Pigs in Heaven
by Barbara Kingsolver
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Book Summary Information
Author: Barbara KingsolverEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1994-03-18
ISBN: 0060922532
Number of pages: 352
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Book Reviews of Pigs in Heaven
Book Review: Pigs in Heaven: Individualism VS Collectivism
Summary: 5 Stars
In Pigs in Heaven, Barbara Kingsolver breaks the norms of classical or even contemporary novels by creating a complex story with no real hero or true villain. The talk can be over main characters but not one single, major persona that is in the very limelight. The extensive use of symbolism in this novel turns human relationships into philosophical issues, issues that convert the physical, tangible into abstraction, issues that awake inquisitiveness and the critical sort of mind out of the active reader, compelling the latter to think of those relationships as culturally pertinent questions that are in urgent need of culturally satisfactory answers. Characters are ridden with symbolism. But these symbolic representations, served in a plate of a relatively tangled plot, aesthetically deprive characters of being classified in a hierarchy of significance. They are almost in the same taxonomic level. For example, Barbie, as a person and a member of a culture, is as significant as Alice Greer; Annawake Fourkiller is as important as Taylor Greer. Actually, what gives this novel a position as a work of art is the fact that each character has its own place, its features, its individuality, and its life, and the writer's capability of providing a character with actual life guarantees the reader's identification with and immersion in the character. It is this deep involvement that transports the reader out of the face-to-face, physical, and tangible, to the abstract and unseen: to the cultural. The cultural in Pigs in Heaven is not the background, yet the foreground; it is the true protagonist and the source of the perceived dichotomy and the serious conflict between individualism and collectivity.
By the end of the novel, Barbara Kingsolver aims at providing the most appropriate alternative to American, individualistic, mainstream culture. In a witty way, she could literally marry two representatives of two different cultures, and through this she metaphorically marries the cultures in question, tacitly asserting that the actual existence of American culture as a hybrid culture in a low-conflict society where individualism and collectivism are in tune can never be attained through false simulacra and distorted images produced by T.V as passive receivers, such as Harland, falsely believe ; rather, this is attainable if cultural groups have the will to be involved in close intercultural interactions that are grounded in respect and tolerance. Also, via a riveting, culture-based story, Barbara Kingsolver stresses the significance of approaching cultural issues from a dialectical point of view. Quoting J. N. Martin and T. K. Nakayama, "the best solution is not always one or the other but may lie somewhere in between" (408).
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Summary of Pigs in Heaven
A phenomenal bestseller and winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award for fiction, Pigs in Heaven continues the story of Taylor and Turtle, first introduced in The Bean Trees.
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