State of Wonder is a 2011 novel by American author Ann Patchett. It is the story of pharmacologist Marina Singh, who journeys to Brazil to bring back information about seemingly miraculous drug research being conducted there by her former teacher, Dr. Annick Swenson. The book was published by Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom and by Harper in the United States. It was critically well received, and was nominated for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction, among other nominations.
It amazes me how Patchett can change her voice so completely. This book is emotionally tense and dense. You and the protagonist are unsure about how things effect you, just along for a bumpy ride down the Amazon. Then it ends in a wonderful release.
Hm. Ich hab es gern gelesen, und alle meine Theorien darüber, wie es ausgehen würde, haben sich als falsch erwiesen. Aber jetzt im Nachhinein fühle ich mich doch irgendwie betrogen und mit Handlungsversprechen durch ein eigentlich ziemlich ereignisloses Buch gelockt. Und obwohl in den Dialogen klug und vernünftig über das Verhältnis der Forscherinnen zu den Einheimischen geredet wird, sind die Vorgänge, die tatsächlich beschrieben werden, hart am Ethno-Kitsch. Frauen, die an Bäumen kauen.
Great characters--professional women with compelling professional lives. Love that.
The central conflict in the story is between two drug development paths. Original, definitely. The characters are motivated by it without the novel devolving into a preachy think piece. The pace of the story was very good and the setting was evocative.
What was the State of Wonder from the title?
Couldn't even finish it - it was that bad.
The progress of this story from the ordinary to the extreme is so gradual that it escapes notice and retains its utterly convincing reality throughout. Deep themes like science, gender, and cultural boundaries are explored all along the way, making for a very satisfying read.
Ann Patchett's State of Wonder was the refreshing breeze that followed my reading of Joseph Conrad'sHeart of Darkness. Yes, there are certainly parallels, but this novel is so much more hopeful.
Dr. Marina Singh ventures into the Amazon for two purposes, one professional, the other more personal. Professionally, Marina is obliged to find Dr. Annick Swenson and report on the research she is doing for the pharmaceutical company they both work for, and personally, she feels compelled to learn the details of a coworker's fate. Marina's memories of Dr. Swenson are not pleasant, in fact, she is a bit frightened of her, and the reader is lead to expect her to be the worst kind of person. It's not that easy, of course; Dr. Swenson is a complicated person, and the evolution of the Singh-Swenson relationship is as intriguing as anything else in the story.
Patchett does not …
Ann Patchett's State of Wonder was the refreshing breeze that followed my reading of Joseph Conrad'sHeart of Darkness. Yes, there are certainly parallels, but this novel is so much more hopeful.
Dr. Marina Singh ventures into the Amazon for two purposes, one professional, the other more personal. Professionally, Marina is obliged to find Dr. Annick Swenson and report on the research she is doing for the pharmaceutical company they both work for, and personally, she feels compelled to learn the details of a coworker's fate. Marina's memories of Dr. Swenson are not pleasant, in fact, she is a bit frightened of her, and the reader is lead to expect her to be the worst kind of person. It's not that easy, of course; Dr. Swenson is a complicated person, and the evolution of the Singh-Swenson relationship is as intriguing as anything else in the story.
Patchett does not reveal all about any of these characters and does not over-write the ending, either. It's up to the reader to imagine how Marina will live out the rest of her life. (I've not mentioned many characters here so as not to give anything away--there are a couple twists.)
Obviously, I enjoyed this immensely.
I almost couldn't even write a review of this one. It's fine. It's even really good writing; I think Ann Patchett is pretty brilliant. And it's an adventure that does keep you guessing. State of Wonder is a good story.
I think the difficulty in writing the review is the hype that surrounds this book. It hasn't been presented as general adventure fiction, medical thriller, or exploration. It's been pushed and pedaled as something more, hum, literary.
State of Wonder is not a book that speaks to me on that level; a book that challenges my assumptions, says something deeper about humanity either metaphorically or philosophically. It's Grisham or Robin Cook written by somebody with more subtlety and greater skill with the language.
This book had such promise - all of the tension between people in various relationships written as only Patchett can. But, in cases like Bel Canto or the Magician's Assistant, I think she rounds out these frictions with equally important intimate, personal moments. Here, the intimacy is completely missing. The only character who lets down her guard long enough to show some real humanness (Karen) is only in the first two chapters. The rest do little to encourage me to care about them. They don't even seem to care about themselves. Incredibly disappointing.
I'm in the minority of people who didn't like Bel Canto; I found the writing style so self-consciously...written...that the book just felt too constructed and detached and not at all alive or emotional. So I should probably have known that I would not like this book either. Same writer, same writing style.
The descriptions are lush, the characters are very rich, and the writing is technically lovely, but the style and the tone are for me so distant that I just did not care at all about any of the characters or what happened to them. I cannot connect with this woman's writing style. Anne Patchett and I are done.
