The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A powerful epic, a modern-day version of Little Women, albeit rawer and more global in perspective. It is also another sad tale of rapacious colonial powers exploiting human and mineral resources of Africa; a tale of religious and spiritual rape.
I wonder why the histories of the Indian sub-continent and Africa turned out so differently after independence from their respective colonial masters. The two regions are so similar - diverse languages, customs, diet, weather, religions in the form of animism, all within one giant land-mass. India seems to be thriving, but most African countries appear to be in a mess politically and economically. Did Hinduism prevail and resist the onslaughts of Islam and Christianity or subsumed the two religions in a form of spiritual osmosis?
Rachel’s malapropisms are hilarious, although perversely appropriate in the context – executrate (execute), took for granite (took for granted), pandemony (pandemonium), Thyroid Mary (Typhoid Mary), putative (fugitive) from law. She does not seem to outgrow this propensity – on her 5oth birthday she says, “… it gives you something to compensate upon.”
Adah’s palindromes and other verbal calisthenics make delightful reading - Amen enema; Damn mad; Elapsed or esteemed, all ale meets erodes pale; A, he rose … ye eyesore, ha1>.

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