Product Description

A collection of pieces in which Barbara Kingsolver, author of the novel "Pigs in Heaven", explores her trademark themes of family, community and the natural world. The topics include Kentucky, housework, promiscuity, health clubs, the Canary Islands, rock and roll, space rockets, and Thoreau.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #105652 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Customer Reviews

Art to Move Mountains (or Hermit Crab Shells)
Kingsolver holds reign neck and neck with Annie Dillard as two of my favorite naturalist writers and essayists. Kingsolver holds her own as a novelist. In this collection of essays, rewritten and expanded versions, in many cases, from what has been previously published in various magazines, Kingsolver's skill and talent as an essayist shimmers with brilliance and sheer entertainment. Even when she is teaching us a lesson and hammering it home.

Topics have wide range, covering nature, art, values and ethics, human nature and its foibles, politics, and travels. Whether she is pondering the biological clocks of hermit crabs or espousing her views on violence and objectification of women on the silver screen, or taking the reader along on the harsh realities of a not so glamorous book tour, her language is lush and poetic, flowing and vibrant, clever and memorable. I have been quoting her words to anyone who will listen ever since reading the book, and thinking back to it as a kind of measuring stick for my personal observations of daily life.

So what moved you to begin such a boycott of violence in movies? a friend asked me over lunch yesterday. We had been talking about popular contemporary movies, and why I had made sometimes surprising - to others - choices. And it hit me. While my inclination had been moving in that direction for some time now, it was Kingsolver's essay, "Careful What You Let In the Door," that had pushed me into a conscious awareness of how my viewing choices affected every other part of my life, the daily and even seemingly miniscule choices I make. The results of such choices have been almost immediately apparent to me - as was now my choice to steer clear. The desensitization I had experienced toward atrocities in the news, to the daily disrespect I witness in various human interactions and my regretful tolerance of it, hardly registering as a bump in my path, was lifting. Newly aware, I have been surfacing as if from a deep and dumb sleep.

Kingsolver writes about her literary profession that writers may not write with politics in mind, yet "good art is political." As is hers. Words can and should move us, good art should change us, and a good writer is a person who wields a pen more powerful than any sword.

In this particular essay, Kingsolver explores the function of violence in art (or media in general), visual or literary. Too often, she notes (my lunch partner nodding in agreement), such violence is perpetrated against women. "It turns out," writes Kingsolver about an inadvertant movie choice, "I'd rented the convincing illusion of helpless, attractive women being jeopardized, tortured, or dead, for no good reason I could think of after it was over." Pondering this, she concludes that violence in movies or video games (or various other formats) too often appears merely for its sensationalist effect, while in literature a writer has the ability to expand upon a violent scene to fully show its consequences. Because violence always has consequences. It is the absence of those consequences in our daily media diet, too often our entertainment choices, separate from the realm of reality, that has led to a society that hardly blinks at its constant appearance upon the screens of our minds. All of which, she argues, with time turns us into hardened and numb creatures, willing to not only view violence, but to tolerate it, potentially even to participate in it.

So an essay moves us to change our viewing habits. Art creates positive change. But Kingsolver can just as easily write an essay that makes us laugh, as in her story of joining a literary rock band, allowing herself to look the fool for our sympathetic pleasure. Or her struggles as a parent. Although in "Somebody's Baby," her message again takes on a ponderous seriousness in considering how little we care for our youngest generations, even while we claim to be a family oriented society. Her call to us in this essay is to consider that it is not just the parent's job to care for the child, but it is the obligation and heart-calling to the community at large, to the entire nation, to care for and nurture our young. We are, she writes, raising Presidents-in-training, yet our attitude is "every family for itself."

What I love about Kingsolver's essays is that they are beautifully written, literary works of art. Yet each and every one carries a deeper meaning, a message, a call to arms, even those written with the relish of humor. It is art with consequence.

A collection of inspired short essays
Barbara Kingsolver never disappoints whether she is addressing ecology,social issues or human relationships. The title essay, typically, shows her ability to take a striking image or idea and follow it into an illuminating and amusing essay touching on many big ideas.She is passionate about everything she touches but also has a wonderful ironic humour. Almost every piece in this wide ranging collection is thought provoking. In particular, her visit to a Titan missile solo and her subsequent reflections are so powerful and eloquent that I found myself physically affected. It is not often that I get goosebumps reading short non fiction collections! Barbara Kingsolver is an important voice of conscience in our times yet never gets preachy.

lobster love!
something drew me to seek this book out & i cannot remember what it was!
i love barbara's writing style, as is warm, humourous, witty & full of compassion,
this is a kind of semi-autobiography, with previously printed essays,
most of the stories are good, but the one i totally, totally love is the one about the lobster that gets smuggled into their luggage, by her small daughter, whilst on vacation, & which they end up keeping as a pet, & observing his habits apparently influenced by the moon's phases and/or the tides! it is just so funny & cute, & just warms the cockles!
i gave a printed copy of this to my sister whilst she was undergoing cancer treatment, as i thought the words were just so wonderful, to seek out life & grab it for what it was........
this story really holds a special place in my heart!