State of Wonder

The underlying theme makes you think about what really goes on when scientists are doing their research. The book dragged while Marina is trying to understand the meanings of her relationship with her married boss, her leaving a doctor career, her wanting to help a co-worker's wife understand her husband's supposed death, and her trying to get to the research team in the Amazon. When Marina finally has to deal with the issues in the jungle and deal with her former professor, I finally started to see why people wanted me to read the book. ( )

Dr. Marina Singh is sent to the Amazon jungle to look for her former mentor and to find out the details of the last days of a colleague who was reported to have died while on the same quest. Readers are subjected to long and detailed descriptions of the jungle and all its horrors. We also see a friendship develop between Marina and a young deaf boy. Don’t expect a lot of plot in this character-driven novel. All these characters are flawed in some manner, and readers will hope that they will show some growth and development before their story ends. Unfortunately, the author has spent so much time in her wordy descriptions of insects, snakes, and diseases, by the time she is close to the conclusion of the story, she has, alas, run out of time and evidently words to write a satisfying ending. Too many story threads are left dangling. If the point of the story is the journey and not the end, then this journey was pretty boring and the end totally lackluster. I know this got rave reviews from professional reviewers as well as the many readers who post amateur ones, but I am not in that majority, although I admire those who felt the time they invested in the novel well worth it. I wish I had that 12 hours and 23 minutes back. I have to wonder (in my state of disappointment) if any other name but Ann Patchett had been on it, would it have been so well received? ( )

Ah, to have another novel with the same sense of wonder as Bel Canto! And even named "State of Wonder" to boot.

Dr. Marina Singh, employed by a pharmaceutical company, follows fellow scientist Anders Eckman into the Amazon at the behest of her boss (and lover), Mr. Fox. Mr. Fox had received a letter from a field scientist, Dr. Swenson, saying that Eckman, who had come to urge her to provide more frequent reports of her progress, had gotten a fever and died there. Swenson's work is part of an effort to develop a fertility drug for the pharmaceutical company.

There are complications. Not least of them is the fact that Swenson is notoriously difficult to find and to persuade. She wants to do things her way and not be hurried or harassed. She has a young couple set up in her "town" apartment whose main job is to divert those who are interested in meeting with Swenson.

Marina was chosen in large part because she was a student of Swenson's years ago. Supposedly she knows how to get through to her. Marina is not so sure but allows herself to be persuaded to go. The main reason she decides to go is that Eckman's wife wants to be absolutely certain that her husband is dead. She wants Marina to find proof. She prefers to believe that he is still alive until she is given that proof.

The first many days in the little town are spent trying to connect to Dr. Swenson. When she is finally successful she follows the good doctor into the Amazon, on her boat. There she is soon absorbed by Swenson's work and by meeting and learning about the natives.

Marina's character is caring and giving, and also very human. It is easy to relate to her and to want the most for her and even to want her affair with "Mr. Fox" to go well in spite of the large difference in their ages (Fox is many years older.) There is a warmth and kindness not only in Marina but in many of the other characters as well, even, to some extent, the unyielding Dr. Swenson. Is it this that attracted me to this book? Yes, but there is more. There is the way Marina faces her life in the Amazon, how she makes her decisions, what she actually does, that is just delightful, although that word may not seem appropriate at times. As in Bel Canto, there is unexpected pleasure throughout. What more could you want? ( )

I'm late to the party, but I finally read an Ann Patchett book! Beautiful writing. Well-developed characters and fabulous settings. Some nice surprises. I was disappointed with one event at the end of the book, though, and quite disturbed by another event at the end. I'm going to read The Dutch House next to compare. ( )

Jonathan Evison, author of West of Here, writes of "the death of the slow unfolding," novels that take their time to open and disclose their stories. Today many novels often open briskly, if not with explosions. Witness Ann Patchett's Bel Canto--by the end of chapter one, a room full of dignitaries has been taken hostage by South American freedom fighters.

State of Wonder hearkens back to a "slow unfolding," although slow does not equal dull. It is a rich, satisfying story, with Patchett's usual excellent writing. Her characters are conflicted, multi-layered, and hypocritical--in other words, they are often fun to read about. We are slowly drawn into the protagonist Marina's quest to the Amazon to discover the truth about the death of her colleague Anders. Just as Patchett built up the extraordinary setting of Bel Canto, here she creates the city of Manaus and then the Amazon as one part realism, one part Garcia Marquez, and one part Conrad.

A quest narrative and a character study, a drama with flashes of comedy, and a story with equal parts tragedy and redemption, all with Patchett's fluid, graceful prose and an even-keeled sensibility, State of Wonder is an excellent novel in which to be lost for a few days. ( )