I thought no text could be more superficial, cliched, and predictable than an interview with Meghan Markle.
Nobody, I thought, could be as smug in their absolute ignorance than Meghan.
And then I started reading The Poisonwood Bible.
Missing Meghan
Opinions, art, debate
Clarissa's Blog 
“Nobody, I thought, could be as smug …”
You’re not there yet.
The easy part is getting lured in and enjoying the aesthetics.
The hard part is realising that there’s one consistent problem that affects this author, and once you see that problem, it affects how you receive anything further from that author, regardless of how you regard the aesthetics.
That particular author here gets filed under the same category as Cormac McCarthy.
Not a fan.
Putting up with aestheticians isn’t so difficult if they’re funny or insightful.
What if they’re really not?
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“Poisonwood Bible”
Is it the author or the characters that are annoying? I looked up a summary and I could see getting really upset with the characters…. though I could also get upset if I detected that the book was a metaphor of colonialism or misguided foreign ‘aid’ or about the cluelessness or western values against African wisdom or some dumb idea like that….
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Oh yes, it’s all that and so much more. The hoariest stereotypes of people from the US South as stupid, moronic, obsessed racists who have zero thoughts in their heads that aren’t racist. The stupidity of Christianity. The good savage versus the spoiled Westerner. The pro-Soviet propaganda. The post-colonial crap. And so much more.
But aside from all this, it’s just very badly written.
A full review coming soon. This is me stoking interest in the review because I need to be compensated for the suffering I endure.
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My recommendation has spurred your creativity if not given you enjoyment, alas!
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Oh no, I’m enjoying greatly! I’m very glad I’m reading it because having an opportunity to exercise the art of a literary takedown.
Very thankful for the recommendation!!
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Heh, I should remember to not recommend a book by the first pages of the initial chapter then. Really wish the kids had personalities rather than defining characteristics, especially since we spend so much time with them as narrators.
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The narrative voices all blend together. As you say, no personalities. And the endless repetition of words “plumb” and “fixing to do something” is driving me crazy.
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haha. If you ever find yourself in a non-tourist part of our region, “fixing to” can get shortened even more, and “I’m fixing to” becomes “I finda”.
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Kingsolver definitely has her finger on the scales in this book, but I loved the writing – especially Adah’s narration.
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Speaking of literary takedowns, will you please review Prince Harry’s new autobiography? I would like to hear your analysis of the psychology and cluelessness of this man.
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Lol I thought it was good when I was 16! Not surprised I had bad taste at that age.
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““fixing to” can get shortened even more”
I would normally pronounce it fixin’ a “I’m fixin’ a go” (I’m fixing to go”)
It can even turn into ‘finna’
There’s also ‘up and’ to describe an unexpected event
“She up and bought a new car.”
I’d pronounced that as ‘uppen’ “She uppen bought a new car.”
But people who use Southern forms for… local color never get it right….
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It’s on every page. I’m fixing to plumb climb a wall the net time I see one of these two words. It was cute the first couple of times but after 200 pages of repetitions it became precious and annoying.
That’s nothing, though, compared with hundreds of pages of illustrations of how racist US Southerners are. Oh, they are so racist. Including the 5-year-old who literally doesn’t have a single thought in her head that is not racist. They are also extremely stupid. Because that’s US Southerners, you know. Stupid. As opposed to Africans who are all uncommonly wise.
250 more pages to go.
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“It was cute the first couple of times but after 200 pages of repetitions ”
I remember reading a dumb sci-fi novel in Spanish where the author thought it would be cute to use archaic(?) word order (the idea was a picaresque type thing set in space).
The first few pages “hizo-se” and “dijo-me” got the point across and halfway through the book became a major drag….
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