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Pigs in Heaven
: Thank you, Barbara Kingsolver, for your humour and warmth, and most especially, your respect for human dignity
Pigs in Heaven, by Barbara Kingsolver, was a wonderfully written novel filled with excellently portrayed three dimensional characters all linked to create a superb piece of work. Kingsolver did a great job linking the characters in this novel. I especially enjoyed how, at the conclusion of this novel, Cash and Alice came together, allowing for Turtle to stay with Taylor and her discovered grandfather. This was a well thought out novel and I'm glad it had such a positive ending. Since I had already read the Bean Trees, the first novel in this sequel, I had a little bit more information on these characters and I thought it was tremendous how the author continued to carry out each character's personality as she wrote the second part of her sequel. Each character was so well thought out and it was so easy to become familiar with them and their ways. I especially enjoyed reading about Turtle and Barbie. Turtle was such a great character and it was so easy to fall in love with her as soon as you found out her name. Barbie was such a thorough chaaracter who was so well thought out from head to toe. I loved to see how these characters progressed and I can't wait to see if they are further developed in a third part in this excellent sequel.
 Kingsolver creates characters you'll learn to love as they struggle to make sense of and survive in a complex world. When a lovable man of limited intelligence falls into a hole in the Hoover Dam, an adventure begins and doesn't stop until a Television set is blown to bits with a shot gun. You'll notice that as each of characters travels farther away from their "family" (center) they become weaker and more confused. Only by returning home can you find Heaven, pigs and all. It's an adventure with meaning for all of us. Despite, the strength of this book, I do not think it is for everyone as it's style can be slow at times. It is a character-driven rather than plot-oriented novel. Clancy lovers beware
A Tapestry of Woven Characters and Plots I am very impressed with Barbara Kingsolver's ability to cleverly link most of the characters and plots presented in Pigs in Heaven. Everything is so intricately webbed together that the idea of linkage represents a great deal of symbolism in the novel. Fate rules the outcome of the story at the start of Chapter Two. The plot spills like a domino effect right after Taylor decides to turn the car around and listen to Turtle. Saving Lucky Buster prompted Turtle to be seen on Oprah by Annawake Fourkiller. Annawake then assumes and comes to find out that Turtle's adoption is in fact illegal, and the whole idea of the Nation having jurisdiction over child custody proceedings becomes a huge ordeal in the book. The fact that the Cherokee nation is such a unified tribe comes to our attention very often. Annawake says that family is the heart of the tribe. She states that the Cherokees love their children more than money. We soon come to find out that everyone in the tribe is related in some way or another to everyone else. Alice comes to notice that there is a tight bond between the generations on the reservation when she visits her friend Sugar. Alice feels accepted for the first time while she is in Heaven. She sees children respecting their elders with huge amounts of love and politeness, and children being shared from one mother to the next. As Sugar explains, the families themselves stick together like glue. Very rarely do you not see a plot of land with generations of an Indian family living together, "Well, because they'd just end up coming back anyway, because this is where the family is...listen, in the old days they didn't even go across the yard. They just added onto the house. When you married, the daughter and the husband just built another room onto her folks house"(220). The Cherokee Nation is one huge building block of generations. The existence of such a tight Cherokee family connection is the reason Cash feels totally lost in Jackson Hole. He is studied by fascinated tourists as if he were a freak of nature. Cash starts to regret his leaving the Nation, "It was a purely crazy thing for him to want to move up here two years ago. Oklahoma Cherokees never leave Oklahoma. Most don't even move two hickory trees away from the house where they were born"(114). He feels outcast and shamed and can easily identify with the pigeons who are displaced like he is in Jackson Hole. His heart draws him back to his family where his soul can be found. He is so incredibly linked to the tribe, that it is a security blanket for him: The massed reds flecked with gold are Indian blanket; Cash recalls this name with pleasure, like a precious possession lost and retrieved. He fixes the radio on the sweet, torn voice of George Jones and breathes deeply of the air near home(175.) The funny thing is that all of his immediate family is dead, his wife and his daughters, but he refers to those Cherokees even very distantly related to him as family. The idea that Cash is "found" by the Cherokees seems ironic. An individual is found by a community according to the tribe. One person versus many, the terms seem like opposites to me, but this is what Barbara Kingsolver was most interested in. In a documentary seen in class, Barbara Kingsolver says that one of the most intriguing connections is autonomy versus community in her books. The Cherokees feel that the individual is brought out among the community. A link exists between the self and the Nation. Everything is shared from children and homes to adoption decisions by the tribe. Another example of individual acceptance within the community is Boma Mellowbug. The Cherokees cherish the way she puts empty bottles on trees, in fact, the whole community gets involved and comes together to help create the bottle trees. The myth Annawake constantly tells others about the boys who wouldn1t listen to their mother has a linked meaning. The Indians see the six linked stars and refer to the constellation as the six pigs in heaven. White people see seven stars, the extra star Annawake said may be the mother who refused to let go of her children. Of course the mother portrayed in Pigs in Heaven who would do anything to keep her child was Taylor. Ironically, Taylor is then linked with the Cherokee myth. Whether there are six stars or seven stars the quantity of stars can be connected with the number main characters in the book; Alice, Taylor, Turtle, Annawake, Sugar, and Cash. Then in the end of the novel when Annawake decides joint custody would be the best alternative for Turtle, a sharing is being exchanged. In the end, the start of an acceptance between the Cherokee and the White people is being exerted.
Ms Kingsolver writes exquisitely. She manages to captivate
the readers imagination with wit and style. Her use of the
English language is delightful. Yet, she does not get so
involved with the prose that she forgets the tale. She does
an excellent job developing the plot line. The reader is
deliciously surprised by some unexpected twists and turns.
The family is key without being maudlin.
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