Flight Behavior in Around the Year in 52 Books

Dec 12, 2019 Book Concierge rated it really liked it

Shelves: family, audio, nature, tennessee, environment, library, concierge, strong-women, literary-fiction

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 awa 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. ...more

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Jan 30, 2022 Jen K rated it really liked it

Dellarobia wanted to go to college even though she was the only one in her high school class in mountains of Eastern Tennessee with that dream. Instead she got pregnant and consequently married while a teenager. Ten-ish years later, she feels stuck and frustrated by the daily grind of life as wife and mother and sets out one morning ready to possibly destroy her life and family just to step of out unaltering life. Instead she happens upon a glorious sight (hazy without her glasses on) of the mou ...more

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Jan 30, 2014 Jacqie rated it liked it

I haven't read all of Barbara Kingsolver's books, just a sampling. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Prodigal Summer are favorites of mine. I've also read Bean Trees and was left cold by it. Flight Behavior falls closer to Bean Trees than Prodigal Summer for me.

SPOILERS FOLLOW*******

The first chapter doesn't give me much to grab onto for the main character. She's hiking up the mountain to have an affair with a telephone repairman and thinking about how she's going to ruin her life. She seemed very I haven't read all of Barbara Kingsolver's books, just a sampling. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Prodigal Summer are favorites of mine. I've also read Bean Trees and was left cold by it. Flight Behavior falls closer to Bean Trees than Prodigal Summer for me.

SPOILERS FOLLOW*******

The first chapter doesn't give me much to grab onto for the main character. She's hiking up the mountain to have an affair with a telephone repairman and thinking about how she's going to ruin her life. She seemed very shocked by her own behavior, but I couldn't muster up much emotion about it. Then, everything stops and she has a moment of transcendence when she becomes the first to witness the monarch migration which has settled in her Tennessee mountains for the winter. There's lots of symbolism here: Dellarobia, our main character has "tomato colored" hair and is tiny, with a parallel to the colorful and delicate monarch butterflies. She was exhibiting "flight behavior" that she doesn't entirely understand and would ultimately be bad for her by heading off to her assignation, driven by the need to feel special even as she knows she'll destroy her life. Anyway, you get the picture.

I started to like Dellarobia just a little better as the book went on, but she seemed like such a stand-in for authorial voice. This is not one of Kingsolver's subtler efforts- she's telling the reader straight about about the destruction of the planet due to climate change and our short-sightedness, using her scientist characters to speechify and give Dellarobia explanations of climate change and disaster. I'm actually on the same page with this, but even I found it heavy-handed.

Dellarobia is also quite judgmental of pretty much everyone- her family, her community, everyone but the some of the scientists who come to study the monarchs, although not all of them escape judgement. Her husband is a dull, well-meaning, passive oaf, her father-in-law is a short-sighted redneck with a heart of stone, her mother-in-law has bad taste in clothing and colors, and doesn't seem to care about her grandkids. Hester, the mother-in-law, was actually one of the most interesting characters, who eventually shows wisdom and introspection, and I think the book may have been more interesting if it had been about her. The whole community is filled with hicks who deplore education, rely on the church for community if not spirituality, and have no aspirations of any kind. Kingsolver does get one lick in for the well-off and well-meaning liberals who have no idea what it's like to actually live in poverty as they condescendingly make recommendations on how to save the planet like "fly less" to people who will never be able to afford an airplane ticket.

Maybe part of this is a failing of mine- it's hard for me to read a humorous tone in a book and things that are meant to be funny I'll often find depressing due to reading the words on a page instead of hearing them spoken with tone included. But I couldn't find much funny in this community, this main character, or this situation.

I'm not sure who the target audience is for this book. Most people with an environmentalist bent like Kingsolver's don't have to be convinced that the planet is in trouble, and I'm not sure the portrayal of the average Tennessee farmer does them any favors either. I didn't feel like I learned much of anything or got much additional insight or epiphanies from the book, although that seems to be what it was going for. ...more

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Jul 25, 2017 Karen rated it really liked it

I thought she paid exceptional homage to the climate change crisis and the barriers to understanding, including class and education. We are a sinking ship, but our government will not acknowledge it nor take responsibility for our decades-long burning of fossil fuels. We are witnesses to a tragedy of global scale. Kingsolver gently captures the heart of rural Appalachia (sp) and the contradiction (irony?) between wealthy/yuppie vs. rural vs. educated lifestyles and their corresponding carbon foo ...more

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Jun 04, 2014 Sally rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I enjoyed listening to this book. Barbara Kingsolver's lyrical writing really shone when read. I had heard a discussion about the book and seen an amazing collection of butterflies before I actually listened to the story. It helped to be able to visualize all that beauty. ...more

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