Friday, March 20, 2015

Flight BehaviorFlight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

At its heart about climate change and giving flight to monarch butterflies, this book is a multifaceted metaphor, pulling focus to the delicate balance of 'life' on both a basic and philosophical scale. I will never forget the experience, as almost always with a Barbara Kingsolver novel, of the resplendent language and the need to stop mid-paragraph in awe and a certain degree of wonder. Her writing is lyrical with vivid imagery and humor rolling along with every paragraph, as evidenced by the following great quotes from Fight Behavior:

“Honk if you love Jesus, text while driving if you want to meet up.”

“Do you know what?” Dovey asked abruptly. “I’ve had it with Facebook. We should invent Buttbook. It’s more honest. You’d have Buttbook Enemies. You would Butt people to inform them you did not wish to be their friends.” “You could do worse,” Dellarobia proposed. “You could Poop them.

“Will you explain to me why people encourage delusional behaviour in children, and medicate it in adults?”

“Mistakes wreck your life. But they make what you have. It's kind of all one. … no good to complain about your flock, because it's the put-together of all your past choices.”

Ovid, the scientist, tells Dellarobia: "Science doesn't tell us what we should do. It only tells us what is."

Dellarobia thinks about her dog, Roy, "...as he hurried to put his small yellow tags on all of the yard's most notable points. The dog version of Post-its."

"Whoever was in charge of weather had put a recall on blue and nailed up this mess of dirty white sky like a lousy drywall job."

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