{"id":39255,"date":"2021-06-14T06:30:16","date_gmt":"2021-06-13T18:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=39255"},"modified":"2021-06-13T17:13:31","modified_gmt":"2021-06-13T05:13:31","slug":"what-im-reading-prodigal-summer-by-barbara-kingsolver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2021\/06\/14\/what-im-reading-prodigal-summer-by-barbara-kingsolver\/","title":{"rendered":"What I’m Reading: “Prodigal Summer” by Barbara Kingsolver"},"content":{"rendered":"

First off, I have to confess to some queue jumping. A few weeks back I posted on Reading Older Books<\/strong>, but Prodigal Summer<\/em><\/strong> was not one of the books mentioned. Although it\u2019s a little more recent than some of the others discussed, being first published in 2000 \u2013 as opposed to Maquis<\/em><\/strong> in 1945, for example \u2013 the main reason was that I was just starting to read it.<\/p>\n

Now here it is, jumping the Reading Older Books queue.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

For the very good reason, dear readers, that I loved<\/em> this book! I really enjoyed everything about it: the strong and compelling environmental themes; the equally strong sense of place (West Virginia \/ Appalachians, I believe), interwoven with family, community, and historical continuity \u2013 along with the contemporary challenges to that; the characters (dear readers, I adored<\/em> the characters); the storylines; the strong beautiful prose \u2013 and just the sheer heart<\/em> of the narrative.<\/p>\n

In fact, it\u2019s one of those books where I kept going back and rereading previous chapters, just to ensure I hadn\u2019t missed any of the goodness.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, I recommend it highly, although I\u2019m quite sure any number of you may have beaten me to the draw and read it long ago.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Prodigal Summer<\/em> is also my first Barbara Kingsolver novel (I \u201cknow\u201d, how can that be \u2013 nonetheless, so it is!) but now I know what I\u2019ve been missing out on, it\u2019s great to know she has a fifteen book backlist. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll very likely start with The Poisonwood Bible<\/em><\/strong>, given it\u2019s probably the author\u2019s most well-known work, but we\u2019ll see\u2026 Watch this space!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Oh, what\u2019s it all about you say? Well, I would call Prodigal Summer<\/em> \u201ccontemporary realism\u201d (twenty years not being so very long ago!) but basically there are three point-of-view protagonists, two women, one man, but with a number of other, important non- point-of-view characters. All three reside in a small rural community adjoining a national\/forest park and wildlife reserve. The story is about the impacts of human settlement and development on nature, both historically and in the present time, but also about how nature works full stop.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Prodigal Summer<\/em> also centres on what binds small rural communities \u2013 and the families that make them up \u2013 together, and the challenges of keeping both viable. Finally, it\u2019s a story about three people and those closest to them, who they are, what draws them together, and what drives them apart \u2013 and<\/em> it\u2019s a story about life and death, love and purpose, family and friendship. I think that sums it up, pretty much. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Overall, though, Prodigal Summer<\/em> is just a really great read, imho.<\/p>\n

I read a trade paperback edition, 444 pp, published by Faber & Faber in 2000, which I acquired secondhand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First off, I have to confess to some queue jumping. A few weeks back I posted on Reading Older Books, but Prodigal Summer was not one of the books mentioned. Although it\u2019s a little more recent than some of the others discussed, being first published in 2000 \u2013 as opposed to Maquis in 1945, for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,46,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-writers","category-recommended-reading","category-what-im-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39255"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39264,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39255\/revisions\/39264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}