Barbara Kingsolver, Prodigal Summer
The book is set in Appalachia.
That is the most important fact about the book.
This is a book about Appalachia. Sure, there are people and animals and plants, but the book is really about the place.
It is a place which is rooted, deeply rooted, in the soil, in history, in tradition, in everything which creates Culture.
An outsider to Appalachia has no hope of understanding Appalachia. An outsider to Appalachia reading this book will discover that Appalachia is a beautiful place which no outsider, including the outsider reading this book, will ever understand.
Understanding is not the same thing as knowing the facts about a place. Understanding is something which happens in the bones, in the roots of the soul. At best, the outsider reading this book can only stare at the beauty of Appalachia.
And Appalachia is surely a beautiful place, even if the outsider will never understand it.
I was recently having a conversation with an Easterner. It came up that I was from California, so the conversation turned to being a Californian in the East. I noted that it was just different out here, that California was a different (and better) place, that whenever I am back in California, it feels like home, and that no place else feels like that.
The person to whom I was talking was recently married; his wife was from California. He looked a bit surprised when I was talking about California. He said that his wife also talks about how California is different than the East, but every time he asks her how, she can never really articulate it. So he asked me. I tried to articulate it. I failed miserably. I cannot explain California. It is just different, Other. And if you aren’t from California, I don’t think you will ever understand.
Appalachia is like that. Prodigal Summer makes that clear.
After reading this novel, I am a bit in awe of Appalachia. I can understand why someone from there would be in love with the place.
But, if this novel is any indication, such love can be a bit of a love/hate relationship. What if you are from Appalachia, deeply in love with Appalachia, but don’t feel quite at home in Appalachia because you aren’t just like the rest of the Natives. What if you love Appalachia, but think Appalachia is just too small, too narrow, a stage on which to play? You want Appalachia to change, to become modern, but then again, the idea of Appalachia changing, become more modern, would destroy everything that you love about Appalachia, everything that makes Appalachia Appalachia.
There is no solution to this problem. And an outsider, someone from, say, California, has no hope of ever really understanding the conflict. But, nonetheless, said person from California can say that Appalachia sure is a beautiful place. I learned that in Prodigal Summer.
Prodigal Summer, the novel, is really three separate interwoven stories. The stories don’t meet much—characters from one story occasionally show up as minor background characters in other stories—until the end at which point the three stories become somewhat one. The meeting at the end isn’t terribly important, however. The stories can be taken on their own.
First, there is the story of a Park ranger and an itinerant hunter (“Predators”); second there is the story of a young widow who has just inherited the family farm which her husband had inherited (“Moth Love”); third there is the story of an Old Timer and his interaction with his neighbor who has strange new ideas (“Old Chestnuts”). None of those description, by the way, really describes the stories—but, it would take too long in an already too long blog post to elaborate.
The honest review of the novel: the three stories are not equally good. I really liked “Old Chestnuts”—charming and witty. “Moth Love” was pretty good. “Predators” was tedious, very tedious. I found myself stopping every time I got to a “Predators” section. Picking up the book again, I would plow through that chapter, looking forward to the other two stories.
Kingsolver writes well when she isn’t preaching—she preaches too much—yeah, yeah, I get it: hunting wolves is bad. Killing things at the top of the food chain is bad. Can we please just get back to the part which make me think Appalachia is a beautiful place?
And, that in the end is what makes this book worth reading. The stories aren’t really the point. The point is the location is a wonderful, enchanting, and somewhat maddening place.
Prof Jim,
I’m an outsider to Appalachia. In fact, I’ve never been to Appalachia. I know/understand next to nil about Appalachia, but your post made me wanna read Prodigal Summer to grow in my knowledge/understanding.
But, thing is, I’ve got this apprehension about learning about a place from a book of fiction. I have this reflex that says to me “If you want to learn about a place, stick to non-fiction.” Can you help tame that inner voice? Can you re-educate me on the value of fiction to learn about non-fictional places?
Or to put another way, is there no non-fiction book that will leave one in awe of Appalachia the way that Prodigal Summer does?
I think fiction might be a better way to get the feel of a place than non-fiction. The advantage of non-fiction is that it can describe a place or the history of a place or the people of a place. An autobiography could tell you about someone who lived in a place and you could also get some second-hand impressions of the place itself.
Fiction, however, is not constrained in creating the feel of a place by the need to stick to accuracy. The author can use the descriptions or the story itself to capture the mood of a place and make you fall in love with the place. Fiction can thus be more real than nonfiction.
I have no idea if there is an equivalent nonfiction book about Appalachia as. But, this particular book was a gift from a former student who was from the area, and she gave it to me because she wanted to share the beauty of her home. So, I can say with absolute certainty that one incredibly bright and endlessly interesting friend of mine thought this book was the best book possible to describe where she was from.
Thanks, Prof Jim.
Now that you’ve read the book, you gotta visit your friend’s Appalachia and see how much of a match the book and place are. 🙂
I acquired the (e)book and do plan to read it, or at least the Old Chestnuts narrative and maybe Moth Love, too.
Really enjoy reading your blog, as well as your articles on Public Discourse.