9780062124319
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Flight Behavior audiobook

  • By: Barbara Kingsolver
  • Narrator: Barbara Kingsolver
  • Category: Fiction, Political
  • Length: 16 hours 56 minutes
  • Publisher: HarperAudio
  • Publish date: November 06, 2012
  • Language: English
  • (75441 ratings)
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Flight Behavior Audiobook Summary

New York Times Bestseller
Indie Bestseller
Barnes & Noble Bestseller
National Bestseller
Amazon Best Book of the Month
Indie Next Pick

Best Book of the Year: New York Times Notable, Washington Post Notable, Amazon Editor’s Choice, USA Today’s Top Ten (#1), St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kansas City Star

Prize-winning author: Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Dayton Literary Peace Prize (Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award), Orange Prize for Fiction

Prize-winning Author: National Humanities Medal, Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Orange Prize for Fiction, Dayton Literary Peace Prize (Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award)

“Kingsolver is a gifted magician of words.”
Time

The extraordinary New York Times bestselling author of The Lacuna (winner of the Orange Prize), The Poisonwood Bible (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize), and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver returns with a truly stunning and unforgettable work.

Flight Behavior is a brilliant and suspenseful novel set in present day Appalachia; a breathtaking parable of catastrophe and denial that explores how the complexities we inevitably encounter in life lead us to believe in our particular chosen truths. Kingsolver’s riveting story concerns a young wife and mother on a failing farm in rural Tennessee who experiences something she cannot explain, and how her discovery energizes various competing factions–religious leaders, climate scientists, environmentalists, politicians–trapping her in the center of the conflict and ultimately opening up her world.

Flight Behavior is arguably Kingsolver’s most thrilling and accessible novel to date, and like so many other of her acclaimed works, represents contemporary American fiction at its finest.

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Flight Behavior Audiobook Narrator

Barbara Kingsolver is the narrator of Flight Behavior audiobook that was written by Barbara Kingsolver

About the Author(s) of Flight Behavior

Barbara Kingsolver is the author of Flight Behavior

Flight Behavior Full Details

Narrator Barbara Kingsolver
Length 16 hours 56 minutes
Author Barbara Kingsolver
Category
Publisher HarperAudio
Release date November 06, 2012
ISBN 9780062124319

Subjects

The publisher of the Flight Behavior is HarperAudio. includes the following subjects: The BISAC Subject Code is Fiction, Political

Additional info

The publisher of the Flight Behavior is HarperAudio. The imprint is HarperAudio. It is supplied by HarperAudio. The ISBN-13 is 9780062124319.

Global Availability

This book is only available in the United States.

Goodreads Reviews

Will

January 11, 2023

In 2004 Barbara Kingsolver moved from Tucson, where she had lived since 1978, to southern Appalachia. This marked a return to her roots, migrating back to an ancestral place, like the butterflies in her latest novel, Flight Behavior might once have done. She must feel right at home there as she has written a wonderful book set in the fictional Appalachian town of Feathertown, Tennessee. The flight of the title refers not only to the arrival of hordes of butterflies, but flights of various sorts undertaken by her characters.Barbara Kingsolver - image from EnvirolitLike Moses, Dellarobia Turnbow climbs a mountain and sees a vision. Instead of a flaming bush she sees a flaming forest, alive with millions of Monarch butterflies. As with Moses, what she saw changed her life. Of course her motivation was a bit different. Big Mo was seeking guidance from God on how to lead his people. Dellarobia was leaving her husband and two kids to take up with her latest romantic entanglement, looking to fly rather than to lead. But visions have a way of changing people, or maybe enhancing them.Unearthly beauty had appeared to her, a vision of glory to stop her in the road. For her alone these orange boughs lifted, these long shadows became a brightness rising. It looked like the inside of joy, if a person could see that. A valley of lights, an ethereal wind. It had to mean something. She could save herself.Not really understanding what it was she had seen, Dell takes the event as a sign and changes her course. Change can be good. The novel opens with A certain feeling comes from throwing your good life away, and it is one part rapture.What is worth keeping and what should be tossed? In one’s life and in the wider world?We see this world through Dellarobia’s eyes. She makes a careful examination of her life, in an environment in which unexamined is the way to go. She is a bright woman of 27, married as a result of an adolescent mistake to a decent, if unimaginative man, with two kids, staying in a small house on her in-laws’ property, stuck in her world with not much to look forward to. An unseasonable season of rain (forty days worth, maybe?) has left the area soaked, even more impoverished and vulnerable than usual. The tree was intact, not cut or broken by the wind. What a waste. After maybe centuries of survival it had simply let go of the ground, the wide fist of its root mass ripped up and resting naked above a clay gash in the wooded mountainside. Like herself, it just seemed to have come loose from its station in life. After so much rain upon rain this was happening all over the county…But this new, winged, arrival has caused some excitement. One may wonder what millions of Monarch butterflies are doing gathering en masse in rural Tennessee. When word of the wondrous visitation gets out, interests of all sorts try to interpret its significance and some try bending the event to their own purposes. Some see simple beauty. Those with a churchy bent see the hand of God. Those of a scientific inclination seek to find out why the butterflies chose this place for their nest, without regard to a higher power, seeing an alarming disruption in nature. These critters are supposed to gather in Michoacan, in Mexico, right? What are they doing here? Some property owners look to make a little cash by leading visitors. Some are eager to see the butterflies gone, so they can cut and sell the lumber on that land. Eco-warriors seek to use the event as a tool for spreading their message. Kingsolver shows a wide range of perspectives on the event. She brings in the strong presence of a heavy-hitter scientist with an ironic, artsy name, Ovid Byron. He not only sets up shop to study the phenomenon, complete with a camper and crew, but sees Dellarobia’s intelligence and curiosity and encourages her, even hiring her to help with his project. Kingsolver got her masters and began her working life in biology, after all, not creative writing. It is clear that with her expertise as a biologist it is her scientist words Ovid speaks when explaining how the biology here works. And it is activist Kingsolver’s words he speaks when he takes on the media.Can it be a coincidence that when red-haired (University of Tennessee orange) Dell and African American Ovid Byron come together they match the Monarch coloration? The major underlying natural issue addressed here is global warming, how changes to the global environment can result in significant changes in peoples’ lives. The book opens with talk of the unnatural, relentless rain that has been watering remote Feathertown. What causes this? What happens when it rains so much? The same thing in Appalachia as has happened in places far away. Nothing good. It was surprising to learn that excessive rain can damage even the wool on living sheep. What happens when you are not where you should be? If you are a person, it might mean unhappiness, a feeling of frustration and failure. If you are, say, a species of butterfly, it might mean an absolute existential crisis and an attempt to survive by setting up shop in a new, not-yet-completely-destroyed location.Offering a local perspective is one of the primary elements of the novel. Barbara Kingsolver writes about places she knows. For the African setting of Poisonwood Bible, she drew on the time she had lived there with her family. But she was raised in Kentucky. And it is clear that she has a pretty good sense of the locals. Part of Kingsolver’s purpose here (we believe) is to offer up an image of what life is like for real people in Appalachia. In recent years ecologically sustainable development in environmentally endangered areas has shifted methodology. These days attempts are made to engage local residents, and give them a reason for becoming involved with and gaining from protection efforts. Simply trotting out experts and telling the locals to change their evil ways is not exactly effective. That dynamic is given a nice, if somewhat staged look. A straw man of a northeastern liberal bent descends on the town and starts handing out leaflets urging people to take the pledge. In this case that means promising to change a whole list of behaviors. Turns out that this list is mostly irrelevant to the locals. Things like “eat less meat” when the problem for so many here is to get enough. His list urges a promise to re-cycle, to people who shop for clothing at the second hand shop, and so on. It is a brilliant way of making it clear that it is worth actually knowing something about local life before preaching.It is a difficult life folks lead in Feathertown, a place in which the science teacher offers his students the option of shooting hoops instead of learning science, a place where a Christmas shopping trip is to the second hand store. What of the farmer unable to pay his mortgage unless he sells off wooded land to clear-cutters? What of the income lost because wool has been damaged by so much rain? Kingsolver points out the limitations on the lives of the locals, and how even those with abilities and dreams beyond what can be offered locally are confronted with roadblocks should they try to spread their wings. Her attention is not solely on the hardships of the place. There is also respect. She makes it very clear that even though they might not call it science, farmers practice an applied version, requiring as much scientific method as the search for a cancer cure. She points out the rugged beauty of a thing like hands-on sheep-shearing and clearly mourns its passing. Kingsolver actually raises sheep, so the craft may not be quite dead yet.Kingsolver offers a nice cast of characters, to whom she gives substance. Dell has a snarky sense of humor that I particularly enjoyed. Hubby, Cub, is a decent sort, and we get a sense of him, limitations and all. Their son, Preston, is the kind of kid most intelligent parents dream of, an eager, hungry learner. The scenes of Dellarobia’s with her bff, Dovey, are invigorating. And it is fascinating to see the change over time in the relationship Dell has with her mother-in-law, Hester, and in learning the secret that Hester has so carefully hidden.Kingsolver ingeniously counterpoints the nature events that define the story with the experiences of her characters. Dellarobia searches for the right place to be just as the butterflies do. There are parallels to the butterflies’ experience of having their homes washed away in floods. And, like the beautiful invaders, Dell must undergo a metamorphosis, gathering sustenance where she can find it, in order to wend her way to the next stage in her life. Sometimes reflection alters one’s view of a film, a piece of music or a book. On the first run through, I felt that at times the book was a bit preachy. Kingsolver does drag out disposable characters to make a point here and there. But the process of reviewing causes one to look closer and with that effort my appreciation for the book grew. Initially I was taken with some passing humor. While there certainly is humor here, much of it centered around the doings at a local church, some of which might resonate for viewers of GCB, this is a serious book, addressing serious matters. The humor leavens the tale, but this is about our world becoming unhinged and about people finding their way to their best places. Kingsolver offers a caring, nuanced look at life in Appalachia and raises our awareness of what real global warming looks like to actual people. If you haven’t already gotten your hands on this volume, fly to your bookstore before it is too late. Ok, OK, I know it is not on sale until November, but you can still flutter over to the bookstore or library and put in an order, or a hold. PS - For what it’s worth I see Amy Adams or maybe Jennifer Lawrence as Dellarobia, Lance Rettick as Ovid, Melissa Leo as Hester.PPS – I am not much taken with the cover design, at least the one on the ARE. It consists of hundreds of tear-shapes that do not much suggest flight to me, but rather leaves floating on a pond, or even reptile scales. What am I missing here?=============================EXTRA STUFFThe author’s personal siteItems of Interest-----From the Butterfly website, on the Michoacan habitat -----From the Texas Butterfly Ranch, on the reduction in the Monarchs’ travel numbers-----January 25, 2019 - NY Times - Are We Watching the End of the Monarch Butterfly?Reviews of other Kingsolver books-----The Poisonwood Bible-----The Lacuna-----Unsheltered

Jill

August 09, 2012

Barbara Kingsolver is one of those rare writers with whom you know what you are getting before you open the first page.You know, for example, that the prose is going to be literary, dense, and luscious (take this descriptive line: Summer’s heat had never really arrived, nor the cold in turn, and everything living now seemed to yearn for sun with the anguish of the unloved.”) You know that the content will focus on some kind of social justice, biodiversity, or environmental issue. You know, too, that at some point, Ms. Kingsolver will cross the line into authorial intrusion based on her passion for the subject she is writing on.But you keep coming back for more. At least, I do. There is something mesmerizing about a Barbara Kingsolver novel, and something refreshing about a writer who combines a solid scientific background with stunning prose.This book is entitled Flight Behavior, and for good reason. It opens with a young Appalachian woman – Dellarobia Turnbow – ready to take flight from her shotgun marriage and closed-in life with two young children. On her way up the mountain to engage in an affair, she views an astounding natural phenomenon that changes everything for her.The core of the novel focuses on that phenomenon,centering on the migratory patterns of the bright orange Monarch butterfly, usually viewed only in Mexico. The topic is climate change and Ms. Kingsolver slashes through the obtuse definitions with language anyone can understand. Dellarobia is paired thematically with a Harvard-educated scientist Ovid Byron, whose lifework is studying the butterflies. He says, “If you woke up one morning, Dellarobia, and one of your eyes had moved to the side of your head, how would you feel about that?” That, in effect, is the same as the butterflies migrating to Appalachia.There is much to love about this novel. Dellarobia is authentically portrayed: a woman who is confined in a life she has outgrown, complete with two very genuinely created toddlers and a best friend who is not similarly constrained. The duality of science and religion is also tackled. While Barbara Kingsolver makes no secret of how she feels about those who piously say, “Weather is the Lord’s business” while polluting our environment, she also concedes to the majesty and mystery of nature, culling in parallels from Job and Noah.Ultimately, Ms. Kingsolver leaves us with the most important question of all: “what was the use of saving a world that had no soul left in it. Continents without butterflies, seas without coral reef…What if all human effort amounted basically to saving a place for ourselves to park?” The interconnectedness of all nature’s creatures – and our true place in our own lives and in the lives of the universe – is a message that lives on in this reader’s mind long after the last page is closed.

switterbug (Betsey)

August 03, 2012

When I first heard the title to Barbara Kingsolver’s seventh novel, I thought of airplanes. Such is the orientation of the 21st century. Well, prepare to step into the rural, economically depressed farming and sheepherding town of Feathertown, Tennessee, where the shepherds flock on Sundays to commune with Pastor Bobby Ogle, their beloved and kind preacher and spiritual leader. This is the kind of repressed, technologically challenged community who believes that weather is determined by God, not by science, and that the past year’s flooding was decreed by the heavens and can only be reversed by prayer. In this story, the survival techniques of the Monarch butterfly, those bright orange, delicate but hardy creatures, and that of a diminutive, flame-haired young woman are inextricably intertwined and analogous. The Monarchs have had an atypical flight behavior this year. Floods and landslides led to felled trees everywhere in their usual roosting place in Mexico. Subsequently, they migrated to Feathertown to overwinter. Why Feathertown? That’s the big question that one team of scientists comes to examine. However, they are challenged by the residents, who are skeptical of science-based answers to climate-based questions. In the meantime, residents of Feathertown need to fill their coffers.Dellarobia Turnbow, 27, has her own kind of flight behaviors, spurred on by too much domestic confinement too soon, and now she is primed to flee, restive—flying from pillar to post, as her mother always said. Unlike the rest of the townspeople, she wasn’t as inspired by religion.“She was a…911 Christian: in the event of an emergency, call the Lord…Jesus was a more reliable backer, less likely to drink himself unconscious or get liver cancer. No wonder people chose Him as their number one friend. But if the chemistry wasn’t there, what could you do?”Married in a shotgun wedding ten years ago, she lost a preemie before having two more children. Her husband, Cub, is a large, docile and complacent man, controlled and essentially managed by his mirthless parents. Dellarobia knows that to live in this town is to be under a microscope; she was the untamed child once, and that wildness is rearing its head again, her dormancy coming to an end. The first chapter, “The Measure of a Man,” is the catalyst for both Dellarobia’s evolution and the arc of the story. (If you want to experience it fresh and unspoiled, avoid reading the jacket blurb.) Kingsolver’s time-honored talent for yoking the struggle and turmoil of man with the flux and beauty of nature is vividly drawn. She builds the final, dramatic scene of the chapter to a man/nature composition that is at once distilled and dynamic, serene and dramatic. Abundant, also, are Biblical allusions that reflect the community’s ethos. Kingsolver is an agent of social change. She established the Bellwether prize in literature in order to award writers who effect change for the good of humanity. She is also a scholar with postgrad degrees in biology and environmental science. You are going to encounter a stout measure of activism in her writing, covering such issues as the degradation of the planet and its natural resources and the contentious class system of society. If her political evocations have bothered you in the past, they are likely to bother you here, too.Nevertheless, the author weaves in her social issues with finesse, for the most part, and her vivid portrait of Feathertown is sympathetic and informed. Initially, she seems to lampoon the pious, science-fearing populace, but she gradually tenders the reader to an understanding of the religious community. She slowly develops dialogue between urban, rural, and academic minds and concerns. The biblical allusions are also ripe and fitting, relevant to the inhabitants of Feathertown and the way they see the “miracle” of nature. Dellarobia represents a connection between both worlds. This is the second book I have read that highlights the migratory patterns and survival modes of the Monarch butterfly, and braids in the journey of self-actualization and coming to terms with loss. Sanctuary Line, by Jane Urquhart, is also socially and environmentally conscious, and is an apt companion piece to this book. The clash of family, science, religion, media, politics, and environment takes Dellarobia on a quest beyond the emotional and intellectual borders she has known all her life, on a journey of discovery and transformation. Like a butterfly out of the chrysalis, she must follow the path of her future.4.5 stars

Scott

November 19, 2022

Barbara Kingsolver, in her novel “Flight Behavior”, has brilliantly succeeded where other novelists have failed. She has written an intelligent and moving novel about global climate change without sounding preachy or pandering to either side of the political spectrum. She also doesn’t resort to lame pyrotechnics or outrageous conspiracy theories. She addresses both sides of the issue compassionately, which is interesting in itself as there is really only one side---factual evidence----and the “other side” is simply a denial of those facts, based primarily on an anti-intellectual, faith-based political agenda. Yet she gives the climate deniers their undeserved due by not really blaming them for not seeing the dying forest for the trees. Instead, she makes a pretty decent argument that a large percentage of the population refuses to see the facts in front of them simply because they are incapable of seeing them.Her protagonist, Dellarobia Turnbow, is one of those deniars. At least, she starts out being one, without really knowing it, mainly because she has never given much thought to it. She has left all that stuff up to others, because she doesn’t think she has the intelligence to deal with it. Her husband is a climate deniar, as well as her neighbors, and just about everyone in her church and community, so she has simply been brought up seeing no alternative viewpoint. It was never taught in her schools. At one point, she jokes that her science teacher was the wrestling coach, and she never paid much attention in class anyway. It’s not a funny joke.Then, something amazingly wonderful---possibly even divine---happens to her; something that makes her begin to realize that she is smarter than she ever thought. Of course, as the novel progresses, and Dellarobia’s mind is expanded, she realizes that what happened to her is anything but divine or wonderful.The novel starts with Dellarobia--- a young mother of two (she had her oldest at age 16) who is married to a sweet but not very exciting farmer named Cub, who is still bossed around by his parents---attempting to escape her life.That’s how she puts it, anyway. It goes beyond being a bored Tennessee housewife. Something inside her tells her that she wasn’t quite meant for this life, a life of changing diapers and constant housework and never having enough money for groceries and never going to restaurants and having to endure her husband in his La-Z-Boy recliner zipping through channels with the remote, never remaining on a single channel for more than a minute.So, she decides, one day, that she can’t take it anymore, and she starts walking through the forest behind her backyard leading up to the wooded hills, with thoughts of committing adultery with the young grocery store clerk she always flirts with. Then, she comes to a clearing and sees it: millions of brightly-colored Monarch butterflies, fluttering in the tree branches and filling the sky with their beauty.Word spreads, and the community sees the phenomenon as a sign, a portent heavy with religious significance. A sign of what? That’s unclear, but it is definitely something wonderful.Then, Dr. Ovid Byron, a scientist specializing in butterflies, arrives in town. A tall, handsome Jamaican, Byron’s skin color is just as strange as his name. The fact that he is a scientist, too, is equally unnerving. Except to Dellarobia, who finds him fascinating. Perhaps, at first, sexually, but over time, she also finds him intellectually stimulating. Mainly because he never talks down to her. He assumes that she knows what he is talking about most of the time, and he never makes fun of her when she doesn’t.Of course, what he teaches her is terrifying: that the butterflies’ presence is anything but a positive occurrence. Indeed, their presence in those Tennessee hills is simply one more indication of a damaged and dying world. He begins to teach her about global climate change, or “global warming”, which she automatically dismisses as rubbish because she has been taught to think that way by her community. In essence, what he teaches her is that the world is coming to an end---not the quick, explosive, flashy end that she has seen in Michael Bay movies but the slow, encroaching end of a frog in boiling water, unaware that the end is very near.At first, she vehemently refuses to believe it, but Byron is used to that response.“People can only see things they already recognize,” he tells her. “They’ll see it if they know it. (p. 282)”It’s a telling and profound statement. It’s also one that can be illustrated by a recent Yale-George Mason study, which determined that climate change denial among the general public has actually increased.According to the study, “Back in September 2012, only 43 percent of those who believed that global warming isn't happening said they were either "very sure" or "extremely sure" about their views. By November of last year, that number had increased to 56 percent.” (http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marbl...)The possible reason given for this increase is “the so-called global warming "pause"—the misleading idea that global warming has slowed down or stopped over the the past 15 years or so. This claim was used by climate skeptics, to great effect, in their quest to undermine the release of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fifth Assessment Report in September 2013—precisely during the time period that is in question in the latest study.”(http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marbl...)So, basically, Byron’s statement is correct. That belief or non-belief in global climate change is, for many people, hinging on an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality is kind of shocking. Then again, it isn’t. It’s human nature. Simply put, the end of the world is incomprehensible to most people, so they write it off as an impossibility. They deny the facts because they NEED to deny the facts in order to get through the day. As Dellarobia explains, getting through the day, for her, means “meeting the bus on time... getting the kids to eat supper, getting teeth brushed. No cavities the next time. Little hopes, you know? There’s just not room at our house for the end of the world. (p. 283)”Denial, unfortunately, is no longer an option for Dellarobia. She has had her eyes and mind opened. It unfortunately comes with a cost. She can no longer look at science---and faith---in the same way.In one of the more thoughtful, terrifying, and human conversations in the novel, Kingsolver, via Dellarobia, explains why denial has become a necessary defense mechanism for many people.[Byron said,] “Science doesn’t tell us what we should do. It only tells us what is.”“That must be why people don’t like it,” she said, surprised at her tartness.Ovid, too, seemed startled. “They don’t like science?”“I’m sorry. I’m probably speaking out of turn here. You’ve explained to me how big this is. The climate thing. That it’s taking out stuff we’re counting on. But other people say just forget it. My husband, guys on the radio. They say it’s not proven.”“What we’re discussing is clear and present, Dellarobia. Scientists agree on that. These men on the radio, I assume, are nonscientists. Why would people buy snake oil when they want medicine?”“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You guys aren’t popular. Maybe your medicine’s too bitter. Or you’re not selling to us. Maybe you’re writing us off, thinking we won’t get it. You should start with kindergartens and work your way up.”“It’s too late for that. believe me.” (p. 321)As Byron explains, “Even the most recalcitrant climate scientists agree now, the place is heating up. Pretty much every one of the lot. Unless some other outcome is written on the subject line of his paycheck. (p.366)”Byron’s explanation is backed up by a recent NASA study, which states, “Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities,1and most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position.” (http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-co...)So, why, if an overwhelming majority of scientists agree on this, does the media and the general public still think that there is a “debate” about this issue? It’s not an easy question to answer, and “denial” is only a small part of it. Kingsolver shows that much of the blame goes to a media driven by ratings. Global climate change just isn’t “sexy” enough, and facing human extinction is something that the media has determined that the general public doesn’t want to hear. Possibly for good reason. After all, wouldn’t such news incite panic, depression, and anarchy?Tina Ultner, a CNN reporter who originally broke the story of the butterflies on national news, confronts Byron. The exchange is brilliant: “[Tina said,] “Scientists tell us they can’t predict the exact effects of global warming.”“Correct. We tell you that, because we are more honest than other people. We know evidence will keep coming in. It does not mean we ignore the subject until further notice. We brush our teeth, for instance, even though we do not know exactly how many cavities we may be avoiding."“Well, a lot of people are just not convinced. We’re here to get information.”He rolled his eyes to the ceiling and showed his teeth in a grimace, the tip of his tongue just visible between his front teeth. When he finally looked at her again, this seemed to cause him actual pain. “If you were here to get information, Tina, you would not be standing in my laboratory telling me what scientists think."She opened her mouth, but he cut her off. “What scientists disagree on now, Tina, is how to express our shock. The glaciers that keep Asia’s watersheds in business are going right away. Maybe one of your interns could Google that for you. The Arctic is genuinely collapsing. Scientists used to call these things the canary in the mine. What they say now is, the canary is dead. We are at the top of Niagara Falls, Tina, in a canoe. There is an image for your viewers. We got here by drifting, but we cannot turn around for a lazy paddle back when you finally stop pissing around. We have arrived at the point of an audible roar. Does it strike you as a good time to debate the existence of the falls? (p.367)”The beautiful part of Kingsolver’s novel is that, despite the knowledge that one’s world is ending, it is human nature to keep hope alive, even when there is none. Further resources:http://www.edf.org/climate/climate-ch...http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/impa...

Steve

May 13, 2015

Barbara Kingsolver has included a number of plot threads in her novel Flight Behavior, about subjects she cares about, including the primary one - climate change. Flight Behavior is more than either a story to get lost in or a carefully researched non-fiction book, because it is both and, to use a cliché, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The plot threads include: someone living a life that is less than her potential, bigotry against country culture, and the way the world is affected by climate change. These subjects seem unrelated, but Kingsolver makes them work together.The novel opens with Dellarobia Turnbow walking up a mountain to throw her marriage away on an affair with an attractive telephone lineman. But along the path she encounters something that changes her life, thousands of Monarch butterflies wintering in southern Appalachia. When news of this event spreads to the people of Feathertown, most of the residents take it to be a miracle sent from God. The word spreads further than that small town and soon a scientist named Ovid Byron shows up to study the butterflies. Dellarobia's relationship with that man and with the event that brought him to her changes her life.Dellarobia lives with her husband, Cub, and their two children in a house on land belonging to her in-laws. Prior to the arrival of the butterflies her life consists of taking care of the kids and shopping at second hand shops and dollar stores. Early in the novel Dellarobia thinks she's been named after a hand crafted wreath, something she isn't proud of. But she discovers later on that della Robbia is the name of a fifteenth century sculptor. Dellarobia's name is a great metaphor for her life, how she is much more than she thought she was.One of my favorite quotes from the novel comes from a conversation between Ovid and his wife, Juliette. They are speaking about Dellarobia's theory concerning the reasons why many country people doubt that climate change exists. Ovid says, “Climate change denial functions like folk art for some people, a way of defining survival in their own terms.” Juliette's reply is that she had always thought the attitude came from “Corporate mantras via conservative media.” There is probably truth in both points, but Ovid's is less simplistic and respects the people of Appalachia for having the ability to come up with their own ideas.I love Barbara Kingsolver's writing and her activism. This book is one of her best.Steve Lindahl - author of White Horse Regressions and Motherless Soul

Camie

December 17, 2016

Oh Barbara Kingsolver, how I loved the Bean Trees and The Poisonwood Bible, and now I am finally catching up on some of her newer work. Here using an actual tragic incident in Mexico(2010) that affected the migration of the entire North American population of Monarch butterflies, Kingsolver has written a fictional story of their relocation to a small Appalachian town. As Dellarobia, a young mother who is discouraged with her life and the disappointing results of her "shotgun " marriage, steals up the mountainside away from the family farm she shares with her husband Cub, In-laws and two young children, to meet a would be clandestine lover, she stumbles upon the sight of millions of Monarch butterflies that have arrived in masse to inhabit a grove of trees reserved for future logging income on the family land. The breathtaking sight is inspiration enough to cause a "rethink" of her actions and soon her life is filled with adventure as scientists ( namely Ovid their charismatic leader), the media, and other onlookers invade the family farm. This is a beautifully written book with parallels drawn between the lives of butterflies and people driven to survive, and plot lines covering such diverse subjects as human nature and global warming. If you haven't yet read any of Barbara Kingsolver's work you're missing out. 4 stars

Ron

November 22, 2013

Earlier this month, a writer in the Guardian lamented the scarcity of novels about “the most pressing and complex problem of our time”: climate change. “We don’t want to have this conversation,” complained Daniel Kramb, “and neither do most characters in most novels being published.”As Paul Ryan would say, the dangers of this so-called crisis are debatable. Imagine if “most characters in most novels” lectured each other about climate change. I’d push the last polar bear off his melting ice floe to avoid that. And who exactly would be converted by these missing environmental stories? Are oil lobbyists just one good climate-change novel away from seeing the error of their ways?Actually, unlike our cowardly presidential candidates, a number of major novelists have raised alarms about the Earth’s health, but novels aren’t particularly effective at articulating political positions or scientific facts. The weakest sections of Jonathan Franzen’s “Freedom” are those that hector us about the loss of songbirds. T.C. Boyle, Lydia Millet and Margaret Atwood are already preaching to the overheated choir. Two years ago, when Ian McEwan published, “Solar,” his novel about rising CO2 levels, he admitted that “the best way to tell people about climate change is through nonfiction.”Now the sun rises on Barbara Kingsolver’s “Flight Behavior,” a climate-change novel described by the publisher as “her most accessible and commercial book to date” — the literary equivalent of whole-wheat pasta your kids will love! There are, of course, reasons to be skeptical. In 2000, Kingsolver established the Bellwether Prize to promote, among other liberal goals, novels that “advocate the preservation of nature.” Fortunately, her own books have been more subtle than the earnest Bellwether winners, and “Flight Behavior” is not the op-ed-in-story-form that one might fear.The book’s success stems from Kingsolver’s willingness to stay focused on a conflicted young woman and her faltering marriage, while a strange symptom of the degraded environment overwhelms her remote Tennessee town. In the opening pages, we meet Dellarobia Turnbow, “lighting out her own back door to wreck her reputation.” She’s a mother of two, walking alone up a mountain to commit adultery with a 22-year-old telephone repairman. “Her betrayals shocked her,” Kingsolver writes. “It was like watching some maddened, unstoppable, and slightly cuter version of herself on television, doing things a person could never do with just normal life.”There’s a propulsive moral tension in this opening scene, which is suddenly heightened by a vision. Before Dellarobia consummates her woodland tryst, she sees the whole mountainside on fire — blazing like Moses’ burning bush. “The flame now appeared to lift from individual treetops in showers of orange sparks, exploding the way a pine log does in a campfire when it’s poked. The sparks spiraled upward in swirls like funnel clouds. Twisters of brightness against gray sky.”But there’s no smoke and no sound — a spiritual revelation that changes Dellarobia’s heart and sends her scurrying back to her drab home.Only later does she learn that what she took to be flames were, in fact, tens of millions of monarch butterflies. Thrown off course by climate change, the majestic insects have mistakenly landed here, behind Dellarobia’s house, instead of their usual winter sanctuary in Mexico.Scientific probability aside, it’s an ingenious idea, and it makes for an eerie and gorgeous backdrop for this story about a woman emerging from her own chrysalis of ignorance and discontent. Dellarobia has been stuck in a bland marriage since she was 17, constantly fantasizing about taking flight, but the arrival of the monarchs transforms her life. Her church regards her testimony about the butterflies as a sign of grace. For the first time, she wins some begrudging respect from her hardhearted mother-in-law. Local and national reporters descend on Della­robia’s water-logged sheep farm and transform her into an Internet meme. Tourists and wacky environmentalists take pilgrimages to her door. And a lepidopterist who’s been studying the butterfly migration for years sets up shop with his grad students in her barn.Despite the elements of absurdity here, Kingsolver plays none of this for laughs or satire. She takes her time — probably too much time — and carefully draws the intricate ecosystem of faith, farming and debt in small-town America. Church-going Christians make such easy targets in literary fiction, and King­solver has written before, in “The Poisonwood Bible,” about the nastier side of religious obstinacy. But in “Flight Behavior,” the church is a moderating and inspiring influence, supported by dedicated but thoroughly realistic believers. In fact, there’s a marked absence of villains throughout this story, which, frankly, saps its drama a bit: no corrupt ministers or rapacious developers; Dellarobia’s unambitious husband is boring but never unkind; even Dellarobia’s bitter mother-in-law evolves into one of the more complicated characters.What interests Kingsolver most is the metamorphosis that Dellarobia undergoes as she befriends the scientist in charge of figuring out what sent these monarchs so far off track. Without a college education or a computer in the house, she feels stupid and embarrassed around this brilliant man, but he’s eager to explain his work, which is both fascinating and, in its implications, deeply depressing. How will a young woman who fantasizes about leaving Appalachia and her moribund marriage react to learning that she lives on a wrecked planet?Kingsolver is particularly astute about the blind spots created by extreme differences in class and education. (A tony environmentalist advises Dellarobia to bring her own Tupperware for leftovers when she eats out. She snaps back: “I’ve not eaten at a restaurant in over two years.”) Among many things, Kingsolver illustrates that climate-change denial, which strikes so many intelligent people as ignorant or self-destructive, is often a defense mechanism against overwhelming despair. And some of the sharpest scenes in the book critique the way journalists distort and neuter scientific discourse to satisfy what they imagine are their audience’s limitations.Still, as in her previous novel, “The Lacuna,” Kingsolver has trouble maintaining forward momentum. “Flight Behavior” is never dull, but the energy leaks out of the story, which sometimes seems allergic to its own drama. And for a heroine reputed to have a wandering eye, Dellarobia has a remarkably low libido. This may be the saintliest novel ever predicated on the persistent temptation of adultery.But even if the sheets don’t heat up, the earth does. Kingsolver has written one of the more thoughtful novels about the scientific, financial and psychological intricacies of climate change. And her ability to put these silent, breathtakingly beautiful butterflies at the center of this calamitous and noisy debate is nothing short of brilliant. “Flight Behavior” isn’t trying to reform recalcitrant consumers or make good liberals feel even more pious about carpooling — so often the purview of environmental fiction — it’s just trying to illuminate the mysterious interplay of the natural world and our own conflicted hearts.http://www.washingtonpost.com/enterta...

Book Concierge

January 24, 2020

Audiobook read by the author Dellarobia Turnbow is ten years into a marriage that has never satisfied her. Unsure how to deal with her restlessness she flirts with a younger man, a telephone lineman, and suggests a tryst in a hunter’s blind deep in the woods behind her home. But as she climbs to this ill-thought-out meeting, she encounters a strange sight that literally stops her in her tracks. The only way she can describe it is “a lake of fire.”Kingsolver has crafted a story of one woman’s awakening, and simultaneously a warning about climate change. I found the story compelling from both perspectives.Dellarobia is a fascinating character. She’s intelligent but lacks education, having gotten pregnant and married right out of high school. Her community is small and somewhat restrictive. People are mostly struggling to survive in deep Appalachia. They do not have time to ponder philosophy or global impact. And they are quick to judge anyone who tries to break out of the mold. Focus is on family and church. Dellarobia and her husband live on his parents’ land, in a house just a stone’s throw from his mother and father. Yet they have limited say in their own future. It’s no wonder she’s feeling suffocated and unfulfilled. But when her in-laws discover the amazing sight on the mountain things begin to change. Dellarobia becomes the focus of media attention and her image goes viral. She begins helping the scientist who comes to study the phenomenon and this opens her eyes to new possibilities. While the book begins with a self-described rash act, I found Dellarobia to be much more cautious than that initial impression. I liked the way she thought about, questioned, researched, and considered her life, her family, her relationships and her future. I liked that she begins to make some hard decisions that are first about her own survival, and ultimately about her family as well. Certainly there are references to religion (just google “lake of fire” and the bible). And Kingsolver is questioning how people can believe something in the face of contradictory evidence – in this case about climate change. I know many people criticize Kingsolver for being preachy, but I did not find her message overbearing in this book. It certainly gave me plenty to think about. I did find the ending somewhat abrupt and would love to have some discussion about it with one of my F2F book clubs. Unfortunately for me, this book has not yet made it to the reading list for any of them … yet.Kingsolver narrates the audiobook herself, and she does a fine job. She makes no effort to give the characters significantly different voices, though she does attempt a vaguely “Caribbean” accent for Ovid.

Michael

March 01, 2014

The truest test of a book’s transcendence is that you leave it with three feelings: an infinite sensation of fullness, a sting of immeasurable loss for having to depart a place and a life you have lived in, even if only for a short time, and the seething envy that someone could write a book so phenomenal (and that you could never measure up as a writer — I guess that’s a fourth feeling).“Flight Behavior” is my initiation into the land of Barbara Kingsolver, and I have no doubt that I will be visiting it again soon, and throughout my life. There are few writers I wish I could emulate more (another is Lionel Shriver, but even her lucidity and savage grace can’t quite match the heart-stopping imagery, natural lyricism, and emotional clarity of Kingsolver’s prose in this novel). Everything about Kingsolver’s scope is expansive, yet the story revolves around the thoughts of one Appalachian woman dealing with duty, belief, and personal truths smashing up against global ones. Dellarobia is a character with so much emotional depth that it seems murderous to have her existence end with the last page of the book.“Flight Behavior” is a rare thing: a novel so perfect that it seems otherworldly, so lush as to be eternal.

Adhityani

February 07, 2013

Climate change, the single most important issue of our time, is one of those themes that are so vast, packed with complicated scientific concepts, obscured by political debates and made even more confusing by irresponsible media reporting, that any attempt to narrate a story that is remotely linked to it becomes an act of bravery. Barbara took the challenge a step further; she has set her story in the Bible Belt; where views on this particular issue collides the strongest but where also stereotypes and beliefs are ingrained and firmly held and created the most unusual and intriguing stage for her tale: A forest filled with Monarch butterflies. The story goes like this: Dellarobia is a mum of two and an unhappy country wife. Her marriage was made in a haste at a young age and ever since she has been living on her husband's family farm, where she is treated more like an accesorry and nuisance rather than as a family member by her in laws. Her life began to unravel when she discovered that millions of Monarch butterflies have migrated into her backyard, turning it into a national sensation and a scientific curiosity. The discovery set off a chain of events that will open her eyes and the eyes of many around her to the alarming circumstances that the and her personal world are facing. The brilliance lies in the fact that the threats of climate change were all revealed and made clear to Dellarobia in a way that was matter-of-fact, unlike climate change alarmism that is has grown tiring. The ground beneath her feet soon started to shift and Dellarobia is faced with having to make important decisions for her future and the future of her children. Kingsolver took her biological science background, mastery of prose and insight into the human psychology to create one of the best storytelling built around the man versus human narration that I have ever come across. This is a book about how worlds shift, both that of the internal and the external, and that is slow, gradual, stirring, but once it reaches a point of no return, the changes manifests itself dramatically and forcefully in eruptions of beauty and tragedy woven into one. Instead of littering the story with science mumbo jumbo seeking authenticity, here is an author that explains ecologically not only in a very simple and digestible manner, but does it so beautifully that invokes the reader's appreciation for science and nature. Her characters are convincing and make lasting impressions; their stories are relatable and while they may start very stereotypical or caricaturish, Kingsolver is very good at peeling the layers one by one to reveal their true personalities. Dellarobia as the main character carried the story very well; I felt for her, I empathise with her regrets, sorrows, desires and needs, perhaps because I, too, am a mum and wife. Kingsolver also nailed all of Dellarobia's reflections on marriage, childbearing, girlish desires and personal ambitions on the head. I must say I am occassionally annoyed at some of her habits, her hesitation, her naivety and more, but in the end the author managed to create a character that grows on you and admittedly you do want to see her win. She has done very well with all of the other key characters, too - we see them through Dellarobia's eyes and with every turn of the page they shed their stereotypes and subtly but firmly establish real human presence in the story, leaving lasting impression. Interaction between them, too, grow more complicated, as human interactions invariably, do. There are no bad guys here; human needs, desires have been blurred the line between good and bad, triggered by opportunity and natural forces. It represents the true story behind reports of ecological and environmental occurences, unlike the the classic take by headline chasing mainstream media going for either the "miracle" angle or the "freak of nature" angle. The plot is simple and to some extent is predictable, but it's truly the storytelling that blew me away. The prose is lyrical, especially at the beginning and end. It sort of lends a biblical quality to it, which I am sure was Kingsolver's intention. Consistent with that style, each act and event are carefully crafted as an analogy linked to something bigger. They are masterfully interwoven to reveal new information, to introduce new plot twists, and I know I have been using this word way too many times, in a very skilled, precise way. A testament to Kingsolver's masterful storytelling. I particularly liked the ending - though, again, I saw it coming as it was fairly predictable - the bigger themes slowly fade into the background as Dellarobia embraces the changes, her new reality. At that point the book had me ponder some of the important questions raised regarding man's relationship to nature. It has no doubt impacted the way I perceive certain ecological and social aspects related to climate change. I realised this was the book I wanted to write if I were to ever become an author. This is why this book is in my list of all time favorites and should be considered an instant classic. Highly recommended.

Suzanne

July 29, 2016

I love and admire Kingsolver as an author. She had me at The Bean Tree. When I began Flight Progression, I was immediately taken with the names of characters: Dellarobia(I thought of the blue pigment on my water color pallette), Ovid, Byron, Hester, Cordelia, Preston. This is Appalachia. I expected Cub and Bear, short for Burley junior and senior. Of course, Kingsolver addresses these prejudices. Oh yes there's Pastor Ogle which is clearly oggle. Dellarobia points out the high road. There are so many literary allusion, I found myself giggling.Dovey, Dellarobia's best friend continually texted church marquee signs like "Moses was a basket case." This reminds me of Flannery O'Conner. The jokes were fast and fun. The butterflies landed near Feathertown. Their nests were draping every tree and millions of monarchs filled the sky making the skeptical Dellarobia believe that she was witnessing a miracle. The day that she delivered a lamb was another miracle. The confidence she developed as she learned from Ovid is another miracle which teacher-readers will be able to relate to. Kingsolver did a great job showing the city,affluent reader, how the poor and the rural people are conserving and recycling in a much more serious way than those of us who take pride in recycling soda bottles and newspapers.Dellarobia's personal crisises are many and often analogous to nature: sheep. butterflies, climate control, but sometimes derive from poverty, lack of education,etc.Kingsolver has such a way with words. I can see Julia Roberts speaking truth about life in the hills. I can hear Sidney Poitier as Ovid Byron. Unfortunately they're too old. Meryl Streep could play Hester. The dialogue is still singing in my ear. We are southerners. We understand that macaroni and cheese is a vegetable." And "Seeing is believing.Refusing to look at the evidence, this is also popular." I've got about 60 high lights.As I reread my review, I keep thinking the whole is equal to the sum of its parts. In this novel, I think the parts are greater than the whole.

Clare

January 18, 2013

Despite the obvious parallels between the butterfly life cycle and the metamorphosis of the main character, Dellarobia, Kingsolver has managed to tell many stories here without hammering us with the symbolism. Married and pregnant at 17, ten years later Dellarobia is about to walk away from a marriage that should never have been. That she loves her children is obvious, but that doesn't mean she loves her life. She's on her way up the mountain for a tryst, to cross a line from which there can be no return, when she sees the butterflies for the first time. Without her glasses on they look like a valley of fire. She turns back, the line never crossed, yet her life will never be the same.Putting monarchs in the Appalachians instead of Mexico for the winter is Kingsolver's way to talk about global warming in this book, and although other readers have found it too heavy handed, I managed to learn through Dellarobia's eyes, as someone who didn't know anything about climate change, but who, ultimately, as a farmer, is living with the consequences of it every day. Her life is changed forever with the arrival of the butterflies and those who come to study them, and as each layer is pulled back we can see her emerging from the gloom.Kingsolver never denigrates the simple life of the characters in this book. Instead, one scene in which Dellarobia is being lectured by one of the many visitors to reduce her carbon footprint is a testament to the folks who have no such need. "Fly less?" Dellarobia thinks, incredulously. Each character in this book is well crafted, even those we encounter for a short time, and they are unfolded for us as Dellarobia's awakening reveals them more fully to her for the first time.Highly recommended.

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Listening to audiobooks on your smart phone, with Speechify, is the easiest way to listen to audiobooks.

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