Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

I’ve struggled a little with how to review Flight Behavior because my feelings about it are conflicted. I was extremely excited to receive an advance copy for review, and, at first, it met my expectations. The prose was good, the main character, Dellarobia, was well-drawn, and the plot was intriguing: Dellarobia climbs the mountain behind her house, planning to cheat on her husband, only to have her mind changed when the side of the mountain appears to be on fire. Upon closer inspection, it turns out the “fire” is actually a massive migration of butterflies whose migratory patterns have been messed up by climate change.

There are other characters, the primary one being Ovid Byron, a scientist--entomologist, probably--who arrives on Dellarobia’s farm to study the butterflies. He’s the most developed character outside of Dellarobia herself, and when the two of them share a scene, things work pretty well. Kingsolver’s prose is excellent--her language is evocative and warm without being overblown, and it’s well-suited for describing the ethereal beauty of the butterflies.

However, after getting about midway through the book, I began to have misgivings. First, it was the speechifying. Look, I’m not a climate change denialist, and I largely sympathize with Ovid’s (and Kingsolvers) concerns about the environment. That said, there are numerous multi-page conversations that do little to advance the plot, but instead serve as a way to soapbox global warming. Kingsolver is a good writer--surely there must have been a better way to embed the information than exposition dumps disguised as dialog. Some of it is interesting, but no one likes to feel like their novel is preaching to them.

The other issue I had with the book involves its treatment of the non-Dellarobia characters in her hometown. They are, at the beginning, presented in the broadest way possible. Her husband, nicknamed Cub, is a redneck, as his father, nicknamed Bear. His mother, Hester, is overbearing and controlling, and mostly unkind. They’re all deeply religious, and believe that the butterflies are a sign for God. They’re also vehement climate change denialists, at least at the beginning, although their views do change minimally throughout the novel. Overall, though, the book gives them the short shrift. We are told repeatedly what a good man Cub is, even if he isn’t quite the good man for Dellarobia, but we’re never really shown, so my ultimate impression of him was that he was a man-child who never even tried to be an adult. Bear gets even less characterization. Hester is a legitimately complex character, but she disappears for long stretches of the book, and a revelation about her near the end never really resolves. I felt no love in Flight Behavior for any of the tertiary characters, save maybe Dellarobia’s rambunctious friend Dovey, and though the book seems to be presenting some sort of faith-vs-reason dichotomy, it lands so firmly on the side of reason that it sometimes feels more like a satire than a realistic novel.

Finally, there’s the issue of the ending, which I will be partially spoiling below. If you haven’t read the book and don’t want to know the ending, stop reading now.

ENDING SPOILERS

The novel ends with Dellarobia deciding that, yes, she has married the wrong man, so she decides to get a divorce, move out of town, and go back to school. She breaks this to her son by a) telling him she has some exciting news b) sharing said news i.e. that she’s moving away and going back to school but he’ll still be able to see her c) justifying her decision by comparing it to crapping the bed, and d) withholding what is essentially her going away gift, an iPhone, until her young son admits that things will never be the same. Lest this sounds like an exaggeration, here’s the passage:

“What if I want everything to stay how it is?” he asked.
“Oh, man, that’s the bite. Grown-ups want that too. Honestly! That’s what makes them crap the bed and stay in it, I’m not even kidding.”
His eyes scooted away from hers, avoiding the verdict.
“It won’t ever go back to the way it was, Preston. You have to say that right now, okay? Just say it and I’ll give you the pod-thing.”
He glanced over at her, making sure, and said it. “It won’t ever go back to how it was.”
“Okay” She handed it over. “You’re the man.”

The high-school language ("Oh, man", "I'm not even kidding") seems wildly inappropriate for breaking world-shattering news to your child. This section so impacted my view of Dellarobia that it retroactively tainted the rest of the book. The story begins with her about to make a selfish mistake, and ends with her selfishly upending everyone’s lives and forcing them to accept it whether they like it or not. The very end comes out of nowhere, and feels like a cosmic attempt to validate Dellarobia’s choice, but her treatment of her child and husband had already wrecked her character for me by then. Maybe this is just a personal bias, I don’t know. All I can say is that, while it has its strong points, I ultimately didn’t enjoy Flight Behavior that much, even though I really wanted to.

Remarkable Creatures - Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species by Sean B. Carroll

Sooo.....we did evolve from apes. I knew it! That explains so many things, all the hair in unusual places, the urge to groom my husband, why my youngest hangs on me like a monkey.

Carroll includes a quote on the last page of his new book, talk is cheap, exploration and discovery is hard. Boy, oh boy is that true! Some people are just born to find stuff. Some people are just pre-made to tackle decades of dealing with sunburns, throwing up, fire ant bites, fevers, sea-sickness, more throwing up, starvation, bitter cold, gale force winds, spear-holding natives, being buried in sandstorms, and sore bums from riding donkeys. But I don't know, being the first to set foot in unexplored wilderness, places no humans have tread in thousands of years, if at all, may make it worth it. Just maybe...

A great group of mostly men (and a few briefly mentioned women - Mary Leakey), some tiny men (Darwin), some Indiana Jones types (Roy Chapman Andrews), and some nerdy, but cute multiple Nobel Prize winning scientists (Linus Pauling) are included along with several others in this book. I learned a lot of things I didn't know about some the greatest explorers of the last centuries. What trials they went through to make their discoveries. What great determination!

After reading this I felt a great urge to marry a determined explorer and let him take all the credit for my discoveries, maybe take up rock collecting again, or visit the nearest fossil beds, as I live in Idaho and there are a lot of past tense creatures buried around here, not including our current state political leaders....

Ahem.

Read this book if you are the least bit interested in science, you've always wanted to discover something new, and if you've ever in your life hit a rock with a hammer with hopes of finding a diamond inside.

Just be sure to wear protective glasses if you do that.
Trust me, I know.
4 stars.

A Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking

A couple of years ago, I started reading A Brief History of Time. I didn't get very far before I realized that I was totally not going to be able to comprehend the book. I was happy to hear that Hawking was working on an updated version with illustrations, a version that was supposed to be more accessible.

While Briefer is more accessible, parts of it are still quite complex. I had a good high school science teacher, so I had a working knowledge of some of the early theories of quantum mechanics. However, when Hawking started putting two or three of these theories together, trying to show how a unified theory of the universe might work, I felt out of my element. Needless to say, I re-read a lot of paragraphs. But for the most part, Hawking did a excellent job of explaining unbelievably complex theories. Also, his ruminations about the universe's need (or lack thereof) for a creator was really interesting.

Toward the end of the book, Hawking made me feel a little better about my apparent lack of knowledge about our universe, saying, "In Newton's time, it was possible for an educated person to have a grasp of the whole of human knowledge, at least in broad strokes. But since then, the pace of the development of science has made this impossible." Thanks for that, Mr Hawking.

With help from Leonard Mlodinow, a scientist who has written for Star Trek: The Next Generation, Hawking reworks his classic for the better, with plenty of nerd humor sprinkled throughout. The glossary at the end was extremely helpful, and the brief biographies about Galileo, Newton, and Einstein taught me something new about each man, such as Isaac Newton was a royal dick.

I would have been interested in knowing how much of the content of this book was original to Hawking, or is he merely explaining complex theories in his own cogent way. Also, I am interested in the process by which Hawking wrote the book, and to what extent Mlodinow was involved.

The Language of God by Fancis S. Collins

Francis Collins is the head of the Human Genome Project, which successfully mapped the human genome in 2000. I remember seeing this press conference live when it happened, and remember hearing what I assumed was religious rhetoric coming from those speaking. No scientists at this high of a level could believe in God, could they? It is this line of thinking that Collins looks to correct with his book, The Language of God.

Collins was not raised in a religious family. His parents sent him to church as a kid, but only so he could learn to sing in a choir. At some point he decided that he was an atheist, a view which he espoused through his college years. There came a time, however, when he felt that he needed to give God another look. He points to the writer, C. S. Lewis as an important influence on his thought processes during this time. And it is clear to see Lewis’ imprint on Collins’ way of thinking and even his writing style. He quotes heavily from Lewis and other religious writers through his book. Collins acknowledges this toward the end of the book, saying, “Few if any original theological concepts are portrayed within these pages.”

Collins basic argument: a strong belief in science does not preclude a belief in God, or vice versa. He makes no claim that science can prove there is a God, but neither can it prove that God does not exist. He argues that there are certain questions that science simply cannot answer, such as, ‘Why are we here?’, ‘How did we get here?’, and ‘What is the meaning of life?’.

By far the most interesting section of the book was the discussion of evolution, and description of BioLogos, which Collins jokingly refers to as “crevolution”. BioLogos is the belief that evolution is the process the God devised to create life on earth. It is interesting and worth thinking about, and Collins does a good job addressing questions that might arise from such a belief.

The appendix, “The Moral Practice of Science and Medicine: Bioethics”, is worth reading. Collins tackles issues, such as stem cell research, cloning, and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). In this section, and the rest of the book, Collins does a great job of explaining complex scientific theories and experiments. He is by no means a great writer, but neither is he a bad one. Regardless, it is the subject matter that makes The Language of God what it is, not Collins’ writing.

My review of Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

It's true, I haven't posted anything in over a month now. But, not to worry dear friends, for I have returned, and with a vengeance. Best watch your back, Chris. There's a new sheriff in town.

As it turns out, Bill Bryson writes more than just great travelogues. A Short History of Nearly Everything is a sort of science primer, giving a brief but thorough introduction to almost every field of popular science. He says that he set out to make scientific knowledge accessible to those people (most of us) who were stuck with completely dull, unreadable textbooks in high school and college. He certainly does a great job putting huge, unapproachable concepts and figures in perfectly understandalbe perspective.

It is a slightly arresting notion that if you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you.

Each section gives a history of a certain branch of the scientific world, as well as a brief summary and explanation of its basic tenets. The book moves as chronologically as is possible, while still maintaining clear divisions for the many different “–ologies.” He starts with the Big Bang, age of the Universe, our place in it, and finishes with the evolution of man and a chapter on massive extinctions that are taking place today. In between the book is packed with an unbelievable amount of information – completely readable information – on geology, paleontology, earth science, climatology, evolution, physics, particle physics, of all things, biology, zoology… I could go on. What struck me most was the unseen politics of the scientific world. There have been some serious words exchanged over whether a type of rock belongs to one geological era or the next and personal attacks of character made over fossil classification. Also, Sir Isaac Newton was apparently a complete nutcase. He’s reported to have stuck a nine inch hatpin in between his eye and the socket, pushing it as far back as it would go until it met resistance, just to see what might happen.

Bryson spent years traveling the globe to meet with the authorities (major and minor) in each of these fields, trying to get as much of a handle on each of their areas of expertise as he could before writing this book. What results is a book that has a bibliography with well over 250 entries, not to mention the informal interviews, which is completely and absolutely accessible by someone with no background in scientific education whatsoever. And all this without losing his unique tone and style; it’s still funny, which is quite a feat when your subject matter includes such topics as mitochondrial DNA genetics, carbon and radioactive dating techniques, and tectonic plate theory. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that the book is very dense. It took me weeks to get through it just because there is so much information to absorb – I underlined practically the entire text. But it’s definitely worth the effort. I can’t count how many times I set the book in my lap just to look up and say “wow,” to absolutely no one, or annoyed the hell out of my girlfriend by tapping her on the shoulder and recounting some scientific tidbit that I found fascinating, mostly when she was trying to sleep.

As an environmental studies student who's fascinated by evolution, this is one of my new favorites. I plan to keep it close at hand as a reference from now on. If you don’t care much for any branch of the sciences, this book is probably not for you. If you’d like to get a better understanding of the broad range of scientific information out there, then, by all means, read it.

The Creation by E.O. Wilson

E.O. Wilson is an evolutionary biologist and avid conservationist, and writes this book in the form of a letter to a Southern Baptist pastor (the demographic, that is, not an actual pastor). Through detailed examples of the beauty of the natural world, and a history of the goals, failures and successes of the conservation movement, he aims to bridge the gap between scientific and religious perspectives of the environment in order to raise support for his cause, and, in that, he is very likely to fail.

Wilson maintains a polite and respectful tone throughout the entire book (full title: The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth), constantly drawing comparisons between his own beliefs and that of the Southern Baptist pastor in the first few chapters, using his Alabama childhood as a sort of common ground. But, as his letter continues, he delves deeper into esoteric specifics of evolutionary biology that most BIO 101 students would find terribly boring, let alone a deeply religious minister who probably has little education in such a specialized subfield of science. When reading this book, it becomes increasingly obvious that Wilson wrote The Creation for a very particular audience, which, unfortunately, was not his target one.

That being said, for me, the book was wonderful. It was full of exactly the kind of case studies of evolution and conservation that get me giddy enough to bother anyone around me to read a page or two. For instance: did you know that our bodies contain more bacterial cells than human cells? I would have to read this book again to absorb all the little factoids it contains, and I likely will some time soon. In the end, Wilson didn't make any new allies, or win converts to his movement, but wrote a book full to bursting of fascinating information on organisms, species and ecosystems that I, and fellow environmentalists, evolution enthusiasts and biology majors, will undoubtedly love.