Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver

Flight Behaviour

by Barbara Kingsolver

Fiction, Published by Faber and Faber.

 Whatever happened to Barbara Kingsolver? She is one of my all-time favourite authors - the Poisonwood Bible one of my all-time favourite books.  I read her last novel, The Lacuna, when it came out and was a little disappointed - though it still had some of the old magic on the page.  There were still beautiful passages to admire.

Flight Behaviour promised a return to form - an eco-novel with environmental issues integral to the plot.  But, oh dear, not very far into the novel, I became bored - really bored - and found it difficult to turn the pages.  Eventually, wading through virtual mud, I skipped to the end and found it as predictably dull as the rest of the book.  The only spark of magic was the moment when the heroine walks up into the woods for an illicit meeting with a lover and witnesses the leaves turning to flame.

It's sad to see one's favourite author losing the edge they had, particularly when their message has more relevance now than ever before.  And one does wonder how much authors' work is being influenced these days by what their publishers want from them, rather than allowing them to write what they want.  Please can I have Barbara Kingsolver back?