There is no meeting in July.
The book for Tuesday August 17th is Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver. Please note that this is a Tuesday and not the normal Monday.
There is no meeting in July.
The book for Tuesday August 17th is Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver. Please note that this is a Tuesday and not the normal Monday.
“Flight Behaviour” (2012) is a string of conversations intended to teach global warming. The characters are cut-out-cards on flimsy story sticks jostled into domestic settings to dialogue climate change. Scottish poet Kathleen Jamie “despairs at the environment” and “just writes it”. Jamie does not like writing that has intentions and here I’m with Jamie. Barbara Kingsolver, however, resisted Mariella Fostrop’s review of her novel as an “unabashed lecture” on climate change explaining that she was “exploring environmentalism and class” within a “palatable and compelling story”. Well not one of our group found this book to our taste and only half were compelled to read to the end. Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” (1873-7) presents a view of environmentalism and class within an exquisite story full of character, insight, humour, plot and pain; so much more than is on offer in “Flight Behaviour”.
Kingsolver is popular, an international bestselling author with many literary awards, taking the Orange Prize for “The Lacuna” ahead of Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall” in 2010. Perhaps “Flight Behaviour” (Kingsolver’s eighth novel) is not the best choice for readers new (and not already devoted) to Kingsolver. “Unsheltered” (2018) her ninth novel could be a better introduction. It has the same inform-by-dialogue method as “Flight Behaviour” at one point even placing protagonists on stage to debate before an audience, but intention is softened, less strident, shyly subordinate to story. “Flight Behaviour” is not for the reader who wants novels that express character. But if you want pedagogic parables delivered in snatches of deliberate domestic dialectic Kingsolver is for you.