Search - Prodigal Summer

Couldn't make it past page 22. NOT my cup of tea. Its the first time I've ever not forced myself to finish a book I started. Too corny, even for me (and I like corny). Starts with a girl who secludes herself for 2 years from all people and lo/behold a handsome rugged man appears and why oh why does she feel a tingling in her loins? Could she really like this guy? Please. Sorry to Kingsolver fans, I've heard good things but for me it wasn't this one.

This novel is not so much plotted as woven, and the result is an intricate, sensual tapestry about every organism's drive to replicate itself. You may never look at a flower in quite the same light after you read this one! It's also the story of three women adapting to changes in their lives and returning to that dance of life when they thought they had left the floor. Outstanding, as Kingsolver's novels always are.

Unoriginal writing and trite message. For the life of me, I cannot understand what the fuss is about this book. The stories moved slow, the writing was cumbersome and seemed like something fresh out of a writing seminar - too dense to be of any good to anyone.

Three stories of human love woven together within a larger tapestry of lives inhabiting the mountains and struggling small farms of southern Appalachia.

A powerful, descriptive book.

The "she" is Deanna Wolfe, a wildlife biologist observing the coyotes from her isolated aerie--isolated, that is, until the arrival of a young hunter who makes her even more aware of the truth that humans are only an infinitesimal portion in the ecological balance. This truth forms the axis around which the other two narratives revolve: the story of a city girl, entomologist, and new widow and her efforts to find a place for herself; and the story of Garnett Walker and Nannie Rawley, who seem bent on thrashing out the countless intimate lessons of biology as only an irascible traditional farmer and a devotee of organic agriculture can. As Nannie lectures Garnett, "Everything alive is connected to every other by fine, invisible threads. Things you don't see can help you plenty, and things you try to control will often rear back and bite you, and that's the moral of the story."

I liked just about everything about this book beginning with the setting - the farms, mountains and remote wilderness areas of southern Appalachia in the summertime. In this beautifully written novel Barbara Kingsolver writes with fascinating detail about the lushness of the natural world, providing us with one amazing fact after another about how perfectly balanced nature is in terms of the food chain, prey and predator, and the way nature keeps reproducing itself from season to season, year after year unless we human beings interfere in the process. Set against this backdrop, Prodigal Summer tells the stories of three intriguing protaganists - each of them outsiders in one way or another, who are connected to each other in different ways. Their stories unfold along side each other under three separate chapter headings (Predators, Moth Love,and Old Chestuts) that keep reappearing throughout the novel as we gradually become aware of how their lives are connected. Ultimately, this is a novel about the way all things are connected to one another and how it is that for humans love - in it's many forms - is the strongest connection of all.

There is no one in contemporary literature quite like Barbara Kingsolver. Her dialogue sparkles with sassy wit and earthy poetry; her descriptions are rooted in daily life but are also on familiar terms with the eternal.

Full of fabulous characters! A good one to read more than once!

Barbara Kingsolver, a writer praised for her "extravagantly gifted narrative voice" (New York Times Book Review), has created with this novel a hymn to wildness that celebrates the prodigal spirit of human nature, and of nature itself. Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives inhabiting the forested mountains and struggling small farms of southern Appalachia. At the heart of these intertwined narratives is a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the region. Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist, watches the forest from her outpost in an isolated mountain cabin where she is caught off-guard by Eddie Bondo, a young hunter who comes to invade her most private spaces and confound her self-assured, solitary life. On a farm several miles down the mountain, another web of lives unfolds as Lusa Maluf Landowski, a bookish city girl turned farmer's wife, finds herself unexpectedly marooned in a strange place where she must declare or lose her attachment to the land. And a few more miles down the road, a pair of elderly, feuding neighbors tend their respective farms and wrangle about God, pesticides, and the complexities of a world neither of them expected. Over the course of one humid summer, as the urge to procreate overtakes a green and profligate countryside, these characters find connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with which they necessarily share a place. Their discoveries are embedded inside countless intimate lessons of biology, the realities of small farming, and the final, urgent truth that humans are only one part of life on earth. With the richness that characterizes Barbara Kingsolver's finest work, Prodigal Summer embraces pure thematic originality and demonstrates a balance of narrative and ideas that only an accomplished novelist could render so beautifully. :

A compeling book celebrating nature and the out of doors. A love story and personal realization.

This is one of my all time favorite books! I highly recommend this for anyone who is looking for a "great escape." Barbara Kingsolver is one of the best and most descriptive writer I have ever had the pleasure to read. You will literally get lost in this book. It is beautiful.

After reading this one, I looked for others by this author and found The Poisonwood Bible. I enjoyed that one just as much, and maybe even more. It spans approximately 50 years in the lives of a family, who find themselves trying to survive in South Africa where the father has been sent as a minister. It is an incredible and emotional story that stayed with me for weeks afterwards. The story also made me rethink my values and views. If you like to read and you like to be challenged mentally, you will not be disappointed reading Barbara Kingsolver.

This was a beautifully written, multilayered novel about the interrelatedness of all things. Through the eyes of three characters in southern Appalachia over the course of a summer, we are reminded of the rhythms of nature and of the effects that humans unwittingly have on ecological systems. The author also displays an understanding of family and community dynamics, which are often a mess of misunderstandings, love, resentment, and support all at once. Definitely recommended.

Very good book....heavy, not an easy read.

Over the course of one humid summer, as the urge to procreate overtakes the countryside, these characters find their connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with whom they share a place. With the complexity that characterizes Barbara Kingsolver's finest work, Prodigal Summer embraces pure thematic originality and demonstrates a balance of narrative, drama, and ideas that render it an inspiring work of fiction.

Love this book. Well written. Lots of info about insects, coyotes, human life thrown together. A book that inspires.

I did not find this to be an easy read. However, I was engrossed by the various storylines and really enjoyed each page.

This book is a couple of different stories that all intertwine with each other. I found it to be absolutely fantastic and kept me captivated. A very good read.

Good book. Enjoyable. Interesting three story lines of characters that live close together and are loosely tied to each other.

She's an amazing author. This book really brought out the beauty of nature and our relationship to it.

Like the Poisonwood Bible, it follows the lives of family and how we are all connected in some way.