goddess and a poet, and this book is tragically beautiful in the way that "Les Miserables" is tragically beautiful -- horrible subject matter, beautiful setting.
(And if you saw "Les Miserables" the show and didn't like it, then you are either a soulless, godless pinko-commie or Heather's Fiance.)
Here's an example of her breathtaking prose:
"Imagine a ruin so strange it must never have happened. First, picture the forest. The trees are columns of slick, brindled bark like muscular animals overgrown beyond all reason. Every space is filled with life: delicate, poisonous frogs war-painted like skeletons, clutched in copulation, secreting their precious eggs onto dripping leaves. Vines strangling their own kin in the everlasting wrestle for sunlight. The breathing of monkeys. A glide of snake belly on branch. A single-minded army of ants biting a mammoth tree into uniform grains and hauling it down to the dark for their ravenous queen. And, in reply, a choir of seedlings arch their necks out of rotted tree stumps, sucking life out of death. This forest eats itself and lives forever." --Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
Okay, here's me describing the same scene:
"OMG, that place was so totally disgusting, what with all the ants and lizards and stuff -- I felt like I was having an acid flashback! Cuz, um... that's what I heard they're like. And then I tripped over a tree stump and tore a hole in my glitter jeans. VAGINA!"
Seriously, I'm gonna go drink a whole box of wine now.
Comments
ok, seriously. vagina? they don't belong in the jungle!
on a serious note, her description of the forest reminds me of Bradbury's description of the t-rex - you know the one.
Posted by: heather at January 19, 2006 01:02 PM
Apples and oranges.
Kingsolver wrote a tale that is epic in scope about a place most of us have never seen and can hardly understand. You write a particularly entertaining blog for and about lusty pirate Barbie-wielding goddesses.
To which I can better relate.
Try this book review:
Compare Kingsolver to Tolkien.
Posted by: Anne at January 19, 2006 02:51 PM
three things should be noted, here:
1) I saw les miserables and only liked about half of it. and I love musicals.
2) my fiance, while delightfully political, just doesn't like musicals, so...don't think he's a commie or nothin'.
3) I have no idea if heather's fiance has seen this musical in question, or if it has, indeed, been enjoyed or reviled by him.
so, yeah. I'm done writing now.
Posted by: heather at January 19, 2006 03:03 PM
You forgot to add in the part about all of the fucking frogs...
Posted by: Marty at January 19, 2006 03:21 PM
Aw, she aint such a good writer.
She didn't even say 'fuckin' one time!
Posted by: matt at January 19, 2006 03:43 PM
Contrary to his personal Republican propaganda, Heather's fiance is in fact a soulless, godless pinko-commie. Don't believe the hype.
Posted by: ASSMAN at January 19, 2006 05:16 PM
i read that book a long time ago and some of the imagery is still with me; like how they pulled back the bed and saw all the malaria pills stuck to the wall and how the western people were staring at her husband's face tattoos in the supermarket. she definitely knows how to paint a picture.
Posted by: cadiz12 at January 22, 2006 10:19 AM