Looking into the Eyes in the Trees

I just finished The Poisonwood Bible today! The last book really has resonated with me (if you need a summary of it, here it is) and I want to discuss that. First of all, Kingsolver does not identify the narrator right away. We do figure out that it's Ruth May eventually, for she explains, "I am your bad child now gone good, for when children die they were only good" (Kingsolver 537). Ruth May has a very different voice in this book, as if she had continued to grow up, even after her life on Earth ended. Earlier in the story, Ruth May suggested that if she were dead she would be one with the trees, so the title "The Eyes in the Trees" for the chapter she narrates dead is very appropriate, and the way she watches the events invisibly and inactively likens her presence to that of a tree, unable to act in a situation.

The best part of this final book, to me, was the closure it brought. In the sixth book, we get a final word from each living daughter, and whether we readers like what they've decided or not (Rachel simply sees what she wants to, and Adah gives up her medical profession), we know that they feel some sense of resolution. "The Eyes in the Trees" gives the reader a sense of closure with Ruth May and Orleanna. When the woman Orleanna talks to at the market says that Bulungu does not exist, it's an opportunity for Orleanna to move forward with her life. Ruth May tells her, "Slide the weight from your shoulders and move forward. You are afraid you might forget, but you never will. You will forgive and remember" (Kingsolver 543), as if she is urging Orleanna to move past any pain she still feels. She can accept, without mourning, that Bulungu is gone while still acknowledging that it once did exist. We feel closure because Orleanna has guidance, but we also feel closure from hearing Ruth May once more, this time with a wider mind and greater capacity for abstract thinking, and she is content in her death (she even forgives her mother!)

P.S. I looked it up... Bulungu DOES exist! Look!

I just finished this book and had quite a few thoughts on it, but for you readers of mine out there, I've got some questions. Taking into account what the light/dark duality has signaled throughout this story, what does Ruth May mean by "Walk forward into the light?" Is the encounter with the okapi in book 7 the same encounter we first hear about from Orleanna but from a different perspective, or is it another event entirely? What is Ruth May telling her mother to forgive? Let me know your thoughts, and we can discuss!