Barbara Kingsolver: "Flight Behavior"
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-11-08/barbara-kingsolver-flight-behavior
Many writers have warned about the perils of climate change. But few novelists have succeeded in turning scientific data into gripping fiction. The best-selling author of “The Lacuna” and “The Poisonwood Bible” hopes to change that. Barbara Kingsolver’s latest book tells the story of Dellarobia Turnbow, a young mother trapped in rural poverty, who discovers millions of butterflies glowing like a “lake of fire” in a pasture. That vision -- which stops her from an adulterous tryst – and its aftermath becomes a wake-up call about climate change for an Appalachian community. It also marks the beginning of a new life for her. Join Diane for her interview with author Barbara Kingsolver.
Guests
Barbara Kingsolver
author of seven works of fiction, including "The Poisonwood Bible," "Animal Dreams," "The Bean Trees" and a recent memoir, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle."
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Read An Excerpt
From FLIGHT BEHAVIOR by Barbara Kingsolver Copyright © 2012 by Barbara Kingsolver. Reprinted courtesy of Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Comments
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It is wonderful to hear Ms. Kingsolver on your show today. I can't wait to read this book. Her novel, The Poisonwood Bible, changed my life as a young 24 year old woman. I am re-reading it for the fourth time with a friend (who is reading it for the first time) and I look forward to discovering how the story speaks to me this time, 10 years after I first read it.
Please extend my many thanks to her for following what is clearly her life's calling.
Warmest Regards,
Erin Johnson
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle completely changed my life! Since reading that book, the way I think about food and what my family, including my 3 young children, eat will be forever better. Thank you! I can't wait to get my hands on the new book.
Emily
I don't think that the power of the large oil gas and coal corporations is as much to blame for any lack of a conversation on global warming as is the fact that few of us (myself included) are willing to take up an Amish lifestyle voluntarily. We humans have painted ourselves into a corner and getting out of the situation will be unplaesant at best. The more unpleasant a task is, the longer we generally put it off. It is not fair to pin so much blame on the corporations, which, at the end of the day, are just groups of fellow humans acting more or less in unison.
Ms Kingsolver makes her neighbors look ignorant. I wonder if they are offended by her discription of them.
I've been a huge fan since your early work and read your essay for Thanksgiving every year. I am excited about this new novel. Thank you for continuing the legacy of Wilma Dykeman, who wrote so sensitively about Appalachia and it's environmental challenges in "Return The Innocent Earth" and "The French Broad"
Lyndall Hare
We were thinking about Mrs. Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle last spring as we foraged for morel mushrooms in North Georgia. Unfortunately our lack of a cold winter dramatically impacted the number of morels we found. Here is another instance of the effect of climate change.
Barbara may not understand that publically expressed opinion on climate change reflects intimidation and learned quiesscience in the face of an enormous power and wealth gap. Appalachian natives are not stupid, and most accept climate change as real. Organized religion, she should understand, has always been a social engineering tool that conflates the needs of the wealthy and powerful with the will of God. God allowed the rich to gain power at our expense, some reason, (in the same way that Mourdock describes pregnancy from rape) and so our role is to conform and survive this life anticipating Heaven. (God never gives us a burden we can't bear=lie.)
This novel is a Dickensian fantasy that quells the impulses of readers to go anti-corporate and undermine their own immediate financial security. Her main character's narrative is no more credible than Pippity Pip (Great Expectations). Barbara herself might be viewed as an opportunist just like the experts who rush to Appalachia in her account to exploit a miracle/signal event.
If Ms Kingsolver (via her novel) believes that climate change is CO2 driven, how does she deal with the fact that the ice core record (going back a half million years plus) tells us that temperature increase PRECEDES CO2 rise (by some 1,000 years)?
As a scientist she surely knows that effect follows cause.
Allan Weisbecker
There is also the Medieval Warm period, wherein the temperature was about 4 degrees (F) above todays, with no catastrophic effects.
I have heard that the human ability to recognize looming threats like climate change is limited because our brain has only been developing this skill in the recent, couple thousand years, past. I would like to hear what your guests thoughts are on this. Thank you
Yes, allan, your recount would put Romney/Ryan in office too.
Then our coming "warm period" would truly be Medieval (neofeudalism).
I live in West Virginia and we are suffering the "front end" effects of climate change in that coal and gas extractive industries are destroying and polluting many of the pristine landscapes in our state and region. The Central Appalachian region contains one of the most diverse hardwood forests on the planet and is the location of headwater streams for most of the East coast. It is so short-sighted to allow these extractive industries the short-term gain of their profit-driven attacks on what should be commonly held overall resources (forest ecosystems and clean stream water). I'm interested to hear if Ms. Kingsolver has any comments on these problems.
Jamie Moran: Maybe the brain provides no answer. Jerry Mander (Capitalist Papers, Four Arguments Against TV) argues that ancient cultures surviving tens of thousands of years provide some examples we need now to survive. Maybe people were smarter in their understanding of nature ten thousand years ago. Jamie, do not confuse a tiny blip of destructive unsustainable technology with intelligence.
As I sit here enjoying your interview with Ms. Kingsolver, whose books my husband and I have devoured, I also page through through the Holiday 2012 issue of Vogue Knitting magazine - which features an extensive article on Ms. Kingsolver and her gorgeous knitwear! When you've got talent, you've got talent!
As I prepare to read your book I am reminded of the book Ismael which discusses "Leavers and "Takers". It is a delight to hear the conversation on NPR.
Robin Blakeman: So following your bliss as Barbara recommends will not save ecosystems or fresh water. Her comments never get far beyond personal sentiment, which makes her a diffuser and not an initiator. The wealthy who own the media find her type useful.
What is the point of Literature as an end in itself?
Change requires more than a supper conversation.
That's the mistake comfortable Liberals make (see Chris Hedges's Death of the Liberal Class).
Allan posits that "since the climate records shows that temperature rise preceeds CO2 rise, therefore CO2 cannot be the forcing causing the temp rise---obviously he does not understand the science. May I suggest he read James Hansen's book 'Storms of My Grandchildren'.
After listening to todays program I eagerly await the arrival of my Amazon order for several of Ms Kingsolver's books!
Thanks for bringing the important issue of 'Climate Change' to the attention of your listening audiance.
I haven't read her essay for Thanksgiving and have tried to find it. Can you please tell me which of her books this essay is taken from? I am new to Ms. Kingsolver's books, and am totally hooked on them now.