From the Bookshelf of Topeka & Shawnee Co. Public Library…

State of Wonder

Ann Patchett

Start date: February 23, 2014

Finish date: March 23, 2014

Discussion: So Many Books, So Little Time

Discussion leader: Deb

Why we're reading this: March selection for the So Many Books discussion group, we will be discussing it Sunday March 23rd at 3 P…more
[close] March selection for the So Many Books discussion group, we will be discussing it Sunday March 23rd at 3 PM at the Library.

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So Many Books, So Little Time

My review of Wild
By Deb · 3 posts · 10 views

last updated Mar 07, 2016 08:02AM

These Things Hidden - A quick review
By Deb · 2 posts · 13 views

last updated Sep 02, 2015 07:48AM

What Members Thought

Jun 12, 2014 Deb rated it liked it

This descriptive novel will paint pictures of the Amazon rainforest and of natives eating tree bark into your mind. A researcher, Dr. Marina Singh, is sent to the Amazon by her drug manufacturing company to track down Dr. Swenson, another researcher who has been out of communication with the company for some time. Marina reluctantly agrees to go, despite the fact that another researcher sent down on the same mission died in the process. She is also being sent to find out what happened to this ma ...more

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Jun 16, 2011 Holly rated it it was amazing

Another amazing story from the gifted Ann Patchett. This book had compelling characters (flawed and not entirely likeable) whose intentions are questionable and whose actions are startling. I also thought that this story was a study of opposites, with part of the story set in cold, midwestern Minnesota, contrasting with the part set in the tropical heat of the Amazon jungle. The jungle full of beauty and magic, but could also be dangerous and deadly. Characters are geniuses who make incredibly s ...more

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May 22, 2015 Maria rated it really liked it

State of Wonder opens with an ending - the ending of Anders Eckman's life. A pharmacologist at a pharmaceutical company in Minnesota, Anders was sent into the Amazon by his boss, CEO Mr. Fox, to track down the combative, reclusive Dr. Annick Swenson in order to report back on the status of a fertility drug she's been developing for the company. Being a Minnesotan of Norwegian descent with a wife and three young boys, he is wholly unsuited to the task, and perishes of a mysterious fever. Upon lea State of Wonder opens with an ending - the ending of Anders Eckman's life. A pharmacologist at a pharmaceutical company in Minnesota, Anders was sent into the Amazon by his boss, CEO Mr. Fox, to track down the combative, reclusive Dr. Annick Swenson in order to report back on the status of a fertility drug she's been developing for the company. Being a Minnesotan of Norwegian descent with a wife and three young boys, he is wholly unsuited to the task, and perishes of a mysterious fever. Upon learning of her colleague's death in the jungle, Dr. Marina Singh is bereft, and in no time at all she's been convinced by Mr. Fox, Anders' widow, and herself - each for their own reasons - to make her own journey to Brazil to try to learn what has happened to her friend and colleague. Mr. Fox still wants an update on the company's drug, Karen Eckman wants information about her husband, and Marina needs to assuage some kind of guilt and fulfill her obligations - both real and otherwise - to Mr. Fox and Karen.

Marina spends some time in Manaus attempting to get past Dr. Swenson's gatekeepers, a pair of Australian airheads called the Bovenders, before finally encountering Dr. Swenson when she surfaces at the opening night of the opera. They converse briefly about the status of the drug and Marina updates Mr. Fox with the non-information that Dr. Swenson disclosed and tells him she's getting ready to leave - meaning, leave and come home, to Minnesota. When Mr. Fox responds with silence, she realizes he always intended for her to go into the jungle to see for herself the status of the drug. While I can't account for other readers, it was very obvious from the moment that Marina boarded the plane in Minnesota that she'd end up in the jungle. I mean, if you're a writer and you can send your main character to the Amazonian jungle or St. Paul, Minnesota - you always choose the jungle, right?

At any rate. Marina ends up in the jungle, where things are strange, and she realizes that Dr. Swenson has been lying for a very long time (surprise!) to the pharmaceutical company that is bankrolling her research. Things become more interesting from there. To avoid spoilers I'll just say that there's more than one appearance of pregnant septuagenarian women, a fantastic blood-drenched scene with an anaconda, and some serious hallucinations and nightmares - courtesy of rare Amazonian blue magic mushrooms and anti-malaria medication, respectively.

There are many things I liked about this book, and a couple of things that I didn't. I especially liked Marina a lot, she is a strong, complex character. While she is not without flaws, she seems to be aware of most of them, and she grows tremendously over the course of the novel. I also liked the way she constructed the scenes of river travel, and the way that she described the experience of taking anti-malaria medication. Having taken anti-malaria medication, I can attest to its ability to produce vivid and terrifying dreams.

I did not like the way she marginalized the Lakashi people that Dr. Swenson lived among and studied for decades. None of them had names, none of them had character, they were just constantly in the background, like animals. I also hated Dr. Swenson - although I think I was supposed to hate her. A woman of singular focus, she ruined her own life in pursuit of her research, which feels profoundly sad given the outcome of that research. But my largest gripe by far is the way that the circumstances surrounding Anders' death are revealed at the very end to be different from the way Dr. Swenson originally described them - and NONE of the other doctors/scientists realized this before the end of the book. Dr. Swenson told the scientists that the Lakashi carried off Anders' body per their custom, which was a lie, and the scientists - who observe the Lakashi for a living and know when they menstruate and ovulate, and whether or not they are susceptible to malaria - don't know that's bullshit? In the whole time they've been living shoulder to shoulder with this tribe of people who live in the Amazonian jungle where death is literally lurking in every tree, they've NEVER - not once!- seen what they do with one of their dead? It's completely preposterous, and kind of ruined the end of the story for me. That, and the tussle between the sheets at the end between two characters I will not name in the interest of not spoiling anything. That bothered me too, and seemed just completely gratuitous and unnecessary and disrespectful.

But my gripes aside, I still thought this was a very good book. It is ambitious, and while it doesn't succeed 100% of the time, I give her credit for trying. I've never read anything by Ann Patchett before, and I will eagerly read more of her writing after this.

Favorite quote, "There was no one clear point of loss. It happened over and over again in a thousand small ways and the only truth there was to learn was that there was no getting used to it." ...more

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Mar 06, 2014 Melanie rated it liked it

I found this to be a low read, and very hard to get into. The story was interesting, but the only character I liked was a deaf mute, and we never know what Easter is thinking. Marina was a good enough character, but I never connected with her as a person. In the end I was happy enough to end her story and not know if she was going to go back to the Amazon, stay at Vogel, marry Mr. Fox... The book does raise some interesting questions we are facing in the medical field - how far should we push me ...more

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