Book Review: The Lacuna

The Lacuna: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver (New York: Harper Collins, 2009. 507pp)

Barbara Kingsolver (b. 1955) is an American novelist and essayist. Her best known works are The Poisonwood Bible, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. All of her published books have been on The New York Times bestseller list, and she has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner award.

Expectations

Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible has often been described as a book club classic. Ten years later, Barbara Kingsolver has released The Lacuna. As a piece of historical fiction, I expected something behemoth, something filled with wonder, something akin to the masterpiece that is The Poisonwood Bible. The Lacuna came close, but it left something behind for me. Perhaps my expectations were too high based on Kingsolver’s past.

A Nobody in the Presence of Somebodies

Photo by Fisita

The Lacuna documents the journey of a young boy, Harrison William Shepherd from 1929 to 1951. When we first meet him at twelve years of age, he’s living on a hacienda with his over-dramatic mother who is a gold-digger, to say the least. Ever on the prowl for a richer husband, she is never content. His father is American, and is the dull-witted type we’ve come to know in sitcoms like The Simpsons or Family Guy.

Harrison is an accidental onlooker to some important history—he runs into Frida Kahlo at a market, and returns home with her to help her with his baking skills. Frida’s husband is the famed muralist, Diego Rivera, and their marriage is somewhat volatile. Soon, Harrison becomes a baker and typist for the household, leaving his own capricious home behind.

“It was like mixing the flour for pan dulce: how could it be so different? The powder they called cal has the same fine grind, floating up in white clouds around the boys when they dumped bags of it into the mixing buckets. Their eyelashes and the backs of their hands were white, and the edges of their nostrils, from breathing it. They were dumping powder into water, not the other way around” (71).

Using his baking skills, Harrison begins mixing plaster for Diego Rivera’s murals. Soon after  establishing himself as a plaster mixer, who joins the household? None other than communist Leon Trotsky. If you know your history, Trotsky finds an untimely end by one of Stalin’s agents. Harrison witnesses the murder. Throughout all the history-in-the-making scenarios of which Harrison is a part, he keeps a journal. His journal (you guessed it) becomes the novel, The Lacuna, which he tries to publish as an adult later in the book.

Disappointment

Photo by Luiz Fernando

Now comes the point where my disappointment surfaces. I completely understand Kingsolver’s motive in wanting a fictional “onlooker” to be the narrator and “writer” of the novel. However, the experiences of a fictional, shy, boring-as-watching-paint-dry, loner child are hard to merge with the experiences of famed artists and communist leaders. 

Should the novel have utilized the famous artists as main characters, perhaps even narrators, I would have found much more enjoyment in the novel. Harrison is frankly too dull to tell the tale. Moreover, juxtaposed against such vibrant, larger-than-life characters of history past, he fades into the background.

Though it would be easy to completely toss Harrison into the literary garbage can, he does supply some wonderful thoughts on connecting history. Through his eyes, we see richly imagined history in an epoch where circumstances and people were viewed in black and white. Kahlo was known to be unstable bi-sexual, and her husband a womanizer. As Harrison says, 

“What we end up calling history is a kind of knife, slicing down through time. A few people are hard enough to bend its edge. But most won’t even stand close to the blade. I’m one of those. We don’t bend anything” (360).

The point Kingsolver is trying to make is that the most unimportant people do affect history. Harrison Shepherd assuredly did make an impact (albeit fictitious) in the lives of the painters and communist leader. However, I have to agree with Harrison; he is unimportant and boring. He didn’t stand close to the blade from my perspective. 

While The Lacuna does recount some important history with larger than life people, perhaps the vessel telling the story could have had a bit more of a commanding presence. Harrison falls into the shadows. 

If you enjoy historical fiction, I still highly recommend this novel as it is illuminating to say the least. But, if you like compelling main characters, perhaps it’s best to try something else.

Verdict: 3 out of 5
What do you think? Does Harrison really fall into the background? Did you enjoy the history present within the novel? Share your thoughts below.
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Posted by: Andrew Jacobson

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Book Review: The Poisonwood Bible

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (New York: HarperFlamengo, 1998. 560 pp)

Born in 1955 in rural Kentucky, Barbara Kingsolver earned biology degrees from DePauw University and the University of Arizona. Beginning in 1985, Kingsolver began writing as a freelancer and author. Starting with The Bean Trees in 1988 and Lacuna functioning as the most recent bookend in 2009, Kingsolver’s works have been translated into more than two dozen languages and adopted into high school curriculum. Kingsolver contributes essays and reviews in many renowned newspapers and magazines. She has received numerous awards including, the national book award of South Africa, the James Beard Award, and the National Humanities Medal. Kingsolver lives on a farm in Southern Appalachia with her husband, Steven Hopp.

A Equals ~A

Philosophically speaking, cultural relativism is a myth. Defined as an ethical position praising the moral goodness of societal differences, cultural relativism stakes claim as a dominant worldview. Yet, the foundational premise of relativism is invalid.

More specifically, when someone states “cultural morals are relative – what is ethical in one society is not ethical in another. Thus, both positions can be held as equally moral.” However, such a statement requires universal footing. The position, “cultural morals are relative” is an absolute statement intended to govern humankind. But, the content of the statement assumes that all positions are relative. Therefore, such a position states, “a equals not a.”

At the same time, merely rejecting cultural relativism a priori dismisses some crucial elements surrounding this invalid assumption: the cultural relativist understands that his or her cultural mores are not necessarily the way life ought to be.

The Mission Field

Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible illustrates the damaging effects of assuming that your way of thinking is the true way of thinking. This tome follows the life of Nathan Price, a Baptist missionary from Georgia, told through the lens of Orleanna Price, his wife, and his four daughters, Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May.

From the day the family arrives in Belgian Congo, cultural clashes become common place and a sense of impending tragedy settles over the pages. Nathan Price believes that the pagans need Jesus – an American Jesus to be specific. The natives of Congo, however, have lived in this harsh jungle for centuries, learning how to survive with the land.

Terrify the Children!

The differences in culture are no more pronounced than in Nathan Price’s continual desire to baptize the children of this African village.

Kingsolver writes,

“Then there is batiza, Our Father’s fixed passion. Batiza pronounced with the tongue curled just so means “baptism.” Otherwise, it means “to terrify.” Nelson spent part of an afternoon demonstrating to me that fine linguistic difference while we scraped chicken manure from the nest boxes. No one has yet explained it to the Reverend. He is not of mind to receive certain news. Perhaps he should clean more chicken houses” (214).

On top of misunderstanding the subtleties of the language, Nathan Price is incapable of understanding the cultural rituals of the land. From refusing to plant seeds in the correct manner, to urging the native people to dunk their children in alligator-infested rivers, the Reverend’s singular desire of salvation for the people reveals itself in a half-comical, half-tragic way.

Unable to connect with the locals, Nathan’s family falls apart while he does little to nurture their growth. In these ways, The Poisonwood Bible reads like a tragedy.

Christianity Rediscovered

I couldn’t help but think of Christianity Rediscovered by Vincent Donovan while reading The Poisonwood Bible. In Christianity Rediscovered, Donovan narrates his time as a missionary amongst the Masai people in Tanzania. During his mission, Donovan rediscovers the gospel message as he learns the Masai culture.

Instead of phrasing the gospel in an American way, Donovan learns the subtleties of Masai culture first in order to phrase the gospel in a way that the people not only understand, but also can practice without divorcing themselves from an ingrained culture.

As such, Donovan learns that the gospel runs deeper than its Americanized form. In a way, Christianity Rediscovered and The Poisonwood Bible read as the polar opposite ways of spreading the gospel.

Although The Poisonwood Bible is a sad story about the ways a family falls apart on the mission field, Kingsolver writes well and approaches dense subjects with honesty. I recommend this book!