State of Wonder: A Novel (P.S.)

An author who has written a novel as luminous as "Bel Canto" creates a problem, both for herself and the reader. The author has created such a difficult high standard, the reader hopes for an equally engaging reading experience in all subsequent books. The stage is set for disappointment. Thus, even a very good book such as "Run" can result in vague reader disappointment. So, I approached "State of Wonder" girded for a similar reaction, especially in light of mixed reviews both from literary critics and from friends who had read it before I. As I got into the story, it engaged me somewhat, but I was well into the tale before I felt the same amazement and admiration of the author's skill as I had with "Bel Canto." Deep into the story, I began to see again what is for me Ms. Patchett's greatest talent. That talent is her ability to deal with serious life issues in a highly tolerant way, in a way that invites the reader to see the shades of gray, the nuances, in the life issues being presented. Just as in "Bel Canto," Patchett does this in "State of Wonder" primarily by making her characters very human in a way that allows the reader to "see through" their own initial reactions and judgments. For example, one may initially see the Bovenders as entirely frivolous and insubstantial. Yet, as the story unfolds one is lead to understand that at least Barbara has substance and qualities that soften the earlier prejudice. Marina may seem initially as weak-willed, easily manipulated, and afraid. Yet, as the story unfolds, the reader incrementally is led to understand Barbara's strengths and admirable attributes. Such subtle unfolding of character requires a writer of both great writing skill and a highly refined, non-judgmental understanding of human nature and psychology. To me the best example in the novel is Ms. Patchett's development of Dr. Swenson. In so many ways, Dr. Swenson is unlikeable and easily subject to quick reader condemnation for her apparent coldness, detachment, lack of feeling, and deception. Yet, as the story moves forward, it reveals her at a deeper level -- her motivations, her relationships with Easter and Marina, and her subjective experience with her pregnancy. Through Ms. Patchett's writing skill, the reader can begin to look at Dr. Swenson in a different light. Her self assuredness is punctured, and the reader is able to view her more humanely. One sees that the cold scientist is also subject to human emotions -- such as the non-rational aspects of the human mother's tie with the child, even an adopted one. One sees that Dr. Swenson's "argument" why Easter must stay in the jungle is simply a rational, intellectual assessment overlaying (one is tempted to say "hiding") the more fundamental human motivation of the "mother" to have the child stay, indeed stay with her. One sees beyond the intellectual argument to the underlying human need and love. Viewed literally, this story is quite unrealistic and perhaps may seem off-putting in the extreme to the literal minded. To criticize the novel on that score, however, misses the mark. One great purpose of fiction is to teach us about life, about what it truly means to "be human." The magic of great fiction is that an imagined story -- even one that tests credulity in some respects -- can accomplish that important and grand purpose better than a more realistic recitation of "the facts" out of which the imagination and skill of the fiction writer has woven the tale. I, for one, applaud Patchett, the skillful nuance of her art, and this engaging and human story. Her "gift of craft" gives us the gift of this story.

While I found "Bel Canto" very engrossing, the descriptions and snippets of reviews of Patchett's subsequent work kept me on the sidelines. However, "State of Wonder" received some great advance reviews, and given the subject matter of the novel, I decided to give it was worth a shot. While I do have some small quibbles, overall, Patchett creates a gripping novel, focusing on contemporary cultural, gender and scientific issues. At the center of the novel are Dr. Marina Singh, a pharmacologist and her former teacher and mentor at Johns Hopkins medical school Annick Swenson. Swenson works for the same company as Marina, Vogel, and has been in Brazil pursuing a fertility drug based on biological abnormalities among the women of an indigenous Brazilian tribe, the Lakashi. Marina heads to Brazil to find her former mentor after the death of fellow Vogel and research colleague Anders Eckman fails to return from a similar expedition and Vogel's CEO Mr. Fox receives a letter from Dr. Swenson informing them of his death. Beyond that, I'll avoid much more on plot and focus on what I liked (a lot) and didn't like (a little) about "State of Wonder". One key area of "State of Wonder" that I found trite was the "secretive" relationship between Marina and the CEO, Mr. Fox. This relationship was the most forced part of the book. Patchett hadn't convinced me by the end of the book that there was a deep and credible emotional connection between the Singh and Fox. While Patchett did a wonderful job developing the characters of Singh and Swenson, as well as Anders Eckman, she short-changed the other doctors that were also with Swenson n the Brazilian jungle. This seemed to come at the expense to wrapping up a quick conclusion, rather than building more human and personal drama. Finally, the concluding scene in Brazil was disappointing and seemed the easy way out for Patchett. On the flip side, there were several brilliant aspects to the novel. First, Patchett brings along the rain forest of Brazil in such vivid detail, she'll have you smacking flies away from yourself and checking around to make sure snakes and spiders aren't crawling around near you. From the town of Manaus to the river tributaries, "State of Wonder" beautifully renders such a unique and different environment in beatiful prose. Additionally, Patchett brings the reader closer to indigenous people and cultures without ever being politically correct or modernly dismissive. We get to understand the Lakashi about as well as Dr. Singh does and not much more than Dr. Swenson does in spite of the many years she's lived among their tribe. Finally, Patchett tackles the topic of big pharma, the search for the next billion dollar drug, the consequences of drugs that push the boundaries of human biology and development of drugs for 3rd world diseases and countries. I didn't read this book hoping there was validity in the science --- the reality of the "science" in the book was irrelevant -- but for the broader themes and just a gripping read and I certainly got what I wanted. While Patchett poses no easy moral or ethical solutions for her characters in the novel, her novel raises important issues science and our world is confronting today. Ultimately, this book reminded me of Ishiguro's "Never Let Me Go" in many ways. Few author's are as deft with language as he is, but Patchett weaves an impressive, entertaining and thought-provoking novel of her own.

From the beginning the characters come alive and the plot quickly thickens. So many characters to become attached to with novel qualities and human limitations. The jungle is vivid and one of the protagonist becomes familiar almost at once. An eventful and action filled read which is hard to put down.

Amazing and compelling story of Scientists in the Amazon. Some there willingly and some not. A human mystery to be solved and a medical one hangs I. The balance. Worth reading and mulling over for quote a while to come

I have heard nothing but raves about Ann Patchett's new book State of Wonder, and I ordered it expecting it to be one of the best books that I've read all year. I wanted to like this book, and at times, I did enjoy it. But there were also times when I hated it or found it downright tedious. In any case, I'm not sure why so many people loved it so. Emotionally scarred Marina Singh, M.D., Ph.D. is a Minnesota native and pharmaceutical researcher. She is in a secret relationship with her widower-boss, Mr. Fox, CEO of Vogel Pharmaceuticals. Vogel is investing big money in the development of a fertility drug being researched by Dr. Annick Swenson, who has been living among the Lakashi Tribe in the Amazon. Swenson was also one of Singh's professors in medical school. When Swenson stops communication with Vogel, Mr. Fox sends Singh's friend and co-worker, Dr. Anders Eckman, to the Amazon to investigate. But after a number of months, Swenson sends word back to Vogel that Eckman has died. So Dr. Singh reluctantly agrees to travel to the Amazon to find out what really happened to Eckman and also, to spy for Vogel on the work of Dr. Swenson. I found the plot slow in many spots, and unbelievable in others. The women of the Lakashi are able to get pregnant and have babies into their 60s and 70s. According to Dr. Eckman, "'Their eggs aren't aging, do you get that? The rest of the body goes along its path to destruction while the reproductive system stays daisy fresh. This is the end of IVF. No more expense, no more shots that don't end up working, no more donor eggs and surrogates. This is ovum in perpetuity, menstruation everlasting.'" But how this happens is just plain bizarre. Dr. Singh finds many surprises in store for her when she arrives in Brazil--about the Amazon, about the Lakashi people, and about herself. This trip will make her challenge her entire belief system. In the end, there are quite a few questions left unanswered. To what extent should researchers and doctors be allowed to play God? Should women really have children late in life? Is it ethical to hold back on producing one drug for the development of another? What is a better environment to raise native children--the Amazon or the United States? And is it possible to return to a "normal" life in the United States after experiencing life in the Amazon? Of course, Patchett doesn't answer these questions. Either she leaves us to our own assumptions or she's setting us up for a sequel. While I was glad that I read State of Wonders, it wasn't the book that I was expecting.

"State of Wonder" opens with "the news of Anders Eckman's death". Eckman, a medical researcher who worked for the Vogel pharmaceutical company in Minnesota, had been sent to Brazil to try and gather information about the progress of the research being done by another Vogel scientist, Dr. Annick Swenson. Swenson had been in the Amazon for many years, investigating a biological substance that appears to enable women to remain fertile for their entire lives. A lone wolf, Swenson refuses to provide much information to the company, not only about her work but even about her address. Indeed, she hires a quirky young couple from Australia, the Bovenders, to run interference between her and the outside world. When word of Eckman's death from a fever reaches Minnesota, it falls to his office mate, Dr. Marina Singh, to travel to Brazil and attempt to find out more about the circumstances surrounding Anders' death, and to bring word back to Anders' wife Karen, who is left with three young children. Marina travels first to Manaus, a large, noisy, dirty city that serves as a gateway to the Amazon, and then down the Rio Negro to Swenson's field station. Many reviewers have described this as a female "Heart of Darkness," with Swenson cast in the role of Kurtz. Swenson certainly shares some of Kurtz's defining characteristics: she's a nearly maniacally driven genius, she has little need for other people, and of course, she lives amongst indigenous people in a site that can only be reached by riverboat. However, she is also a much less evil person than Kurtz. Her relationship with the deaf native boy she calls Easter is particularly touching. Swenson is by far the best-drawn character in the book; only Marina comes close. Where it is Swenson's relationship with Easter that humanizes her, Marina's most interesting relationship turns out not be with Mr. Fox, the Vogel executive with whom she is having a love affair, but rather with Anders. Sharing a lab with Anders for many years has led to a set of feelings that Marina discovers only slowly, and after he is gone. Patchett can write lyrically and powerfully, describing scenes that linger. In "State of Wonder", these notably include Marina's Larium-induced nightmares that are pure expressions of separation anxiety stemming from a childhood in which her parents lived in different continents. Also memorable is an account of an encounter with an anaconda that occurs when a young native many and would-be Amazon tour guide decides to drag the snake onto his boat, thinking that this is the sort of stunt that tourists will expect from him. The book is full of external references, which in the hands of a less talented writer would be jarring, but which Patchett is able to pull off. My favorite, from late in the book, is this: "Of all the tributaries in all of the Amazon, he had wandered onto hers." "State of Wonder" is not perfect. It's very heavily plot-driven, and as noted above, some of the characters are quite flat. The plot itself has some implausibilities that detract from the story: for example, the fact that despite having lived amongst the Lakashi tribe for years, Swenson and her staff can barely understand any of their language. The scientists' study of the perpetual fertility drug raises potentially extremely interesting and controversial questions about whether there are limits on what should be studied, but the novel gives only a very shallow exploration of these questions. And the ending is unsatisfying: Marina makes a choice that would seem to have much greater consequences than it does. Despite these shortcomings, this is a good book that, more than anything, provides a rich sense of what it is like to be a totally foreign environment--and it's fun to read, to boot.

Ann Patchett has written a splendid novel in STATE OF WONDER. The reader will experience an eye-opening view of Amazonian jungle environs, complete with savages and exotic creatures but there's so much more. Patchett shows us a different side of scientific study in wild places where experiments are conducted in perilous surroundings, white rooms don't exist, research becomes a fierce and strenuous endeavor, and experimentation is on humans who are probably more interested in how you taste than in what you are learning. It sounds farcical but the author makes it real without resorting to the usual rain forest clichés. Patchett's ability to create a realistic atmosphere is remarkable. All of the reader's senses will be touched. Descriptions of the languid, silky river's touch on the skin, the cacophony of birdsong, the endless drone of insects and their stinging bites, the merciless scorch and smell of moist tropical heat, the fevered embrace of tropical disease; the reader will experience all of it and more while absorbing the author's extraordinary writing skills. Through all the miseries of existence in a wild place, there is an intelligent storyline about vulnerable people trying to make some sense of a scientific study in a faraway place that's being conducted by an eccentric and recalcitrant medical doctor with the bedside manners of a viper. Why is there no apparent progress in her studies? What really happened to a well-respected colleague who has been reported dead by the good doctor who conveniently buries him in the fecund jungle soil surrounding her remote study lab? Will a tender footed former student of the doctor's be able to survive the rigors of the Amazon jungle as she attempts to get some answers? As the story evolves the reader will wonder at the talented and dedicated doctors who make up the research team. These are scientists who would no doubt be prosperous and comfortable in a more serene setting. But they are in the jungle in horrific conditions, braving the heat and humidity and filth, as they search for answers to questions of providing better health protocol for mankind. Mystery and unanswered questions permeate the story. Answers are needed back at the corporate office and by the wife and children of the missing researcher and Patchett skillfully unravels the intrigue and offers a surprising conclusion. I'll not reveal any of it, of course, but I will say that even an incessant reader such as me was pleasantly surprised at the twists and turns the author imagineered. I recommend this book and feel confident that you'll enjoy it. Schuyler T Wallace Author of TIN LIZARD TALES

On the surface, State of Wonder is a 21st century update of Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness. There's an epic trip upriver into the heart of a primordial jungle. Native peoples are exploited. All manner of horrors abound. But that's where the similarities end. In the 19th century original, the further and further you get into unchartered territory the darker and darker things become. Platchett's remake is less straightforward than that. The more you find out about the remote outpost in her novel and the deeper you peer into the foreboding jungle canopy that surrounds it, many of the impenetrable blacks start taking on some unexpected shades of gray. It are these unexpected and thought provoking grays that turn an otherwise very good novel with a riveting plot and an array of memorable characters into a great novel that earns it 5 out of 5 stars in my book. State of Wonder starts a bit slow in a pharmaceutical lab up in Minnesota, but once the plot entered into the Brazilian tropics I couldn't wait each night to pick up where I left off and get back to the jungle! The main character, Mariana Singh, is a biochemist working for a large pharmaceutical conglomerate. Her lab partner, Anders Eckman is sent to Brazil to check up on the progress being made by the mysterious and despotic Dr. Annick Swenson who was hired by the company some years ago to develop a breakthrough fertility drug expected to deliver huge profits. Dr. Swenson, we soon learn, isn't one to mess with. She does all she can to prevent outside interferences from getting in the way of her research into a remote Amazonian tribe where the women are known to bear children well into their seventies. When she sends word that Eckman did indeed show up at her research outpost but that he died suddenly from a fever, Singh is asked by her boss to head down to Brazil to find out exactly what happened. She is also charged with picking up where Eckman left off and to report back on the work of Dr. Swenson. After all, the return on the company's investment is long overdue! Some of Platchett's best writing comes with her descriptions of the jungle with its oppressive heat and fever-laced air, swarms of buzzing and biting insects and flora that can disorient, entrap or even slice the uninitiated to ribbons. There's also the Negro River that swirls through all this mess. It is so packed with microscopic bugs and other infectious gunk that you can't see two inches into it. If all this weren't sinister enough, Platchett throws in man-eating snakes and a neighboring tribe of cannibals for good measure. She establishes a setting so darkly atmospheric, so itchy and gross and flat-out scary, that once the very likeable Mariana Singh steps foot into it, all you want is for her to get the hell out, which adds heart-quickening urgency to all the action. As you move closer to the novel's dramatic climax, Platchett starts dropping hints that force you to question some of your preconceived notions about the direction the plot is taking. You are left in a `state of wonder' not only about the personal motivations of the characters and the choices they make, but also about the bigger ethical questions that underlie scientific advancements and the civilized world's nasty habit of exploiting native cultures. State of Wonder is sure to be one of my favorite books of 2012.

Ann Patchett does it again - writes a story that I don't want to end. It was a bit slow to start but please get passed that. You will be amazed.

I loved every page of it. The story is beautiful and very well written, fully believable, and human, with very interesting ethical themes of pharmaceutical research. Do not read the synthesis as there is a big spoiler I wish I had not read.

Patchett must have spent time there. The detail of jungle life and the relationships between the doctors was so realistic. A great read!

Ann Patchett kann einfach großartig Geschichten erzählen. Ich finde dieses Buch eines ihrer besten. Es ist eine außergewöhnliche Geschichte, glaubhaft erzählt, und wenn man einmal angefangen hat, kann man garantiert nicht mehr aufhören.

Review from AntonySimpson.com: State of Wonder is a masterpiece novel, written by true wordsmith Ann Patchett. Patchett is unbelievably talented and this book left me with a feeling of Wow. State of Wonder starts with the death of Anders Eckman, a Research Doctor for pharmaceutical company Vogel. He was in the Amazon searching for Dr. Swenson, who had gone AWOL. Marina Singh, Anders’ colleague, goes on a journey to the Amazon to uncover the mystery surrounding his death. On this journey, Marina will have to confront her past, learn the progress of Dr. Swenson’s research in the present, with the hopes that the life-long fertility drug will save Vogel’s future. But what she finds is so much more than what she expected. Marina goes on a journey that transforms her from within. State of Wonder readers will forget to eat, go to bed later than normal and completely lose track of time. Purely because they are driven to read on by all aspects of this brilliant story: the plot, the description and the characters. The complexity of the plot is utterly captivating, completely compelling and has some great twists. Every aspect of this book’s plot is strong: the beginning, middle and end. Patchett’s superb description in State of Wonder sent my imagination into overdrive and immersed me fully into that beautiful but deadly part of the world. Patchett’s characters are brilliantly crafted. Patchett explores a range ethical issues through her characters perspectives and gives some interesting points of view. These points of view are consistent with her characters and leave the reader plenty to think over, long after they have finished reading the book. State of Wonder is one of those rare books that leaves the reader feeling somehow changed inside. State of Wonder is beyond marvellous. It is probably the best work of fiction that I’ve read in years. If I had to rate it out of 5 stars, I’d give it 6 stars. State of Wonder far exceeded any expectations I had for it. My copy of the book had the old book cover which was both fantastic and appealing. I don’t know what the publishers were thinking with the new book cover (pictured above). It looks cheap and does nothing to attract a potential reader. If you’re thinking about picking up this novel, ignore any feelings about the cover and do. It is an essential read for any lover of fiction. I cannot heap enough praise on Patchett for this novel. State of Wonder will leave readers in a State of Wonder. See what I did there? Despite this play on words, that is actually how a reader will feel when he or she finishes the book. State of Wonder is available to buy on Amazon and at all good bookshops.