Prodigal Summer

I thoroughly enjoyed this book about farm life in the Appalachia. The stories start out as separate pieces, but then eventually start to intertwine just a little. There are a lot of other reviews that have done a great job summarizing the book so I am just going to leave some thoughts.I didn’t buy the Deanna and Eddie Bondo romance. The parts where she was having deep discussions with him about the importance of coyotes or when she was wondering the woods herself were so beautiful and detailed that I just loved getting lost in the book. However, I had a hard time believing that she would even want to be intimate with someone so against her personal beliefs. It did not make Eddie at all a very appealing person to me and it made me wonder how she could stand him being around. He was almost an intruder in my opinion and the story may have been more intriguing if he were.After Cole died, Lusa looks into putting together a goat herd to sell the meat to her family in New York City. I loved that Kingsolver had this character do something original. After having a long conversation about it with Little Rickie, you would think that she would need his help getting the goats. Instead, Kingsolver skipped over this and she just went and got the goats herself and it all seemed pretty seamless. It would have been interesting to hear more about the new challenges of raising goats; especially being an inexperienced farmer. I would have loved for Rickie to be 18 or 19 and Kingsolver blossoming that romance a little more.The introspective discussion after Eddie killed a turkey left me wishing I was there to say a few things. On page 325, Eddie kills a turkey in the woods. Deanna writes it off saying that it was a male and probably was old or sick enough that it would have made a meal for a bobcat or other predator on the mountain. Eddie teases her surprised she is not a vegetarian for all her talk about caring for the animals on the mountain. She says the concept of vegetarianism is not so simple, because to farm wheat a lot of animals get killed by the machinery. I know this is Kingsolver’s opinion being inserted here, but vegetarianism and veganism is not about purity, it’s about doing the least amount of harm in this world as possible. Much of the grains that are grown are to feed animals that are raised for meat. Less meat, less wheat, less mice and rabbits that are killed and probably more forests don’t need to be cut down. Also, earlier Deanna talks about cats being unnatural predators. I agree with this; however, in this discussion about the turkey, how are humans not also considered unnatural predators? Wasn’t she denying the bobcat or coyote a meal?The meditations on ecology, wildlife preservation, forests, and organic farming made me believe this was a better environmental novel than Overstory. I read Overstory and even though that book started out pretty good, it petered out for me as if the author got bored with the story and the characters. This book held my attention the entire time as if Kingsolver was in love with the story and all the details. This book deserved an award.Last, an epilogue would have been nice. I did not really like the last chapter of the book. I didn’t understand it. I would have loved instead for there to be an epilogue on what happens to these characters after ten years. If I could write it, Deanna and her daughter inherit Nannie Rawley’s farm and she continues to grow organic produce. Garnett’s grandchildren continue with the Chestnut farm and they achieve the beginnings of a grove that is free of Chestnut blight. Lusa and Rickie after a few years eventually do marry and start a family continuing the Widener name on the ancestral farm. I think the stories were all going in this direction, but it would have been nice to see the narratives through to the end.

Barbara Kingsolver is a wonderful writer! I always enjoy her books. Highly recommend.

Not many books I read get five stars. This does because it is a beautifully written book and because the stories are touching, small and deeply intimate. I read it like letters from an old friend, not wanting it to end and when it did, tearing up because the prose was so heart-felt and meaningful I knew I would miss the characters, knew I would miss the summer and would wish to hear from them again.That's the best kind of book, where you feel a sense of loss at its completion. I just held my kindle, wiping my eyes and had to read the last few pages again because it affected me so powerfully to let go of these people and their stories. I loved them even though while I read the book there may have been things I didn't necessarily like about them.The most touching story to me was Predator, the story of Forest Service game warden Deanna Wofle and her itinerant love interest Eddie Bondo (what a name). She's forty-seven years old, so lonely she doesn't even know it and meets twenty-eight year old, beautiful, masculine, sexy hunter Eddie Bondo in the forest and falls in love and lust in a way that terrifies her.Their love scenes are worth the price of admission - I never read anything quite so pastorally erotic in my life. Wow, well done, Barbara Kingsolver. She's got some hidden sexy depths that's for sure. Stunningly gorgeous writing.My next favorite story is Moth Love about a young woman coming to terms being part of a farming family as she is a stranger from the city and a stranger religiously and ethnically. It's a charming and emotionally heartfelt story of love, loss and yes, moths. The final pages choked me up.The final story (they are all loosely intertwined) is Old Chestnuts about exactly that, two old folks fighting over trees, pesticides, organic farming and falling for each other in the process (it is so sweet and adorable to watch it unfold).There is quite a bit of heavy-handed moralizing on farming, forestry, organic farming, even a bit on Christianity and animal welfare and that can get tiresome but read through it and let it mean something to you or not but do read through to get to the human elements of the story.Funny thing in a pastoral that the humanity is what comes through the most.This book will be with me forever, a part of me now, like every gorgeous summer.

In Prodigal Summer, Barbara Kingsolver masterfully delivers three narratives which begin in late spring, wind through the burgeoning summer of an Appalachian mountain and valley, and come together as autumn raises its cooler head. Deanna is a 38-year-old, divorced, childless forest warden who has come to love being alone in her woods near the top of the mountain that overlooks Zebulon Valley; she is determined to stay that way until a stranger comes along with the buds of May. Lusa, a "foreigner" of Polish descent from Lexington (Kentucky or Virginia), left her university post to marry Cole Widener, a farmer in the Valley whose land no longer supports them. When Lusa the bride becomes Lusa the young widow, she has to figure out whether she wants to stay among these people and how to make a living farming in a valley where the last successful crop was tobacco. Septuagenerians Nannie Rawley and Garnett Walker are next-door neighbors who hold exactly opposite views of life; every day brings another battle at the fence that separates their land. These stories keep time with the riotous summer; they teach that life will be created and will continue in spite of the odds. At times, Kingsolver gets a little didactic--as these people of the Valley would say, "preachy-teachy"--having her characters deliver lectures or engage in arguments about the environment, the ecosystem, and the food chain. There are also more subtle lessons, though: farmers who can't compete in the food market, stay in debt, and end up driving delivery trucks or working at the new auto plant far away. But life keeps going. It simply has to. At least these people have each other. About Kingsolver's prose: When I began to look back over the book to find a good example, I started reading the book all over again; it's that good. I would like to offer this one passage (it's not a spoiler): "When the rain and thunder died and the wind had gone quiet, coyotes began to howl from the ridge top. With voices that rose and broke and trembled with clean, astonished joy, they raised up their long blue harmony against the dark sky. Not a single voice in the darkness, but two: a mated pair in the new world, having the last laugh." You can read the rest of the good stuff for yourself.

I'll preface my review by saying that for me, a three-star review indicates I largely enjoyed the book, but encountered a few things which for me prevented additional stars.When it comes to writing about nature, Barbara Kingsolver has few equals among fiction authors. Her descriptions are deeply appreciative, deeply insightful, lush and evocative. Her analogies are so spot on, even when describing the natural world's smallest, most fragile and even barely noticeable parts, that they are capable of providing an experience whether or not the reader has ever stepped into the woods or even into the backyard before.I personally love the descriptions of nature (and readers who don't enjoy lengthy passages describing nature probably ought not pick up Barbara Kingsolver). In "Prodigal Summer," however, what is usually a gentle breeze becomes a heavy-handed hot blast of fecundity. (We get it! It's May! Everything is spreading its seed! Everything is screwing and sporing!) It's way over the top and, I'm sorry to say of such a tremendous talent whose work I've appreciated before, overcooked and overdone.In one human relationship, we're clearly meant to grasp this wild, sweaty animalistic naturalness: that of reclusive forest ranger Deanna and bounty hunter hottie Eddie Bondo (really, "Eddie Bondo"... ?). Unfortunately, this effort falls flat in a parade of sex scenes that not only do not inspire appreciation for the interconnectedness of nature, but which seem to belong in another genre entirely.And in terms of the characters, who are these people? Why does Deanna live by herself on the mountain shunning humanity? Skipping over Eddie Bondo (because really), down the mountain, I'm cool with the fact that Lusa is way into bugs, but am more bewildered by her marriage. Elsewhere in the community, Mr. Old Chestnut and his "Unitarian bra-burner" (his words) of an aging hippie neighbor provide refreshing comic relief -- a thing not often expected in Kingsolver works -- in their (highly charged, like every other organism in this book) bickering.The book's many implausibles could have easily turned into plausibles had any of these characters been better explained. As written, though, the women are merely devices in service of an unmissable agenda, while the men are either foils to the agenda; crusty but funny old farts; or sexy servicers of female appetites.The Mother-Earth-Good-Humans-Bad theme is so overbearing as to have limited my enjoyment of the book. While I personally agree at large with the fundamentals expressed here, I thought I was reading a work of literary fiction by a person more talented than myself, not a sermon.And then there are the saintly coyotes ... creatures practically spiritual in their intrinsic belonging. When indeed they never did belong where the novel is set. They are not native to the area. As a resident of one of the biggest cities in the urban South, I know firsthand what a battle it is to try to discourage killing or relocating them. In my mind, they deserve to be here because they are living things, not because they belong here. To portray them so reverently above all the other life forms mentioned in this book is, in my humble opinion, silly. Coyotes are supremely adaptable opportunists who will eat anything they can catch. This would most certainly include baby goats ... I kept waiting for an interesting conflict to arise with Lusa's goat herd, and that never happened and I don't find that realistic at all in an area where coyotes are established.The message might have been better served had the plot surrounded repatriation of red wolves, which WERE native to the area in question.I did love the statement that in the existence of every life form alive, that life form is to itself the center of the universe.Enjoyable but flawed.

Although I happily give this book 5 Stars, seeing as that's all I'm allowed to give (!), I must say I am unhappy with the ending. It didn't end! None of the loose threads were gathered, much less tied! If I hadn't just seen the copyright date, I'd be hoping for a sequel, a part 2! I want to know how these 3 unrelated stories actually DO relate & how they come together!!I loved the stories because I can see myself a little bit in all three. I could easily be Deanne, camped out alone in the forest with the birds & all the critters, & the majestic trees & beautiful shrubs & wildflowers! As are Garnette & Nannie, I'm getting older, but unlike them, unable to do the outdoor work I love. Like Lusa, I've had to take on the responsibilities of an absent spouse. Like all of them I live in Appalachia, & like most I was born & raised here. The country is in my blood. I can't tell you how many times I heard my Mama & Daddy speak in these pages! Phrases & dialect I haven't thought of in ages! A Petunia In An Onion Patch! Mama used to sing that to me when I was only 2 or 3! Hollows are Hollers around here, & one is named for my Grandaddy! Aunt IS pronounced Ain't! In so many ways, this story could have been my story. The woods surround my house. The changes that occur to a place over time. The changes that happen to people. But the beauty remains. God's in His Heaven & all's right with the World. Until it isn't. Again. Then it starts all over. "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun". Ecclesiastes1:9

This is a simple book about life. The interconnected ness of all and how you pull here something over there gets pushed. I enjoyed this book and a couple of the characters will be remembered.

With extraordinary grace, elegant language, thematic richness and emotional integrity, Barbara Kingsolver's "Prodigal Summer" will surely elevate the author to the upper levels of our national literature. Set in the unadorned southern Appalachians during one transforming summer, the novel intertwines three disparate narratives into a seamless unity. The narratives alternate, ultimately connecting the protagonists to each other and ever more closely to their environment."Prodigal Summer," above all else, is an exploation of the idea of ecosystems. Beneath each character and conflict is the central theme of interdependence and biological/emotional mutuality. "Predators" features a proud, lonely woman whose intense defense of coyotes underscores not only her acknowledgement of the biological imperatives of predation but her joyous discovery of her own capacity (both biological and emotional) for companionship and love. Deanna Wolfe emerges as a dominant character, a truly modern champion of the visible and unseen bonds which link us to our living world. "Moth Love" explores the coming-of-age of another fine protagonist, Lusa Maluf Landowski, whose premature widowhood compels her to develop both the intellectual and emotional skills to understand the human ecosystem of her suspicious and alien in-laws. My favorite narrative, "Old Chestnuts," features two keenly-etched older characters, the strikingly independent and vibrant Nannie Rawley and her antagonist, the straight-laced and emotionally wizened Garnett Walker. Kingsolver's depiction of Walker's mind and her remarkable talent with dialect make this narrative alone worth the price of the book.You cannot help but become friends with this book. The author's numerous botanical and animal descriptions are exceptionally well done; her characters - to a person - are utterly real and compelling. Laced within this beautifully paced book are lengthy discussions of ideas: biological determinism vs. human intervention, the meaning of family, animal/plant ..., the significance of place, the human search for meaning.After reading "Prodigal Summer," you will surely know more of the natural world, but, you will also come away with a more profound identification with our universal quest for understanding our place in this majestically interdependent planet.

This author is outstanding and has proved this yet again with this well-researched, interesting novel. Her character descriptions are first class and very easy to imagine. I was gripped and lucky enough to be on holiday, so was able to spend happy hours every day reading through this book.

Ein überdenkenswertes Buch, das ich gut fand. Sollte auch in deutscher Sprache erscheinen.Genau wie "Silent Spring". Oder gibt es das schon? Wenn ja, mit welchem Titel?

boring & silly, give it a miss. read her Poisonwood Bible insread.

Love this book! It's theme may centre on ecology, there's also intrigue, family dynamics, and romance. This book has it all! A great read.

Well written and covering interesting female characters.