Flight Behavior

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

I thought this was "ok".  I'll admit I had high expectations after reading The Poisonwood Bible several years ago, and Flight Behavior simply wasn't in the same class.  I made myself pick it up each time, and had to renew it from the library to finish it (no staying up until 2 am to devour this one!).

Kingsolver is a good story-teller, and she's good with characterization, but I just didn't care for Dellarobia.    She was self-centered and self-absorbed, full of self-pity and selfish (are you noticing a theme here?).  I wouldn't want to be friends with her.    I rather wanted to shake her and scream "get over yourself already!"  I really am not a fan of the "oh, I had such potential, I used to be so smart, and now look at me, stuck in this meaningless, purposeless, dead-end life" sort of theme.  We all make mistakes, we all wonder what our lives might look like had we taken a different fork in the road, but all we can do is make the best of it from here on out and above all, CHOOSE joy.

I was especially frustrated with her extreme disrespect for her husband.  We've all heard the saying "behind every good man is a good woman" and I couldn't help but think had Dellarobia herself chosen a different attitude toward Cub, he likely would have become a different man, more "deserving" of her respect.  Indeed, as Hester said (my favorite quote and theme of the whole book), "It's no good to complain about your flock.  A flock is nothing but the put-togethers of all your past choices" (462).  Dellarobia herself observed "how much more of a man Cub would be if he'd married some sweet, average-minded girl who thought Cub Turnbow hung the moon" (475), although I have to admit I rolled my eyes inwardly at her condescending adjective "average-minded" as though she herself were "extraordinary-minded".

Really, I think I was simply frustrated with the underlying tone the book took toward marriage.  Marriage is not really all about "having my needs met".  Dellarobia's focus is completely on herself--she's not interested in growing a marriage that reflects a picture of Christ and the church, she's not interested in building Cub up, she's not even interested in communicating with him about how each of them can be more fulfilled in the marriage.  She just retreats behind a wall, feeling sorry for herself, and fantasizing about some other man making her happy while criticizing her husband's every effort and action.  "It's like I'm standing by the mailbox waiting all the time for a letter.  Every day you come along and put something else in there.  A socket wrench, or a milkshake.  It's not bad stuff.  Just the wrong things for me" (527).  So TELL him!  Tell him you want a letter.  Better yet, consider choosing to be grateful for a socket wrench.  Or, here's a concept, get the letter yourself.

Now enter Juliet, Ovid's wife.  In contrast to Dellarobia, Juliet had her own identity and interests. She knew who she was, was happy with who she was, and didn't have to look to her husband for that identity.  She adored her husband, encouraged his interests and gifts, accepted him as he was, and gave him room (even confidence) to be himself.  "At some point in the evening Dellarobia had stopped being amazed that Ovid had turned into someone new, and understood he had become himself, in the presence of his wife.  With the sense of a great weight settling, she recognized marriage.  Not the precarious risk she'd balanced for years against forbidden fruits, something easily lost in a brittle moment by flying away or jumping a train to ride off on someone else's steam.  She was not about to lose it.  She'd never had it" (548).  I found Dellarobia's perspective and choices rather depressing, just because they are so common around me.

This book was about much more than Dellarobia, her marriage, or her search for her identity, but this review is quite long already.  I could talk about Kingsolver's views on religion/Christianity, our culture of waste and inability to be satisfied, or the cultural-definition of the sustainability pledge (which made me laugh out loud--that poor urbanite, completely out of his element in rural Appalachia).  Most of all I could talk about tolerance, intolerance, perceptions of truth, and the value in having our thinking challenged by people who are different than we are.

But I'm out of time for those conversations, so I'll just include a few quotes to remind myself.  I didn't love this book, but I'm still glad to have read it.

"They all attended Hester's church, which Dellarobia viewed as a complicated pyramid scheme of moral debt and credit resting ultimately on the shoulders of the Lord, but rife with middle managers" (29).

"They buy chuck roasts for Sunday dinner, but they're hungry again on Monday.  We raise sheep for sweaters that will wind up wadded up in people's closets because they've got ten other sweaters and that one's the wrong color" (260).

"You're saying people only tune in to news they know they're going to agree with?" (317). . ."Now, see, that's why everybody wants Internet friends.  You can find people just exactly like you.  Screw your neighbors and your family, too messy" (420).

"Cultural differences are really exciting territory, not just for literature but for learning in general, because sparks fly when there's friction among different viewpoints.  People invest themselves differently in the same set of truths.  Because of my training as a scientist, I'm always looking at the dialectic between the truth we believe exists outside ourselves and the truth we invent for ourselves".  --Barbara Kingsolver interview