Initially, these notes were written in the margins, making them much more concise than my other notes. They also relied on color coding to cut down on having to repeat my thoughts in similar circumstances (pointing out things such as character development or family crises):
Book One: Genesis
- pg 7: "I can picture him spying on it with binoculars...relative of the giraffe."
- emphasizing fantasy vs reality (possible developing theme?)
- pg 15: "Sitting next to me on the plane, she kept batting her white-rabbit eyelashes...bubble-gum pink to match."
- Leah's perspective of Rachel
- pg 21: "My name is Ruth May, and I hate the Devil...now don't do that."
- humorous and child-like
- pg 26: "At that, why...enthusiasm for a dead goat."
- her perceived superiority
- pg 26: "Hurray...wreck your life."
- Rachel shows remarkable scorn and sarcasm
- pg 28: "No one sang or cheered anymore...tending to the food."
- realization what the sermon is about
- pg 29: "This was Mother, who'd never...dread dark shore."
- feeling victimized
- pg 30: "But the way I see it...make slaves of their wives
- "Adah eyes" see the world as a single picture, not in worldly context
- pg 32: "All but Adah. Adah unpasses her judgments. I am the one who does not speak."
- unpasses?
- pg 34: "I am prone to let the doctors' prophecy rest...as nearly as I can tell."
- pg 38: "Nobody had ever planted these flowers...on the day He created flowers."
- humorous views, dry humor
- pg 45: "So all right, no new dresses...Why not?"
- deviation from the "correct" to accommodate the environment; beginning of the fall
- pg 48: "In some ways they are so strict you might as well have Communists for your parents..."
- good comparison, in a way
- I particularly enjoy Adah's palindrome-heavy chapters (pg 55)
- pg 59: Castigated: criticize or reprimand
- pg 59: "That is a Catholic bird."
- characteristic of the Reverend
- pg 62: "Queen Rachel"
- condescending epithet; light-hearted, or really bitter?
- pg 65: "Ruth May is so intent on winning...give herself away."
- testament to childish willpower, even if sarcastic
- pg 66: "I fail to understand...condemn us all to eternal suffering."
- funny, in a terrible way
- pg 68 (all of it)
- long term cumulative tragedy; openly admitting defeat because of Africa; breaking point
- pg 75: "She is the most dramatic...crucial skill."
- Adah is arguably the most honest family member. She has little reason to lie.
- pg 81: "Wake up Brother Fowles!" "Piss off!"
- small unassuming phrase, but still indicative of the weight of the situation
Book Two: The Revelation
- pg 87: "Africa, where one of my children remains in the dank red earth."
- foreshadowing; one of the girls dies
- pg 114: "It struck me what a wide world of difference...hidden under my clothes."
- foreboding dissension, "us against them" emerging
- pg 118: "Jeez, old man."
- the influence of Rachel's speech
- pg 119: "Mama wanted to go instead of him"
- She wanted to get out of the village and into a city
- pg 127: "Gee, does Marilyn Monroe even know...didn't think about it anymore."
- realization of disparity; separation of cultures
- pg 129: "The first one can't get any proper children...doing everything in order."
- Things Fall Apart...something about evil spirits?
- pg 134
- escalation to violence and abuse
- pg 137: "fowl-minded"
- clever triple meaning
- Detached POV when Adah narrates, observes standpoint rather than participant
- pg 158
- Ruth May has thoroughly adopted the Congolese lifestyle
- pg 161: "I sashayed in and picked up the newspaper...I don't want to leave the Congo!"
- global vs. local perspective
- pg 169: "Only God knows when our relief may arrive. But God does know. And in his benevolent service we will stay."
- No end in sight, makes all the difference
- pg 177: "whoever has the biggest click of friends, they win."
- condescending and sarcastic, but often accurate
- pg 185
- Again, the global vs local significance of events; independence vs a single red feather
Book Three: The Judges
- pg 193: "Listen, little best."
- who does this refer to?
- pg 192: "Except when children died...satisfied with their lot."
- there are some common tragedies and injustices
- pg 193: "in hard times everyone's eyes get better or at least good enough."
- that's depressing
- pg 195: "I suppose I'll never know if that...a chance to cross the county line."
- Orleanna's marriage was more an issue of confusion
- pg 196-7: "That was the last I would ever hear of the man I'd married...traveling as a minister's wife."
- provides some humanity to both Orleanna and Nathan
- pg 208: "I am generally called Leba...Kikongo word for nothing much."
- Leah is apparently on relatively good terms with the Congolese
- pg 212: "TOO MUCH, AS A RULE."
- caustic humor
- pg 214: "Then there is batiza...clean more chicken houses."
- the reverend is evidently the least adapted member of the Price family...ironic given his will to stay
- pg 215: "'Mama, I hope he never comes back.'"
- brutal honesty of Ruth May
- Adah is sarcastic, but subtly so; passive aggressive
- pg 224: "I was determined to rile her up somehow...I might panic, or cry."
- with Orleanna sick, Leah adopts motherly roles (beyond chores)
- pg 231: "'Do you see that...The Congo is us."
- fundamental issues the Price family is blind to
- pg 234: "I envied them with an intensity near to love, and near to rage."
- interesting emotional description, reflects familiar conflict
- "Mother May I" is a recurring theme--perhaps to show the disconnect between language and intent?
- pg 239: "I put the matchbox with the lion...song we sang to the chicken."
- Juxtaposition of Congolese ritual ("sinful magic") with much needed instinctual comfort
- pg 342: "Rachel blew out her breath hard...it's been drug through hell backwards."
- cursing is usually an indicator of Price family crisis
- pg 247: "straight-A pupil as always."
- it's interesting seeing Rachel applying negative connotation to an otherwise innocent phrase
- pg 258: "'Bird heaven! he's wen tot bird heaven, Mr. Fowles!'"
- interesting that Ruth May claims Methuselah went to bird heaven, despite Nathan's claims of its sin
- pg 259
- Adah's chapters have a duality of cynicism and poetry
- pg 266: "We couldn't refuse visits from the chief...believe you me."
- Rachel attempts to garner attention, then backs off
- pg 270: "But I won't tell her. I prefer to remain anomalous."
- wrong word, but still relevant
- pg 276
- novel's title passage
- pg 278
- Adah summarizes the condition of the family:
- Nathan mostly unchanged
- Leah adapting (but obsessing over Anatole)
- Orleanna bitter
- Rachel delirious
- Ruth May dispirited
- Adah passive and observant
- pg 282
- Anatole is an intellectual, but still lacks experience first hand
- pg 284: "You can't imagine how different it is...right to know my own name?'
- Anatole has filled the void left after Leah's disillusionment
- pg 296: "If baptized, the children would be in heaven now."
- generally considered a fallacy in the modern Christian community
- pg 300: "Once in the womb, once to the lion, and now like Simon Peter I had denied her for the third time."
- shows the extent of Leah's guilt regarding Adah
- pg 304: "I know what it is...highest one of all."
- a somewhat unsettling look into Ruth May's developing mind
Book Four: Bel and the Serpent
- pg 332: "Father blew up...benevolence of our Lord Jesus Christ!"
- Nathan behaves in a largely uniform manner, but perspective over time emphasizes his madness (both anger and insanity)
- pg 333: "It's true, that was what we believed...with Father staring right at us?"
- failing faith, or fear of Nathan?
- pg 340: "Father went crazy...but I don't think she slept either."
- with each family crisis, the reaction is amplified
- pg 341: "Oh, well, I told him. that is what we call Democracy."
- Rachel is oddly observant in this
- pg 347: "On the day of the hunt...is born and bound to keep."
- the cynical and mechanistic moral to the chapter
- pg 363
- Ruth May's pondering about being a green mamba in a tree, observing from above
- pg 364: "But I found I couldn't move...just above her heart."
- characteristically poetic in tragedy; clinical nature of death
- pg 366-367
- in tragedy, Rachel displays surprisingly frank and philosophical sentiments
- pg 375: "Mah-dah-mey-I?...living progeny of Kilanga to walk forward into the light."
- ironically the children do more to honor Ruth May than nathan
- "Mother May I?" is reflective of the vain repetition Nathan employs (e.g. "The Verse")
Book Five: Exodus
- pg 405: "...and just overall make the graceful transition to wifehood and adulteration."
- double entente?
- pg 405: "Maybe he's been in Africa so long he has forgotten that we Christians have our own system of marriage, and it is called Monotony."
- ...ha. Author has gone for the blatantly humorous
- pg 408: "...whose job I think was to discourage people such as myself form asking for interviews with people such as himself."
- ironic, but often accurate
- pg 410: "When I visit her we never talk much...so out we went."
- Adah's life philosophy, at least after the Congo
- pg 411-412: "Then I stared for a while at a traffic light...I laughed out loud."
- the bare absurdity of modern life
- Leah in 1964 is the polar opposite to Leah at the beginning of the story, but still retains distinct style (emotionally focused, confused, comforted by solidarity)
- pg 425: "I have a good life...so mostly it stays in the drawer."
- willingly blocking memories, or true blissful detachment?
- Rachel has a strikingly (and appropriately) superficial plot when compared to Leah, Orleanna, or Adah
- pg 429: "Why did I have to crow...least of all her sister."
- quick to assign blame to herself; contrast with Rachel
- pg 433: "Since its heyday as a planter's mansion, parts of the house...use it for a school."
- all of the work Nathan had intended
- pg 440: "Mother says I never practiced anything...I just made them on the inside."
- powerfully shows the extent of Adah's internalization
- pg 452: "As a white woman in Kinshasa...once again my jaw dropped."
- continuing to emphasize that Leah will never truly be accepted
- pg 461: "They usually tend to be oil men or interpreners."
- 19 years later, and still making spelling errors
- pg 462: "My proudest achievement is the swimming pool...by paying a whole troop of local boys."
- Rachel's idea of individualism
- pg 474: "I might be envious of Adah now...up to the light again."
- summary of the Price relations
- pg 475
- interesting from Rachel's perspective: Axleroot vs Anatole, who is the criminal
- Rachel also refuses to acknowledge African names (Leah's children)
- pg 479: "Impressive." "What did the dead ones say?"
- Adah, audible and freely moving, but still remains humorously caustic
- pg 482: "No time like the present."
- Rachel's words to live by
- pg 483: "But things fall apart, of course."
- allusion to Things Fall Apart perhaps?
- pg 484: "I lit another cigarette...those suckers were gone."
- smoking presumably picked up from Axleroot.
- pg 487: "Then Adah got a very strange look...last two Lucky Strikes in West Africa."
- well written section; seems to encompass all the characters and themes, full circle
- pg 495: "Not one woman in Bethlehem ever asked me how Ruth May died."
- odd to think about the Price family from an outside perspective.
- pg 505
- focuses on the link between and culture; also the book's title
Book Six: Song of the Three Children
- pg 512: "First there was one husband and then...the minute you turn your back."
- the struggle between the manager and the managed
- pg 513: "Let's face it, I could never have been popular again at home."
- time-twisted point of view; she complains years earlier about not being popular at home ("preacher's daughter")
- pg 515: "You can't just sashay into the jungle aiming to change it all over to the Christian style, without expecting the jungle to change you right back."
- succinctly summarizes the basis of the plot
- pg 517:
- "Ngemba" is missing from Leah's name on the chapter title
- pg 530: "A toad can die of light...that is the secret of my success."
- meaning--humans are not exempt from the laws of nature
- pg 531: Defenestration: the act of throwing a person or thing out of a window
- pg 532: "All the noise in my brain. I clamp it to the page so it will be still."
- poetic description of the writing process
- pg 533
- closing reflections on the Poisonwood Bible
Book Seven: the Eyes of the Trees
- pg 537
- Ruth May's perspective, full circle
- surreal ending; appropriate for depicting the almost fantastical events of the novel placed within believable context
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