I’ve read two books and two Sandman volumes since Christmas. I’d like to comment on Sandman as a larger work when I’ve finished the whole series. Neil Gaiman is such an elegant and nuanced writer (and a pretty good blogger), that I don’t want to comment on what’s going on in his work until I get to see the whole picture. I love comic book ‘volumes.’ I don’t have the time to track individual comics (I have a hard enough time remembering which volume I’m due to read next if I wait too long), and the volumes are as meaty as a novella, and a great way to spend an afternoon for me. Sandman is a particular favorite, because my husband and I read them at about the same pace, (he’s a slower reader of other things) and we can share them and discuss them…usually at least. So, Sandman is great (and please, please, Neil Gaiman, write some more novels) but it’s not what I’m going to talk about today.
On to the books. I read The Beautiful Struggle by Ta-Nehisi Coates, my favorite blogger. There’s not much I can say about this book without dissolving into fangirl gushing, so I’ll just say that I consider it required reading for everyone.
The other book I read (and the whole point of this post, finally, in the third paragraph, because I've become really undisciplined in my writing) was The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. This book was an anomaly for me for a few reasons. First, I compile a list throughout the year of books I want to read or sound interesting, and I try to pursue books on that list first (comic books not included, I go through too fast), this book was not on that list. Second, I’d convinced myself that Barbara Kingsolver was a romance novelist, and I don’t read romance novels (though, in the spirit of this blogger, I may reconsider). So, I heard Kingsolver speak about her new book on NPR, and I decided to check her out. My office has a small table devoted to book sharing, so I picked up The Poisonwood Bible.
The book details the life of a family (mother, father, and 4 daughters) that decides to travel to the Congo for a missionary post in 1959. The book covers the transition of Congo into Zaire, as well as the (mostly hamfisted) attempts of the missionary father to convert members of their small village to Christianity. Each chapter of the book is narrated by a different female member of the family (we never hear the father from his own perspective) and spans several decades.
At the core, this is a book about the failure of will and the futility of arrogance. The Price family moves to the Congo with hopefulness and surety. They’re confident that they have everything on their side: the right god, the right morals, the proper lessons. Rev. Price even travels with seedlings, since he intends to teach the villagers the proper way to harvest the proper food. The longer they stay, the more apparent it is that they have nothing to offer the villagers or themselves. For all they’re surety, they are completely unprepared. Each family member responds to this in a different way and as a result of different incidents. Eventually the Congo consumes them (in one case, literally) and they are forever changed.
The book had a profound effect on me. Aside from the careful examination of white privilege and its pitfalls (and it WAS careful, more careful than I was expecting), the theme of how life changes you more than you can change lives was powerful for me. I feel that I’ve been teetering on the edge of some sort of emotional growth spurt for months now. I seem to be becoming someone…more. I’ve not given my consent to these changes, and I don’t quite know what they are, but the fact remains that I’m being consumed by the raft of shit that has hit my family in recent months, and that some of these changes will be permanent. One of them seems to be a newfound lack of faith in the power of my will to change my world. That change rattles at the foundations of who I am and how I see myself, and I don’t really know what to do with it. It’s an arrogance that has kept me warm and safe for as long as I’ve felt warm and safe. But the fact remains that those seeds won’t grow in the soil that I’m in, and I somehow have to redefine what’s proper for me in this new context.
When I get a chance, I'll publish the book list, and I'll track how many I get through.
Let’s Vaccinate Baby!
8 years ago
2 comments:
This is really good blogging/writing. Thanks.
I've always wanted to read that Kingsolver but never have.
The Beautiful Struggle is our All-School book this year. I believe Mr. Coates will be at the school for a day.
I understand completely, the struggle of a new-forming self. I believe that who we are genuinely stems from the more dramatic influences in our lives. For you, it may be cancer. For me, the failure of my marriage leading to divorce. I've come to question so many things and I see changes in me that simultaneously intrigue and disgust me. I also see how my arrogance has affected my life. Everyone has this problem. It became ragingly transparent with the Iraq war birthed by Bush. How arrogant of him, and his cronies, to think we could barge into a country with completely different views on EVERYTHING and convert them to what we believe to be right. They're history is thousands of years in the making. We're but infants, spoiled toddlers to their eyes. And they wonder why it failed.
I'll have to read this book, and see if my perceptions of its message are right. Sorry for the rambling- a tribute to your own blogging that it inspires readers to passionately respond. Keep it up!
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