State of wonder, by Ann Patchett  

Discussed Thursday, 26^th June 2014, Forester & Flower, Combe Down

Beer was not good, so less was drank - £33.10 left in the kitty for next time!

Seven out of the nine of us were there: Chris B, Steve, Ras, Rob, Chris W, Mark T, and Richard; (apols from Mark Th [who sent his notes later, now at the end] and Neil [who sent his views by e-mail, below]).

Richard liked the book a lot.  For him it raised interesting issues around morality and principle, western civilization and non-western primitivism and the interactions between the two, culture, love, and science.

He felt that the book started off as a slight and rather domestic story – a Dr with a history and having an affair with the boss, a missing dead man (mystery – was he murdered as he’d discovered a fraud, etc). But it turned into a character study of Swenson and Singh; and also a study of the N. Amazon basin as a character (probably not the Brazilian tourist board’s favourite book!).  Richard found it both engaging, and more so as it progressed; and felt the tragedy of losing Easter quite strongly. 

In terms of characters and characterisation, the book stayed close to Marina's consciousness.  Richard liked that way that Marina and Swenson’s relationship grew and developed over the novel, and how the person beneath the grouchy difficult genius woman gradually appeared.  Richard also enjoyed the writing style and found it both easy to read, and full of interesting descriptions:

“She only knew Karen as well as … any single woman who works with the husband ever knows the wife who stays at home.”

“She might develop a drug for the purposes of her own curiosity or the interest of science, but it would never occur to her that her work was the property of the people who signed the checks.” !

“Being the child of a white mother and foreign graduatestudent father who took his degree but not his family back to his country of origin after he was finished had become the stuff of presidential history, but when Marina was growing up there was no example that could easily explain her situation.”

“While every insect in the Amazon lifted its head from the leaf it was masticating and turned a slender antenna in her direction …. The air outside was heavy enough to be bitten and chewed. Never had marina’s lungs taken ion so much oxygen, so much moisture. … at dusk the insects came down in a storm, the hard-shelled and soft-sided, the biting and stinging, the chirping and buzzing and droning, every last one unfolded its paper wings and flew with unimaginable velocity into the eyes and mouths and noses of the only three humans they could find. … in the instant the veil of insects lifted and Marina saw nothing as she had never seen nothing before … “

“It was impossible to know how many apricots a person would eat once they had been removed from civilisation.”

On the other hand, there were many ‘problems’ with realism: it is unrealistic

·        to think that Swenson would not recall a very tall Indian-American woman named Singh;

·        to imagine that she’d think that Vogel would not be interested in an anti-malarial drug!

·        to think that Vogel would allow someone to refuse to communicate with her employer about the years she has spent putatively investigating the Lakashi! 

But Richard considered that these were only small problems really; and on the other hand, there were many interesting ethical dilemmas: Should women of any age be able to have children? What are the benefits and the downsides?  Why does this ability seem to work in the Lakashi culture?  How far should modern science go to “improve” on nature? Whether you are a man or woman, would you want to have a child in your fifties or sixties? In talking about her experiences with the indigenous people, Swenson says, “the question is whether or not you choose to disturb the world around you; or if you choose to go on as if you had never arrived.”  But these are not ‘choices’ – just being there DOES disturb the world around, as we all do, all of the time.

For him, the biggest negative was how the story just trailed off.

Neil sent by e-mail his customary interesting comments: “Overall I quite enjoyed this book and found myself drawn into the story enough to be sufficiently engrossed to want to read on and the style was easy enough to allow a fairly quick consumption.  For me these proved to be points that helped me over the issues I had right from the start.  The basic premise that one doctor with scant qualification for being sent into the jungle has died and so the pharmaceutical company CEO decides in his wisdom that a second should follow seems fairly ridiculous and once you find out what they are working on, so does the drug development and the phenomenon that brings it about.  The idea that a big drug company wouldn't at the very least send some sort of Bear Grylls mercenary along with Dr Marina to ensure her safety or have a grid reference locked away that showed where the research was going on seemed ridiculous.  And the list of incredible things went on, like the fact that we are meant to believe that Dr Swenson, in years gone by, used to nip down to this remote part of the Amazon to do field work over 3 day weekends, when it seems quite clear that it's at least a two day journey either way to reach this bit of jungle.  These various fictional constructs, trumped by the denouement (which I shan't spoil for you, but is again right up there in the realms of the unreal) along with a writing style that would occasionally make wild jumps in the middle of a train of consciousness were distractions and i can only concede that the storytelling ability and the writer's knack for creating one or two quite likeable characters held it together to make it an entertaining read, if also at the same time fairly forgettable.  And of course the fact that it centered around Manaus just at the time that the England football team were about to play there lent a certain added interest which it would otherwise have lacked. So, enjoyable, but not superb, 6.5 for me.”

Chris B had finished it 2 weeks previously, and had really enjoyed it whilst he was reading it. He enjoyed the characters and liked the way one got inside their heads, and how Marina was drawn in to the situation – as one gets closer to ‘the field’ and further away from the calmness and objectivity of back home, one gets less objective and more drawn in to the local situation.  But Chris felt that, unlike Germinal, which was a book that he felt would stay with him for a very long time, he questioned whether he would recall this book in the same way. He also felt that there was a lot of unrealism, although that was live-able with; and felt reassured that the book could have an attractive and intelligent 42 year old woman fall for a 60+ year old man!  Overall, he felt that it was a great little book, but not one which would have a huge impact on his life

Steve was also struck by the unrealism, but told us that he had decided to suspend his disbelief and hence he ‘just let myself go with it’. He enjoyed the first part – to ordinary people having to tell a mother and wife terrible news. He also enjoyed the Manaus section; but then felt that each new bit got ‘more bonkers’. He felt that it was obviously researched (“but she is clearly NOT a scientist” from Mark T! – “but the book is not about the science!” from Steve), but that the ending was a bit of a whimper. Steve drew our attention to the Heart of Darkness connection, the professional person going rogue in the heart of the darkest jungle.

Ras (who was feeling sufficiently well to have driven himself up and back, and was quite cheery) had finished the book, and felt that that was a success in itself.  He also felt that the early parts were quite good; and VERY unusually for him, he felt that the book should have been longer (!) – that the author should have spent about 2 further pages on the ending.  He was unsure if Swenson was being disloyal to the company: he felt that she was an honest scientist trying to do her best: and as a steward of our planet, she was trying to guard her findings. He felt that the Bovenders did not fit – that Swenson would not have been likely to retain their services. He liked the way that Marina was parachuted inform the cold of Minnesota to the Amazonian jungle. Ras’s overall summary was : “I enjoyed it, and I finished it!”

Rob was not quite so positive as the others. He felt that the first half was painfully slow: he felt that nothing happened.  It was only in the last third that the story developed.  Rob asked: “what was the book about?” If it was meant to provide a picture of the country and of the Amazon, then it needed to be real, and there were too many unrealistic things; but if it was not a picture of the country, what was it? He agreed that the ending was strange, and that he was left with so many unanswered questions, which made it a bit of an unsatisfactory book.  On the other hand, he did engage with Marina a bit, and with Easter, and found the Bovenders entertaining.

Chris W was more inclined to Rob’s view. He felt that it was top-heavy, it took 2/3 to start, building up to a story which then wasn’t sufficiently developed. The book spent a long time getting to the jungle! But he felt that the author had a very fertile mind – lots of ideas, but it was as if she didn’t know herself where she was going with the book, and so she herself was discovering her plot as she wrote.  But there were too many unanswered questions, too many loose ends, too much ratcheting up of uncertainty. “I got through it but it was not a compelling read.”

Mark T told us that initially it engaged him, but its half-life was very short, and the longer the time since finishing it, the more it has irritated him.  Very implausible, and got more so, Enjoyed it a bit, but very little lasting memory.

MarkTh e-mailed his notes a little later: "Thanks for the notes Richard - a really interesting summary which matched my own ambivalent reaction to the book.  On the down side, as people have noted, it was hard to get past the implausibility of the plot.  Secondly, the Science did not convince and thirdly, her picture of the amazon was full of cliché with snakes and spiders and cannibals throughout.  Finally, I found her focus on educated westerners who cant even be bothered to learn the local languages against a backdrop of childlike Amazonian tribes patronising at best. On the plus side, her prose really flowed in places, she developed the characters of Dr Swenson and Marina very fully, and the ending was terrific.  The twist for me was not that Anders was alive, as that had always been a possibility.  It was Swenson's reaction to the loss of Easter and what it suddenly revealed about her motives and the conflicts within her that made the book finally interesting and gave both female leads real depth.  This then opened up all the avenues of ethical analysis also noted in Richard's notes. So, having expected to give the book a very low score, will give 7."