Flight Behavior (Jul 2022)

[Rachel]

I'm really excited to read this book! Firstly because everything Barbara Kingsolver writes is beautiful, and secondly because I'm ready for some fiction. An Amazon reviewer called it "is a work of fiction based on scientific truths" and I think that's perfect for this group. Here's a basic synopsis: "Dellarobia Turnbow--on the run from her stifling life--charges up the mountain above her husband’s family farm and stumbles onto a “valley of fire” filled with millions of monarch butterflies. This vision is deemed miraculous by the town’s parishioners, then the international media. But when Ovid, a scientist who studies monarch behavior, sets up a lab on the Turnbow farm, he learns that the butterflies’ presence signals systemic disorder--and Dellarobia's in-laws’ logging plans won’t help."

Let me know what y'all think during or after reading this book!

[Rachel]

Finished! I struggled a bit with the first third of the book and getting into the story, but really enjoyed the rest. I especially enjoyed the conversations between Dellarobia and Ovid about butterflies, climate change, science, truth, how people end up in different "camps", etc. Those conversations were really truthful and realistic, even though the monarchs in Appalachia was fiction. I could have done with less church talk generally BUT I'm also aware that the church vs science theme is important to the story so I get it. It's beautifully written, many parts or observations resonated with me and my scientist world view, and I enjoyed it! Also I saw a monarch perched on the front of our work truck the other day after I'd started reading this book and that was cool!!

[Susan]

I already read this a while ago and loved it. It's beautifully written with complex characters and themes, the way I like my fiction. And it weaves in both the science of Monarch Butterfly biology, about which I knew little, and the science of climate change, about which I know a lot, in ways that are completely integral to the novel as a whole. Ironically, some of the reviews in 2012 found the religious extremism and climate denialism over the top—but, bizarrely, given that the effects of climate change are all around us now, we see much more extreme versions in our real-life news and social media feeds.
I did what I often do when a novel gets me engaged with some scholarly or historic subject and did a quick web search for some reliable non-fiction accounts, out of curiosity, and to sort the fictionalized science from what is known.
I found this site interesting…
https://monarchjointventure.org/monar...
And this recent report on the response to climate change:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/...

[Rachel]

Susan wrote: "I already read this a while ago and loved it. It's beautifully written with complex characters and themes, the way I like my fiction. And it weaves in both the science of Monarch Butterfly biology,..."
Excellent review and thank you for sharing those links! :)