Book Review # 8 - Flight Behavior

Barbara Kingsolver meshes Monarch butterflies and the threat climate changes poses to their survival with a melancholy marriage set in rural Appalachia in her novel, Flight Behavior. Without any doubt, Kingsolver is a magnificent writer able to challenge and question perceived tradition and morality with her metaphorical and graceful writing. Unfortunately, she seems to stumble over her own agenda in Flight Behavior and the effect is a somewhat disjointed and frequently boring story.

Dellarobia, who, sadly, is never offered a better nickname, discovers a forest full of Monarch butterflies while walking towards an abandoned mountain dwelling to begin an extramarital affair. The sighting stops her and the remainder of the book deals with the butterflies - why they are in Tennessee and not Mexico where they belong - as well as why she initially wanted to escape from her marriage and if the butterfly discovery, with its subsequent impact on her relationships and family life, changes that fact.

I wish Kingsolver had chosen to be more subtle. Her feelings towards climate change as well as ignorant red-necks is unapologetic and judgmental. She developed some interesting characters but only ever allowed Dellarobia (again...that name is so painful to my brain) to change or grow. But her change was so orchestrated and predictable, I felt, that even it wasn't satisfying or helpful.

I believe in climate change. I think there is plenty of data and evidence to support those that say the world is warming and, with that warming, uncomfortable changes to all life is inevitable.  What bothered me in this book was her tone used through characters like Ovid and Patrick that humans and the media and how our sloppy, selfish ways are all to blame. It is more interesting because she takes quite a bit of time explaining the difference between correlation and causation to explain the uncertainty of the butterfly migration but doesn't seem to see its application with climate change itself.

The entire book would feel obnoxious in the hands of a less talented author but Kingsolver does manage some excellent story telling in between her preaching. Her descriptions and settings are vivid and intimate and I could see the forest of butterflies as well as stains on her two-year olds clothes. While not from Appalachia, I could see the trucks and the cigarettes and the isolation and the beauty. Like all places, there is a struggle between the old and the new, tradition versus change and stereotypes threatening sincerity. I'm sure a dyed-in-the-wool (that cliche was used on purpose in honor of the wool dying done in the book) environmentalist will love this book. It is their truth. But, in terms of the future of butterflies and certainly the purpose of marriage - it is not mine.