Blythe's Book 2: The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

So, I should probably start with an apology and a disclaimer: I promise to not follow Pam’s reading list, but I had to read this novel as soon as I got it-- the library's Christmas treat to me. I absolutely love Barbara Kingsolver. Call her blasphemous, sacrilegious, a liberal, whatever. I think she’s pure genius. If you don’t like her work, you may not enjoy reading any farther. Consider yourself forewarned, because I will now sing Kingsolver’s praises.

Kingsolver’s newest novel, The Lacuna, follows the life of a young man named Harrison Shepherd. Allow me to provide a two-second summary: Harrison, a Mexican-America, is raised by a single mother in Mexico, works as a cook/ personal assistant in the Rivera/Kahlo/ Trotsky compound as a young man, and then moves to America, where he becomes a famous author. In his early thirties, his earlier association with the Riveras and Trotskys makes him an easy target in the anti-Communist forties and fifties, and the majority of the book focuses on the tensions surrounding Communism in America and abroad.

I’ve been reading dystopian novels with my students this year—specifically, Anthem and Fahrenheit 451—and my students were quick to identify flaws in our society that mirrored those being critiqued in the novels. I was amazed at how many similar themes Kingsolver elicited in The Lacuna. Much of her novel provides commentary on the press—how quick we are to believe anything that’s written, how very few checks there are on journalists in general, and the danger that may follow if we fail to discern between truth and fabrication. This is a favorite theme in Fahrenheit 451 as well. Bradbury suggests that if we meekly swallow whatever is printed, or said, without ever pausing to consider, then we will fall prey to whoever speaks the loudest. The main character of The Lacuna, Harrison, notes, “The radio is at the root of the evil, their rules is: No silence, ever. When anything happens, the commentator has to speak without a moment’s pause for gathering wisdom. Falsehood and insanity are preferable to silence. You can’t imagine the effect of this. The talkers are rising above the thinkers” (324). Not only does this echo Fahrenheit 451, which was eerily prescient, but it seems so appropriate in this day and age. We are surrounded by empty noise, and rather than running in the opposite direction, we, as a nation, just crank the volume higher. Kingsolver later writes, “people love to read about sins and error, but not their own” (337). By framing her ideas in 1940s America, she carefully avoids pointing the finger at us. Directly, that is. Who can help but think of the talking heads, the hate-mongers on the radio and the news shows who never cease talking? I remember sitting in front of the TV on 9/11, thinking that something new would be said if I kept tuned in; but it was just noise, noise, noise. I finally turned the TV off and took a walk, knowing there would be the same footage, the same accusations from the left, the right, the in-between, awaiting my return. Reading The Lacuna gave me a better understanding of how our society took shape, and what the perils of being obsessed with being “tuned in” are. She put into words my despair over what I see as a total dependency on technology, an unfailing allegiance to what “he” or “she” said—the assumption that if it’s printed, it must be true.

And this is what makes Kingsolver novels so great. Barbara Kingsolver is a master at making readers see the other side of the equation, insisting we question our assumptions. After reading Poisonwood Bible, one wonders, is missionary work a type of colonizing? Is it more important to proselytize or to act with Christian charity and hope others catch on? After reading The Lacuna, one wonders, what have I been spoon-fed over the years? What “truths” have I unquestioningly accepted?

Other assertions she makes through her characters and storyline—that the U.S. basically engaged in an outrageous witch hunt during the Red scare, that your words can and may be used against you—come as no surprise. However, the way she frames these concepts and concerns are what make her a master. Kingsolver always makes the political personal, putting a face on Trotsky, Kahlo, and war-beleaguered America. In Kingsolver’s novels, there is seldom a villain, or if there is, she always complicates matters by showing the backstory, insisting that nothing is as simple as good and bad, right and wrong. I think this is what I love about her work—coming away from a Kingsolver novel, I always feel as if she’d rather her readers think than simply agree; rather they question than consent. Was the U.S. at fault? Was Communism the problem? As Kingsolver suggests, it’s never so simple as “yes” or “no.”