barbara kingsolver flight behavior review

They also begin trying to figure out ways to cash in on the butterflies’ presence. A season of warm temperatures and heavy rains leads the residents of Feathertown to reconsider their plans. Logging in Tennessee will undoubtedly create the same problems as did clear-cutting in Mexico. Their sudden appearance in Tennessee stirs the locals to rethink their own interactions with their land. The butterflies have fled their normal wintering grounds because of climate change and mudslides. When scientists come to study the misguided monarchs, Dellarobia’s micro-existence irrevocably evolves.Ī major strength of Flight Behavior is the way in which Kingsolver blends serious global dilemmas with the more personal problems of her central character. Pinned against these environmental issues are Dellarobia’s personal attempts to make sense of her own constricted environment. The fire was alive, and incomprehensibly immense, an unbounded, uncountable congregation of flame-colored insects.” What follows is a multi-layered tale of science, global warming, and habitat degradation. “Every tree on the far mountainside was covered with trembling flame.

Monarchs, who have wintered in Mexico for untold generations, suddenly appear on the Turnbow property.

In effect, the novel begins with “flight behavior.”īutterflies, millions of them, stop her in her tracks. The first chapter of Flight Behavior portrays Dellarobia’s precarious situation and her instincts to flee the scene. The novel takes place in rural Appalachia, where Dellarobia Turnbow, with her husband and their two children, are eking out a living on a farm controlled by her in-laws. Writing Flight Behavior, Kingsolver is at her very, very best. Barbara Kingsolver is at her best when she views a particular setting and its inhabitants through the eyes of a keenly perceptive female character.

Barbara kingsolver flight behavior review