I was not very impressed by The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver (1988). I think her Poisonwood Bible is close to brilliant, and now I don't know whether or not to read Pigs in Heaven, which is sitting on my shelf (any opinions?)The Bean Trees is about a young woman who, for no particular reason, decides to leave her hometown in Kentucky for parts unknown. On her journey, she congratulates herself for not getting pregnant in high school, changes her name, and is given a nameless child by strangers during a brief stop. She keeps her.
Her car breaks down in Arizona (where Kingsolver lives) and there she stays, getting by with the help of kindly locals who spill out homespun advice. I am not a fan of proffered hillbilly homilies given as if they were incredibly wise nuggets of truth. With about one per page, these statements made me gag again and again. "Everybody deserves her own piece of the pie", "If the truth was a snake, it would have bit me" and so on...
At times the book approaches a kind of Tales of the City sort of philosophy - in that what it's really "about" is people choosing less traditional lifestyles, raising their children in different ways, and creating a matriarchal society for themselves. But while Tales of the City is really interesting and compelling, I wasn't really interested in the characters of The Bean Trees.Because there's essentially no plot, the book really drags through the middle, and I found myself turning more than one page at a time to make it through to the end. Quite disappointing.
4 comments:
If you didn't like bean trees I imagine you can give pigs in heaven a miss . . . I read the first novel when I was a teenager and have a soft spot for it because I have a soft spot in general for novels in which adults fiercely nurture their children (adopted or otherwise). Turtle as a character won me over more than any of the adults in the story. Pigs in Heaven frustrated me because the focus shifted from caring for an individual child's needs to the political implications of cross-ethnic adoption. Turtle's needs as an actual child became totally ignored by all characters concerned.
I'm going to have to check out the Maupin now :). I've never made the time to read it . . .
I have to agree with you that the local color definitely gets a little crazy in The Bean Trees. However, I really liked the characters. I found them to be pretty interesting, especially the older woman neighbor and the illegal immigrants (I can't remember their names, but I know that I liked them!). I haven't read Kingsolver's other works, but eventually plan on it.
Thanks for the advice, gals (and for reading my blog!) I'm going to give Pigs in Heaven a pass.
Its been a while since I read what I think of as Kingsolver's "lesser novels" ---ever since I read The Poisonwood Bible, none of the earlier works have the same glow they did when I read them in the early 90's.
Of Pigs in Heaven, The Bean Trees and Animal Dreams, the latter was the most impressive, in my opinion.
Maupin--genius.
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