Barbara Kingsolver's "Bean Trees".... and dilemma resolved!

After sampling the author's work with "Prodigal Summer", I was undecided whether I "liked" her work or not. So I agreed with myself to try another (this time, her first novel "Bean Trees", from the 1990's).

There's a lot to like: especially addressing the issue of infant/child sex abuse! Her characterization of little "Turtle" was handled just right. The main character's efforts to adopt her little charge were touching, complete with her self-doubts about her ability to protect and nurture the baby.

The author's ability to describe nature: sunsets, flowers, storms, etc. Strong. (But tossed into the narrative self-indulgently?).

Kingsolver has a social agenda (who doesn't?). So her novels are sprinkled with one dimensional characters you can't really "picture" or "feel you know", but seem to stand for whichever ideal she's in favor of, or against. This is not literature; eventually, it feels like nagging.

I remember how vividly: "Like Water for Elephants" makes you feel the injustice of mistreating captive animals and letting old people rot in nursing homes. "March" leaves you not doubt about the horrors of human bondage, while providing full-blooded characters; the same goes for "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman". Kingsolver's work does not rise these examples of artistry.

Barbara Kingsolver's "Prodigal Summer"

I completed my reading of the novel because the location is in south western Virginia, near Roanoke and especially Demascus, VA. The photo of the barns above was taken from a bike trail nearby. We visited the area, it is beautiful; we  bought garden supplies from a farm where some of the author's ideas were being enacted, Seven Springs Farm.

The novel follows the development of three characters, two younger women and the elderly widowed gentleman of the area. They evolve to become interlinked by friendship and family relationship as the story progresses.

The author is very strong on descriptions of nature, seasons progressions, a violent storm or the character of an animal moving through it's range.

I found human characters sometimes seem to come across as cardboard cut-outs to further the underlying environmental message in the book: don't mess with the natural order of the predator/prey relationships, don't use crop and insect poisons and farmers should not rely on the same old, seemingly reliable cash crops, like tobacco, to make a living. Ok, ok, ok. I don't always enjoy "message" novels.

Unrelated to these, I felt the book could use another edit; the reader was left to tie up some loose ends of the plot; certainly intensional by the author.

I will try another novel by Barbara Kingsolver that I already own, then decide whether to read more.