Flight Behavior

I might not have thought much about the weather, but I had just finished reading Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver.

The weather in my part of North Carolina has been downright frightening recently. Much like in Flight Behavior, we experienced unseasonable warmth leading up to Christmas and had a few days of heavy rain that left the creek behind the house much higher than I like to see. It didn't last as long as in the book and the repercussions weren't as dire, but it's unsettling to see life imitate art (even if that art is already imitating life) right in front of you.

In Kinsolver's novel, the freakish weather is not freakish at all. Dellarobia Turnbow, the woman whose life is turned upside down by these weather patterns, learns that the changes are quite natural and expected now that the earth's climate has been so wrecked by global warming. But the biggest change the weather brings to Dellarobia's life is not the threat to her land and livelihood, it's an awakening to the possibilities hidden in her own life. Dellarobia has long ago resigned herself to a largely unfulfilling life as a wife and mother. This is not the life she wanted for herself, even though she is the object of jealousy for some women in town. Cub, her husband, is a kind and dependable man, but she resents him for tying her down early in life. Her ship has sailed and any chance of furthering her education, station in life, and personal satisfaction seems beyond her grasp.

She has a multitude of butterflies to thank for opening her eyes. Global warming drives countless Monarch butterflies from their usual roosting spot in Mexico to the mountains of Appalachia, specifically the mountain above Dellarobia's house. What she first takes as a personal warning from God turns out to be a sign of something deeply wrong throughout the world. And her in-laws are even less thrilled to hear about global warming than they are about the orange butterflies perching in their trees and holding up their logging contract. What was once an invisible rift between Dellarobia and the people around her begins to grow very noticeable. Her only allies in learning about what brought this "miracle" to her land are her precocious young son, Preston, and Ovid Byron, a visiting  lepidopterist who gently guides her to an understanding of the bigger picture these creatures represent.

Much as Dellarobia anxiously watches the Monarchs for signs that they will survive and find their way to a better life, the reader watches Dellarobia and hopes that she will find her way out of her own personal crisis into a beautiful future. Great for lovers of Kingsolver's other works and anyone interested in the way the world around us shapes our lives.