Discussing Barbara Kingsolver's Novels
RGG.com contributor Heather Johnson's book club recently read Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees, and she shares why a previous group selection overshadowed their discussion.
A while back my book club read and loved The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. And when I say loved, I mean that almost the entire club would agree that it was the best book we've read in our three years together. We spent two entire meetings discussing this book because we couldn't possibly cram it all into one. We talked about the characters and how real they all seemed, the tragic history of the Congo, and the 40+ years of "life" in the book. We shared with each other our love and admiration for certain characters and our hatred of others...and there was shouting involved when one gal admired the most hated character in the book.
When it came time to nominate new books to read, one book received unanimous votes: The Bean Trees. The gal who nominated it chose it simply because it was written by Barbara Kingsolver, and the rest of us agreed that was reason enough. We were all really looking forward to immersing ourselves in another fantastic novel.
The Bean Trees is a lovely book. The characters are completely believable. They could be your neighbors, your friends, strangers on the street. Reading their dialogue was like having a conversation --- things just flowed along. Kingsolver's use of language to describe her settings is very evocative. We could SEE the unusual rock formations with Taylor, SMELL the rain on the dessert with Mattie, TASTE the hot salsa served by LuAnn. That imagery was very reminiscent of The Poisonwood Bible (even though the settings themselves couldn't be more different).
All in all, we agreed that The Bean Trees is a good book. But still, everyone was a bit disappointed.
You see, our love of The Poisonwood Bible jaded us. Our expectations going into The Bean Trees were very high --- probably too high --- and I don't think there was any way for an "ordinary" book to meet them.
The Poisonwood Bible follows its characters and setting over a 40-year period. The voice of each of the five narrators changes and grows as the story progresses. By the end, you feel as if these are real people living somewhere in the real world. And although the characters in The Bean Trees are genuine and easy to relate to, you simply don't get to know them well enough; there is only one narrator, one perspective, and not a great deal of introspection.
There are some similar themes in the two books --- family, acceptance, prejudice, responsibility --- but they are handled differently. The Bean Trees tends to skim over the truly heartbreaking events in the lives of the characters, allowing them to deal with most of the unpleasantness "off the page." The Poisonwood Bible isn't so gentle with its readers.
Kingsolver's writing style was consistent in both books, and we found that very rewarding. It was the depth of the novel --- the layers of characters, setting, and imagery --- that we missed. Would we still recommend The Bean Trees? Yes, we agreed that we would. However we'd follow up that recommendation with this comment: Read it for its own merits, and don't expect it to compare to with The Poisonwood Bible.
---Heather Johnson
A while back my book club read and loved The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. And when I say loved, I mean that almost the entire club would agree that it was the best book we've read in our three years together. We spent two entire meetings discussing this book because we couldn't possibly cram it all into one. We talked about the characters and how real they all seemed, the tragic history of the Congo, and the 40+ years of "life" in the book. We shared with each other our love and admiration for certain characters and our hatred of others...and there was shouting involved when one gal admired the most hated character in the book.
When it came time to nominate new books to read, one book received unanimous votes: The Bean Trees. The gal who nominated it chose it simply because it was written by Barbara Kingsolver, and the rest of us agreed that was reason enough. We were all really looking forward to immersing ourselves in another fantastic novel.The Bean Trees is a lovely book. The characters are completely believable. They could be your neighbors, your friends, strangers on the street. Reading their dialogue was like having a conversation --- things just flowed along. Kingsolver's use of language to describe her settings is very evocative. We could SEE the unusual rock formations with Taylor, SMELL the rain on the dessert with Mattie, TASTE the hot salsa served by LuAnn. That imagery was very reminiscent of The Poisonwood Bible (even though the settings themselves couldn't be more different).
All in all, we agreed that The Bean Trees is a good book. But still, everyone was a bit disappointed.
You see, our love of The Poisonwood Bible jaded us. Our expectations going into The Bean Trees were very high --- probably too high --- and I don't think there was any way for an "ordinary" book to meet them.
The Poisonwood Bible follows its characters and setting over a 40-year period. The voice of each of the five narrators changes and grows as the story progresses. By the end, you feel as if these are real people living somewhere in the real world. And although the characters in The Bean Trees are genuine and easy to relate to, you simply don't get to know them well enough; there is only one narrator, one perspective, and not a great deal of introspection.
There are some similar themes in the two books --- family, acceptance, prejudice, responsibility --- but they are handled differently. The Bean Trees tends to skim over the truly heartbreaking events in the lives of the characters, allowing them to deal with most of the unpleasantness "off the page." The Poisonwood Bible isn't so gentle with its readers.
Kingsolver's writing style was consistent in both books, and we found that very rewarding. It was the depth of the novel --- the layers of characters, setting, and imagery --- that we missed. Would we still recommend The Bean Trees? Yes, we agreed that we would. However we'd follow up that recommendation with this comment: Read it for its own merits, and don't expect it to compare to with The Poisonwood Bible.
---Heather Johnson
posted by Carol Fitzgerald at
9:09 AM
7 Comments:
Wow, that's a great testament to many authors...that have a popular and well read first novel and have to follow up with a second novel...each should be read for its own merits.
Thanks Heather for a great book club update.
Serena - Actually BEAN TREES came out long before POISONWOOD. For me, her work has definitely improved over the years.
I'm a huge fan of Kingsolver's books, especially her fiction (I just haven't gotten around to reading much of her nonfiction yet), but I can totally relate to what you are saying. I read her books more or less in order, so I didn't have the same experience as you did, but IMO The Poisonwood Bible is her best book by far and cannot be compared to any of her other novels, before or after. (This isn't to say that I didn't love the other books -- I did -- they just don't belong in the same category as TPB.) However, since you did enjoy The Bean Trees, I recommend the sequel Pigs in Heaven!
I loved Poisonwood too. Read Prodigal Summer. It started off slow for me but was like taking a cool dip in a refreshing pond once I got into the story.
My book club enjoyed reading Kingslover's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. It led to a great discussion about sustainable farming; farmer's markets; eating locally..not to mention the great recipes.
My very first book club meeting, in 2000, was a discussion The Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver. What a great beginning for a book club. My club hasn't read another Kingsolver since, but I personally read Poisonwood and Bean Trees. Each is terrific in its own sense, but I can understand how Poisonwood would set you up for the way you all felt for Bean Trees.
My club has read two books by Gregory Maguire: first- Wicked, second - Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister. Wicked is much more involved than Confessions, but Confessions stood its ground, I believe our group would say. If you were to read Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code and Angels & Demons, you would not experience the problem you felt with Kingsolvers books. This would also be true with reading Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Kite Runner.
As one blogger mentioned, The Bean Trees was written much earlier than The Poisonwood Bible, we can perhaps surmise Kingsolver is a blossoming author.
This kind of comparison between works of the same author makes for great discussion in my book club. So does disparity in opinion. When we all agree that a book is either great or horrible, the discussion gets a bit flat.
The Poisonwood Bible is a beautiful book that I loved! Prodigal Summer was also a beautiful book but because I read it shortly after reading TPB, there was that feeling of disappointment.
When it comes to books by the same author, perhaps we should be regarding them as we would our own children: individuals that share similar traits but each with a voice, talent and personality all their own.
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