Tolog Review: Animal Dreams

Animal Dreams
by Barbara Kingsolver
reviewed by Ruolin Li

This book talks about the memories. In main character Codi’s past, she lost her son and mum and she concerned about her future when she recalled those memories. There are three parts of memories, such as traumatic memories, cultural memories and ecological memories. 

Traumatic memories helped Codi to rediscover herself and to find the connection of her past, present and future. She had stayed in her own world when she remembered those memories. She wanted to cut off the connection between her world and social world. Codi tried to escape from her traumatic memories, but when she noticed that she stopped it and became brave. She faced those problems and found some treatment to cured herself.
Those cultural memories made her improve herself and stay close to the community. She also figured out the relationship and communication between different people. Sometimes a dead people’s image can form by other’s impression and definition. So even Codi never had some details of her dead mother’s personality, the villagers told her about her mother’s stories and family. She knew many details about her mother and her mother’s image became more visible inside her heart.

The ecological memories helped Codi awake her sense of belonging to the nature. That is the treatment about her traumatic memories. She figured out she also is one of the children of the Mother Nature. For the merciful Mother Nature, all lives are created equal, human being or animals. It helped Codi to rewrite her worldview. All of those memories gave Codi the meaning and value of her life. 

Codi was curious and afraid about her past when she lost all of those negative memories. Codi found hope and light when she faced her scars of memories. She clearly knew herself in this painful process. When Codi’s hometown was in the deeply environmental problems, she noticed the important inalienable connection between herself and her hometown. Also, she understood what is love when she opened her mind to her boyfriend. Through the process, Codi rebuilt herself and was full of expectations to looking forward to her new life. That is a story of an ugly bug changed to a wonderful butterfly. 

Codi’s childhood and her teenage hood created scars in her heart. Her mother dead when she was a little child. She lived her childhood in the shadow. Codi believed that she saw the scene of her mother’s death. But actually at that moment she was not there and she wouldn’t have seen that. So the memories are complex, nearly truth but not the truth. That is not Codi’s dream. Is a wonderful and difficult relationship between the mother and her daughter. 

There are so many negative memories about Codi, but she always can figure out more positive things. When she met her boyfriend, she thought that humans immersed themselves in sex like animals. And she recognized human being and animals are similar. So she thought we should be kind to animals. She noticed that there are lots of things we think funny but cruel to animals. She tried to stop her boyfriend been cruel to animals. And Codi helped her hometown to protect the environment.

This book talks about love, environment, pain and hope. We should be brave like Codi and kind to every living things on the earth.