Me vs. the Windmills

I’m a total book nut, and a rather indiscriminate one at times. My sole criteria for purses is that they be big enough to hold a book. Libraries and bookstores are total heaven. So, of course, when I profess such a thing, the first question I am asked is, “Well, then – who is your favorite author?”

And usually this question does catch me. I waver in my assumed bookish-ness, and question my devotion to the printed word. Crap…who is my favorite author?

Then I remember Barbara Kingsolver.

There aren’t enough good things to say about Barbara Kingsolver. I cite her as the author that helped me to transition from “young adult fiction” to really great contemporary books. I’ve been a fan since the 5th grade, when I stumbled upon The Bean Trees in our rented vacation home on Martha’s Vineyard. My aunt still brings up the exhaustion of having to try and read it faster than I did to make sure there weren’t any inappropriate parts for my grade-school mind. There weren’t, and she loved it, too. (Sidenote: Barbara is classy and so are her love scenes, if there are any even mentioned. Also, I’ve always been a reeeaally fast reader, my poor aunt.)

Kingsolver’s books are just… good. They are real and intelligent, and incredibly engaging. She brings her own life experiences to her works in ways that even people who have never seen the Arizona desert, a Native American reservation, the jungle of the Congo, or the mountains of Appalachia can relate to. Even her non-fiction work prose has such beautiful poetic language that never feels contrived or over-the-top. 

More so, Kingsolver herself is cool and interesting. She started her college career on a piano scholarship, and ended it a biology major. And now she’s an author. Awesome? I think so.

Her website says, “She now lives with her family on a farm in southwestern Virginia where they raise free-range chickens, turkeys, Icelandic sheep, and an enormous vegetable garden.” Again – awesome? Totally.

Anywho, the crux of this fangirl rant is that as soon as I saw that she had come out with a new book recently I was lusting after it. Especially when I saw that it was primarily set in Mexico, with Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. (Have I mentioned I am a hispanophile? Droooool.) Also, this is another aspect of how awesome my homegirl Barbara is. While you can definitely see the common themes that run through her works, each one presents it in a totally new way, in a new setting with new circumstances. She’s leagues away from authors that seem to write the same book over and over again.

It’s called The Lacuna and I was a good girl this year so I got it for Christmas. I just finished it (really, like an hour ago) and it by far lived up to my expectations of awesomeness. I said before that I am sometimes an indiscriminate reader and this is true. My outlook as far as media goes is usually that the purpose is to entertain, and it if entertained me – whether by being really good or by being hilariously bad – then its purpose has been fulfilled and I am happy. However, I definitely make a distinction, especially with books. I think there are books, and then there is literature. And what Kingsolver writes tops the list of contemporary writing that I consider literature.

The Lacuna is no exception. First off, I loved the presentation. The story is told by way of the journals that the main character kept from his boyhood in Mexico onward. (Luckily for the American reader, they’re in English.) But this is no ordinary diary-style story. The journals themselves are being presented by another character, whom you come to know in the story, and she has her own say a few times, which adds to the depth and flavor of the whole thing. More important is the character depth and development that come from the main character’s own words. He wants to be a writer, and is a writer, which is evident from the first entries of his pre-adolescence. What is so striking both in reading and as far as the development of the character himself, is that the story is presented almost as if he is not a part of it. There is no “I went to the beach today. Then I had lunch” sort of narration. From the get-go the protagonist acts as a narrator, telling his own story as if he is a spectator – which he is for most of the story. The reader ends up experiencing the story as if they are the protagonist as well, not as if they are simply hearing what happened to another person. 

Besides the actual writing and presentation, I was obviously enamored with the whole idea from the start. Mexico? Ooh, tell me more! Frida Kahlo? Homegirl made unibrows sexy, so obviously. Diego Rivera? Yes, please! Mexican and American history presented in a way that doesn’t make me want to gouge my eyeballs out? Heck yeah! I wasn’t disappointed there, either. I’m just as convinced as ever that I need to go to Mexico and I loved the descriptions of the people and culture. Especially poignant, though, are the parts of the book set in the states. The main character goes back to the States in the midst of the peak outpouring of patriotism and sacrifice from the American people in World War II efforts. After the war, you see vividly the complete reversal of ideals as the Cold War comes along and the paranoia of the American people fueled by the overzealousness of the government cause major upheavals for the characters. Having a pretty good inkling of Kingsolver’s political views, I do think that this theme of blind panic and extremism, as well as media exaggeration can be seen as a little jab at the current political and media frenzy over the war on terror. Ok, I am super bad at politics so I will not even get into this, but I think we can all agree that us being attacked is bad. But the crazy crazy crazies on Fox News proposing essentially unethical, unconstitutional, and racist measures in the name of “defense” is a little out there. Whatever, all I’m saying is that looking back on the nuts-o politics and unethical, unconstitutional and racist measures that were taken during the Cold War makes you wonder how future generations will look back on how we are acting now. And I think that is probably a theme and correlation that Kingsolver means to be gleaned from The Lacuna.

Whew. Well, I was no literature major (wait, well, technically I was, but it was Hispanic literature, so I only ever had to analyze in Spanish…whatever) so that’s about all I can really say without devolving into straight-up fangirl “squee” action. Go read it!

More Kingsolver that is so so so good:

• The Bean Trees: First book of hers I read. Wonderful, amazing view on different cultures within our own country.
• Pigs in Heaven: Sequel to The Bean Trees. Just as good as the first.
• Animal Dreams: Small-town Arizona, Native American culture, and awesome
• Homeland and Other Stories: Beautiful short stories.
• The Poisonwood Bible: A missionary family trying to survive in the Congo. Incredible.
• Prodigal Summer: Interwoven stories in Appalachia. You never knew that nature could be this sexy.

(I still need to read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle which promises to be both really inspiring and somewhat depressing, as I do not own my own farm off of which to live completely organically for a year with my family.)