Prodigal Summer
by Barbara Kingsolver
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Book Reviews of Prodigal Summer
Book Review: A Subtle, Thought-Provoking Tale of Human Behavior
Summary: 4 Stars
Barbara Kingsolver has once again written a lush, three-dimensional story that is thought-provoking yet subtle. While "Prodigal Summer" isn't as outwardly mind-blowing as "The Poisonwood Bible," it is a quieter novel that succeeds in haunting its readers with well-developed, down-to-earth characters and settings that are comfortingly familiar to American readers (even city dwellers can easily conjure Kingsolver's homespun farm scenes and damp woodland locales). The author uses themes that are easily relatable - the anxiety of trying to "fit in," loneliness, plotting one's life - while interspersing the story with interesting technical aspects (I now know about the mating habits of coyotes and moths - who knew I would ever find such subjects as interesting as Kingsolver has made them!). As in her previous books, her research is impeccable, her writing evocative, crystal clear and flawless. True to her style, she creates characters and situations that are seemingly unrelated, but all loose strings tie up (more or less) neatly in the end. "Prodigal Summer" is Kingsolver's most easy-to-predict novel, however, it is a beautiful study of human and animal behavior and should not be missed!Book Review: Yielding abundantly, recklessly extravagant!!!!!
Summary: 4 Stars
Prodigal Summer is an amazing novel by Barbara Kingsolver.
"Prodigal" is defined as yielding abundantly, also as recklessly extravagant and both those definitions apply to this novel. This is the story of one summer season in an Appalachian hamlet. This is the intimate tale of different people who make unique choices in their lives in order to create their own order out of a chaos that life has cast them into. Their very different lives seem so remote from each other, but in the glorious manner of nature, all things are intertwined, creating a brilliant tapestry of life.
An isolated Park Ranger, a young woman recently widowed, an elderly man living on his these characters learn that life has more than an abundance of possibilities. The challenge for these characters being to go beyond their narrow expectations and see the reality before them.
Barbara Kingsolver mirrors these possibilities throughout her novel with the extravagance that is beheld in nature. Her descriptions of the plants, animals and the cycle of life, death and renewal that she unwraps with her simple yet elegant words are a pure delight. Her perceptions of life impart a unique wisdom that is timeless.
Book Review: Another masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
When you've written some fine works of fiction in the past decade, how do you follow up? I can't imagine the tremendous amount of pressure that Ms. Kingsolver was under after the triumph of Poisonwood. I shouldn't have worried. Kingsolver has returned to her roots--the backwoods of Appalachia, to present a loving, respectful portrait of a community in conflict, and in love, with nature. Through the three intertwined stories that comprise this novel, she exposes us to a multitude of viewpoints (as well as points of view!) in terms of what it means to be an environmentalist, what it truly means to love the land.
The other main thread that runs through this book, and which is integrally bound up with the whole question of nature, is the celebration of fecundity, sensuality, and the glory of the sexual. This book was a sensual delight, and is not for those whose sensibilities are offended by frank discussions of the joys of sexual intercourse (of human, animal, and plant persuasion). This book is one of the most erotic that I have ever read, a true feminine perspective on the instinct to have contact with other human beings.
Brava, once again, Ms. Kingsolver. Thanks for the gift of this book.
Book Review: A huge disappointment
Summary: 2 Stars
I was highly anticipating Kingsolver's latest, based on my reception of her earlier novels. Unfortunately, I was extremely disappointed. I did not find any of the three main characters particularly intriguing- I was most interested in a side character, Nannie Rawley, whom I was never able to learn much about. I found Deanna's character to be unexplainably mean, at times, and found her much of her behavior inconsistent with the personality Kingsolver tried so hard to establish. Lusa's character disappointed me, as well, and I could not buy into the vague reasons why she stayed on at the farm for so long. She seemed like a coward without anything to be afraid of. I wasn't at all impressed with the things she did. To me, the story dragged on kind of slowly, and I never really came to care about any of the characters. The one good thing I got from this novel was a great lesson about the interconnectedness and value of all parts of our environment and every creature that inhabits it (which Kingsolver discreetly slips into all of her novels, and which was blatant here). If you love Kingsolver, I suppose I'd suggest you read it. However, if you're new to this author, don't pick this one up.Book Review: Good Beach Reading, Maybe
Summary: 2 Stars
Talked about damned with faint praise! By page 143 I still hadn't decided if I liked this book. I skipped many pages of didactic speechifying (isn't there a rule about good fiction Showing Not Telling?) on Ecology, Nature, Man's Role in the Universe, et cetera. Yawn. I liked the sex scenes, though Erica Jong did the zipless .... 25 years ago so it's hardly an original concept. Also I am heartily tired of Kingsolver making people disappear or die so that main characters get to undergo heart-warming emotional make-overs. The ending was predictable (I predicted them all, not that Kingsolver wasn't sprinkling plenty of clues). STILL ... I felt I'd had a satisfying beach novel sort of read when I was done. Considering that Kingsolver is supposed to be one of our "intellectual" popular novelists, I'm surprised at her corny plots and relentlessly PC attitudes. I also found Lusa's ethnicity to be laughable. I'm sure somewhere in the world there's an adult child of a Holocaust survivor and a Palestinian, but Lusa has to carry way too much weight as an exemplar of the magic of human cross-pollination (so to speak) for my tastes. All in all, a light read about heavy topics.