The Nature of Things

Is it my flawed memory or have there been an unusual number of new books out this year that have featured a house as a central character? It seems to me that many of the books that I've read recently have had a house as an important element in the plot. And now here comes Barbara Kingsolver's contribution to the genre.  Perhaps the emphasis on houses - shelters - is a reflection of the unsettled times in which we live when it seems only natural to long for sanctuary and asylum from the daily onslaught of ineptitude, belligerence, and outright brainlessness that seem to rule our national life. There is the understandable fear that the shelter which has always protected us is being ripped apart piece by piece. We are literally becoming unsheltered. Then again perhaps I am projecting my own opinions onto the author. Nevertheless, the characters in Kingsolver's book are in danger of becoming unsheltered as the house in which they live is unstable with the roof caving in and wal...

I read The Bean Trees in August, 2009. Here is the review that I did at that time for the book. ~~~~~ The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver My rating: 4 of 5 stars Members of the legume family can grow well in very poor soil.  That is because they are sustained by microorganisms called rhizobia that provide nitrogen to the plants through their roots.  The plants and the rhizobia prosper together in a symbiotic relationship - sort of like a family.  And that is the story of Taylor Greer. She grew up in the unpromising soil of hardscrabble Kentucky, but she was sustained and grew strong on the love of her mother.  She grew up with a determination to avoid the teenage pregnancy that sidetracked so many girls that she knew and with an equal determination to get out of Kentucky. When I started reading this book, I immediately recognized Taylor - or Missy, as she was called then.  My own childhood and adolescence and my experience of family was not that different fro...

(Note: My review of The Poisonwood Bible was originally published on Goodreads on July 24, 2009.) The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver My rating: 5 of 5 stars I am old enough to sort of remember the events that are at the center of the book.  I remember the newscasts at the time having stories about the declaration of the independence of the Congo and about the election of Patrice Lumumba.  Of course, all the newscasts gave the American "slant" to the story.  They were all about how this action impacted us.  Little notice was given to how it impacted the people who were actually living there. That much I can remember.  I can also remember the announcement sometime later that Lumumba was dead and the turmoil that followed that death, but although I was old enough to hear the news, I was still too young and naive to have much understanding of what was going on. Years later, when I was older and a little better able to understand, I remember the Church comm...

I know Dellarobbia Turnbow. She is someone I grew up with and went to school with, someone whose life arc was changed forever by an unwanted teenage pregnancy. She is someone who grew up in an ultra-conservative society that is founded upon a rock-ribbed traditional understanding of the Bible. She is also whip-smart and has begun, at age twenty-seven, to question the understanding that underlies the closed society in which she finds herself. Dellarobbia lives in the Appalachians, in the small town of Feathertown, Tennessee. She is a small woman with an outsized personality, flaming red hair, and a deep desire for something more meaningful in her life than her unchallenging duties as a wife and mother. We meet her as she is hiking up a mountain behind her home, heading for an assignation with a telephone lineman, someone she is hoping will bring a passion that is missing from her life. She is not wearing her glasses, because "men don't make passes at women who wear glasses....

I've just finished reading another book that I would like to recommend to you. It is The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver and it is a wonderful book. It's the story of a man of the early 20th century, Harrison William Shepherd, born in 1917 near Washington, D.C. to a Mexican mother and American father. His father is a government employee, whom his mother soon tires of, and when Harrison is 12 years old, she ditches the father and takes the son with her to Mexico, following an oilman to his estate on Isla Pixol. There the mother and son encounter howler monkeys which terrify them. They believe they are carnivorous demons. Howlers will be a recurring theme in Harrison's life. The mother continues to chase love and adventure in the form of various men throughout Mexico. Finally, in Mexico City, Harrison meets Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and starts working for their household. There he later meets the exiled Communist leader Lev (Leon) Trotsky. Through it all, he keeps di...