Lessons in the Jungle

Gee, what could go wrong here? In “The Poisonwood Bible,” a white American Baptist preacher decides he would make a terrific missionary to the poor, ignorant people of Africa and drags his family along. That he is far more ignorant of the world or his effect or manner or his cultural bigotry seems to never have occurred to him. Predictable tragedy and disaster ensue.

Author Barbara Kingsolver uses the book to tell history, to write about cultural imperialism, women’s issues, linguistics, environmentalism and colonialism.

She sets the book in 1959 Belgian Congo, which, for the non-historians, is about to undergo violent change as Africa begins ousting its colonial masters, paying back imperial hubris and cruelty with its own brand of bloody justice.

The preacher, Nathan Price, his wife, Orleanna and four daughters are entirely unprepared for their new lives in the remote village to which they are sent; worse, he is completely uninterested in adapting.

The story is told in the voices of the four daughters and wife; the misogynistic and abusive Price is detailed from afar but doesn’t get a narrative voice.

The food they bring is unsuitable; their ideas for farming are wrongheaded; their clothing is not designed for local conditions. They are completely, entirely, ignorant of political conditions.

Price is extremely attached to the idea of river baptisms, never mind the fact that the locals want nothing to do with jumping into the water because of the ever-present crocodiles. He wants numbers, lots of converts; he wants them to know he knows more and is there to make them see the light. They aren’t buying.

Price’s arrogance soon leads to tensions with the local witch doctor and the villagers, the very people he believes he is there to save; his wife eventually takes to her bed, leaving the girls to figure out what has happened to them and to work out how to get along and best survive.

In the background is the growing threat of violence as first one native leader, Patrice Lumumba and then Mobutu take power. We get outlines of how western intelligence agencies and armies intervened, some openly, some surreptitiously, as the Congolese gained their freedom. At the same time, the danger literally comes closer to the village where the Prices are as some local people are determined to drive out all whites and foreigners. That the oblivious Price has been so ignorant has put his family in great harm as there is plenty of hatred directed at him.

From the beginning, you get a clear sense that tragedy looms, that nothing is going to go right for the family or many that they come into contact with. Not everyone in the family will survive their little adventure and we know it almost immediately. And those who do will be permanently changed, not all for the good.

The author, as she always does, packs a lot of information into her writing and so we get a lot information about history, culture and language. Some of it is worked into the narrative so carefully we don’t even realize it’s there until it becomes especially important to the storyline.

Lest you think that we’ve wised up to our cultural ignorance, someone I know between Australia and Los Angeles a few times a year. She regularly bumps into Americans, many of whom have never traveled anywhere, who are heading off to Asia to spread the Gospel and she’s regularly amazed at their ignorance at what they are facing.

That is not to say no one is ever prepared or that evangelizing is a bad thing. But we apparently continue to believe in our own cultural superiority and that can’t be a smart message to send around the world. And this book, though told about a preacher, isn’t about bashing religion. It’s about telling how imperialism and ignorance lead to disaster on multiple levels.