“Well, probably for just millions of years there were little blobs of things in the sea, all just alike, splitting in two and making more of themselves. Same, same, same. Nothing much cooking. And then, some way, they got to where they’d cross their genes with one another and turn out a little variety, from mutations and such. Then starts the hullabaloo.”
Nannie is here speaking of evolution though the stimulus of the conversation is sexual reproduction and the essence of that topic is about cross-pollinating tree. So even within this one single short conversation there exist multiple levels. Things are going on within the conversation that are not distinctly related yet wind up all being interconnected. Genetic mutation that turned a blob floating into the ocean into a creature capable of walking onto the shore is connected to the fundamental properties of human reproduction which is connected to grafting trees. The interconnectedness of everything is essentially a description of the novel in miniature. Three distinct storylines are pursued individually which all inexorably wind up colliding with each other. This idea is one of the major themes which the novel pursues.
“Coyotes have turned up in every one of the continental United States in the last few years. In New York City, even. Somebody got a picture of one running between two taxicabs.”
The storyline that treks the narrative of Deanna Wolfe is about her burning desire to find and protect coyotes from poachers, but in the process the coyotes become one of the primal symbols of the novel. As Deanna explains, they have been spotted in the most unlikely of places. The response to this information by the person on the other end of its transmission is comical—was the coyotes in the process of trying to catch a subway—but the message is quite serious and, as should be expected, ties in strongly with Nannie’s conversation excerpted above. As Dr. Malcolm famously notes in Jurassic Park, life finds a way. Coyotes should not by any stretch of the imagination co-exist in the same world as New York City cabs…but there it is. Nature moves forward through traditional reproduction, mutation and, in some cases, just a sheer will to survive where it is perhaps is not even wanted.
Lusa sat still and marveled: This is how moths speak to each other. They tell their love across the fields by scent. There is no mouth, the wrong words are impossible, either a mate is there or he’s not, and if so the pair will find each other in the dark.
The third narrative trail which passes through the geography and over the topography of the narrative is that of Lusa Maluf Landowski Widener, an entomologist born of a union between a Palestinian mother and a Jewish father. The thematic concerns of connected and life finding its way even through the most challenging of circumstances is wrapped up in her genetic heritage, but it is her passion in life which is really the focus of this nature-centric novel. Lusa loves moths and after the death of her husband, there is little else to occupy that emotional center of her brain. The communicative powers of moths and their truly inspiring urge to procreate fascinate her specifically and quickly serve to become another essential symbol.
