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She’s best known for her novels, but here in this collection of essays originally
conceived and published in different magazines, Barbara Kingsolver ruminates about the
concepts that engage her while she describes what she was doing at the time. Certainly
it helps in the reading that she’s often doing something a little less ordinary than
most of us. You’ll find her traveling in the West African country of Benin, in Hawaii,
and in one of the remote Canary Islands. In other essays, she travels as an author, as a
tourist and as a rock band member. (The Rock Bottom Remainders. She’s a band member
with Amy Tan who’s written her own book of essays. See Don Kelley’s
review.)
I think though that I like her best when her travels are a little
more ordinary. When she tries to cope with a lack of fashion sense, worries about her
parenting choices, and gushes about the power and delight of reading, I am there with
her.
“Now, with my adolescence behind me and my daughter’s still ahead,
I am nearly speechless with gratitude for the endurance and goodwill of librarians in an
era that discourages reading.” Amen to that, I say.
“A novel,” she
continues in another essay, “works its magic by putting a reader inside another person’s
life…The power of fiction is to create empathy. It lifts you away from your chair and
stuffs you gently down inside someone else’s point of view.”
And so she
also talks about the writers who have influenced her, such as Henry David Thoreau and
Doris Lessing and Annie Dillard. As in most good essay collections, readers get to go
along for the ride, not so much to see what Kingsolver sees, but to consider the view
from her chair, not ours. It’s a fun exercise, made lovely by an insightful writer with
a gift for speaking eloquently about her life. I don’t always agree with what she says,
but I admire the style and the depth of feeling and the thought she gives to each piece.
A keeper.
