The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (#33, Contemporary Fiction)

It has taken me three months to finish Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible. I am slightly ashamed to admit this because when is the last time it has taken me that long to read a book of average length? I mean, I could see if I was hacking away at something like War and Peace or Infinite Jest or Anna Karenina, but The Poisonwood Bible was not epically long or overly challenging in terms of style or vocabulary. Perhaps I just had a reading dry spell.

That said, I want to make clear that I really enjoyed this book. Just because it took me three months to read it does not mean it was at all bad. Quite the contrary, which is what puzzles me the most about having taken so long to get through the book. I was determined to read it and ended up extending it three times and then taking it physically back to the library and checking out a new copy completely.

I like Kingsolver's style and I like the characters. I like the way she divides the narration between the female characters. Every aspect of this story and the way she tells it is deliberate, beautiful and tragic. The subject matter is depressing, but uplifting at the same time. The violent history of the Congo comes out of the mouths of four little girls, ages 15 to 5 and is at once absorbing and disturbing. I am sad it took me so long to decide to read this book and even longer to pass through its pages.