Babs

Tonight the book club discussed a book I recommended, Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver. I love this book because it has three strong female protagonists. One is a forest warden, one a farm wife, and one an orchardist and beekeeper. All three fight against farmers and hunters who use guns and pesticides to exercise dominion over the earth.

It’s always interesting to learn what others make of a book that you hold dear. One young woman in the group said it was the best book she had ever read. Others said they enjoyed it but they got tired of the descriptions of moths. Kingsolver is a biologist by training and, whereas I enjoy her integration of science with beautiful prose, others are put off by the science bits.

Here’s a little excerpt, where the forest warden is sitting on her porch deep in the forest at dawn: “She needed to listen to this: prodigal summer, the season of extravagant procreation. It could wear out everything in its path with its passionate excesses, but nothing alive with wings or a heart or a seed curled into itself in the ground could resist welcoming it back when it came.
"The other warblers woke up soon after the black-and-white: first she heard the syncopated phrase of the hooded warbler with its upbeat ending like a good joke, then the Kentucky with his more solemn, rolling trill. By now a faint fray light was seeping up the edge of the sky, or what she could see of the sky through the black-armed trees."

I think I could have been happy as a forest warden. Surrounded by nature and doing all I could to protect it. I’ve always been extremely happy when I hike. The warden’s job is to hike every day and keep an eye out for illegal hunters. Not sure I’d like dealing with armed woodsmen...
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