WERMS
29) Pigs in Heaven (Barbara Kingsolver)
the stark honesty and wisdom of the book, carried all the way through Barbara Kingsolver’s beautiful language is what makes this compelling and moving and bursting with realities about relationships, roots and connections, and the so-called life and living.
the author is so keen with truths about families and relationships: about the ties that break and unite them, of the endearing love that sustains, and the treacherous complications that tear people apart and of those invisible things that draw them together in the end. all these are vividly told in a way that would make the reader like me smile and tear up because of how true and affecting the characters are. how genuine their schemes, their dialogues adorned with spotted wit but devoid of sarcasm, and as i said, hammering a reader down with sheer brutal honesty. Barbara Kingsolver has won another fan here by way of its vibrant cast.
i so love the collection of characters. anyone who has read this novel would symphatize and despise Alice, the woman from the family without men. it’s as if you’re she, the one who’s married to a quiet husband and you admire her own guts for wanting so desperately to get away from an ordinary, low life. and you would hate her after for doing so because you know it’s all at the expence of chasing her own happiness.
you would cheer for and adore Taylor, her daughter. it’s incredible how one woman can be so young, spirited,
smart, selfless and with an incredible self disposition all at the same time. Taylor ought to be appreciated for being what she is and what she’s capable of doing for her daughter, no matter how Turtle is not related to her by blood. plus points for her putting up with Jax, her crazy, smart, and insecure rockstar boyfriend who plays in a band called The Irascible Babies.
of course, Jax. in hindsight, if i were a character in this book, i’d like to be Jax. not only because i have Taylor as a girlfried, but because i’am Jax, the possessor of all things interesting and the walking smart aleck, who wont be labeled as someone who’s soft in the head. he lives in the moment but he’s the type who reveries and stares at the constellations sometimes, and is constantly insecure only because of his love for Taylor, which is a good thing.
and then there’s Annawake Fourkiller. the brilliant, paper doll, and beautiful lawyer for the Cherokee Nation, who upsets the idyll of the protagonists’ lives without meaning to as a mean of defending her history and protecting her people from the hurt that’s been committed in the past. because in the end, blood is thicker than water.
Barbie. the proverbial beauty who patterns her life from the cottony Barbie the doll but is shocking with her history of dysfunction and a series of criminality. i was laughing out loud sometimes with her antics. we’ve all met a person like Barbie in our own life i guess. i just both hated and loved her character.
Pigs in Heaven is filled with joys and hearthaches. what makes me adore Barbara Kingsolver is her distinct voice similar with Toni Morisson. they have such lyricism, intelligent humor, and human compassion that touches the depths of our soul. this book made me cry, so yeah, you can expect it is guaranteed as one of my faves now.
