Out in Africa

AT our sales conference in Goa, Chris McLaren, sales director of Faber and Faber was a persuasive advocate of the great gifts of The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (Faber). Indeed, Chris was so sold on the book that he promised a copy to everyone present, and there were nearly 50 of us there.

Upon my return to Delhi, I picked up a copy and was soon lost in a strange and wonderful world. Like most large expensive novels, The Poisonwood Bible spreads its net wide. Once you are enmeshed in its attractions, it is hard to escape. Fact piles on fact, story on story, perception on perception - all coalescing together into a world that holds you fast. If the author is good, and Kingsolver is quite brilliant, you make no move to escape as alien sights and sounds unfold before your eyes.

The story of The Poisonwood Bible is simply told. The Reverend Nathan Price, a fundamentalist preacher cast in the Old Testament mould, arrives in the Congo with his wife Orleanna and their four daughters - Rachel, the twins Leah and Adah, and little Ruth May, determined to harvest as many souls as he can for Christ. The times are troubled as Patrice Lumumba and his supporters try to wrest freedom from the Belgians but the Reverend, gripped as he is by the enormity of his mission, is uncaring of this, just as he refuses to pay any attention to the other hardships of working in a village in the middle of the jungle - indifferent, sometimes hostile villagers, disease, a lack of modern conveniences and other privations designed to test the mettle of the hardiest campaigner.

The ones who suffer the most are his family who are not quite imbued with his sense of mission. Orleanna tries her best to adapt as do a couple of the children but the going (once the exotic charms of the place have worn off) is very tough.

Then independence is upon them and the White population in the Congo flees for the most part. Whatever little support the mission has provided them is cut off, and they are told that it is time to leave by their colleagues. But the Reverend Nathan Price is determined to stay on to do the Lord's work much to the dismay of his family.

Orleanna and the girls, resigned to their fate, try their best to cope but it is soon evident that their best is not good enough. Inevitably tragedy strikes - and Ruth May, the darling of the family, dies of snakebite. The family is shattered.

Rachel, the eldest daughter, reflects on a world without her sister in one of the most moving passages in a very poignant book: "There's a strange moment in time, after something horrible happens, when you know it's true but you haven't told anyone yet. Of all things, that is what I remember most. It was so quiet. And I thought: Now we have to go in and tell Mother. That Ruth May is, oh, sweet Jesus. Ruth May is gone. We had to tell our parents, and they were still in bed, asleep.

"I didn't cry at first, and then, I don't know why, but I fell apart when I thought of Mother in bed sleeping. Mother's dark hair would be all askew on the pillow and her face sweet and quiet. Her whole body just not knowing yet. Her body that had carried and given birth to Ruth May last of all. Mother asleep in her nightgown, still believing she had four living daughters.

"Now we were going to put one foot in front of the other, walk to the back door, go in the house, stand beside our parents' bed, wake up Mother, say to her the words Ruth May, say the word dead. Tell her, Mother wake up!

"The whole world would change then, and nothing would ever be all right again. Not for our family. All the other people in the whole wide world might go on about their business, but for us it would never be normal again..."

The world literally is never the same again. Unable to understand or forgive her husband's stubborn unbending decisions, Orleanna and the remaining girls begin the long journey out of Africa.

I am delighted Chris McLaren was so persuasive back in Goa for I have found an author that I am sure I will watch out for in the future. Give The Poisonwood Bible a try, there is a fair chance you will be hooked by the gifts of Kingsolver.

DAVID DAVIDAR

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