I so rarely enjoy female authors. I'm getting to the end of Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, and all I can think is "Thank god, already." Everybody raves about how great the book is (especially for me as an avid traveler), so I felt it a solemn duty to read it. And I have not enjoyed it.
True to form (missionaries in Africa are always sure to roil my blood) the book pisses me off and is, at times, extremely difficult to read. So in that, it is effective. But unfortunately, Kingsolver spends the first several chapters of the book doing what so many women authors do: trying to prove to her readers that she is a better writer than any of them will ever be. She's trying to prover her talent, her existentialism, her deeper philosophy, and spends most of the book taking herself too seriously. I find her to be more faux-intellectual than genuinely enlightening.
She also completely oversimplifies the issues of newly independent Congo under the guise of being philosophical about them, but that's neither here nor there.
There are obvious exceptions - such as Janet Evanovich, who rarely takes herself seriously at all, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who takes himself so seriously it makes me want to shoot myself in the foot - but generally, women authors always seem out to prove their ability to everybody. They are so busy being better writers about "the real world" that they forget they are supposed to be writing good stories and that sometimes, the real world isn't so bad.
I'm just glad to be finally done with The Poisonwood Bible.
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2 comments:
amen. i had to research books to suggest for our adult book club tomorrow and they are all those type of ladies who refuse to read thing that arnt uberdeep. it drive me crazy. they just dont get it.
Yeah w,e have this whole class of educated, well-traveled people in Lander, and they have all read "The Poisonwood Bible" and rave about how great it is, but none of them have ever read a Kurt Vonnegut book (I'm working on one right now...). Some of them have never even really HEARD of Vonnegut (not sure how they managed that), but I find it incredibly sad... Or if you suggest "Sex Lives of Cannibals" to these people, they poo-poo on it because it actually sounds like a fun read (and in my opinion is better written, more entertaining, and more real than anything Kingsolver writes).
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