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A wonderful book. Hard to say--loved it? Amazing? But I think many of the readers on this site will love it. It's a love story, and a story about who we are as humans. the author used biographies and the writings of Margaret Mead to set up the New Guinea research plot, and then she veered off into the story of three people who are anthropologists in this area of the world, open and curious (to varying degrees) to the world of the people on a particular river in New Guinea. It is so much more tha
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2.5-ish stars
Take one part Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient, add a touch of Pat Barker's The Ghost Road and a whole lot of Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa centered on several fictional New Guinea tribes and one has a glimpse of this fascinating book detailing the early years of anthropological studies. King covers so many bases in this book's modest 257 pages that it takes a two page acknowledgments and five page, 23-question study guide and bibliography in the end to revisit one's self and valu
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First read March 10, 2015.
Second read November 7, 2016.
Euphoria, inspired by the life of American anthropologist Margaret Mead and her relationships with two male anthropologists in the 1930s, blew me away! Nell (the Margaret Mead character) is married to Australian Fen (based on Reo Fortune), and they’re working together, unsuccessfully, in New Guinea. They finally call it quits and plan to head back to “civilization,” Nell being very sick and injured. In stopping briefly to attend a gathering ...more
Second read November 7, 2016.
Euphoria, inspired by the life of American anthropologist Margaret Mead and her relationships with two male anthropologists in the 1930s, blew me away! Nell (the Margaret Mead character) is married to Australian Fen (based on Reo Fortune), and they’re working together, unsuccessfully, in New Guinea. They finally call it quits and plan to head back to “civilization,” Nell being very sick and injured. In stopping briefly to attend a gathering ...more
Interesting novel, inspired by the author's readings about Margaret Mead, of anthropologists in the 30s, at the very beginning of the discipline. I found the first chapter quite horrific and had a hard time pushing through it, but then I became caught up in the story. It's short, but has a lot in observation and information woven in.
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Although I can't be sure, I think that I would have gotten a lot more out of this book if I had read a physical copy instead of listening to the audio. My mind kept wandering and I missed things. I think that I needed more time to sit with this one rather than just charging through at the steady pace set by the narration.
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Sucked me right in... the characters and the setting. I felt like I was on the river with them, as much or as little of an outsider as the main characters themselves. Plus, a love triangle? Yes.
Dec 03, 2014
Collin
marked it as to-read
Dec 12, 2014
Katrina
marked it as to-read
Apr 19, 2015
Sara
marked it as to-read
Aug 27, 2015
Lisa
marked it as to-read
Aug 20, 2018
Julie C.
marked it as to-read
Jan 11, 2020
Angie
marked it as to-read
Mar 09, 2020
Kate Hollis
marked it as to-read
Mar 28, 2020
Sarah
marked it as to-read
May 07, 2021
Stacey
marked it as to-read
