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State of Wonder

by Ann Patchett

3.84 · Rating Details · 126,583 Ratings · 14,252 Reviews

Award-winning "New York Times"-bestselling author Ann Patchett (Bel Canto, The Magician's Assistant) returns with a provocative novel of morality and miracles, science and sacrifice set in the Amazon rainforest--a gripping adventure story and a profound look at the difficult choices we make in the name of discovery and love.

In a narrative replete with poison arrows, devour ...more

Hardcover, 353 pages

Published June 7th 2011 by HarperCollins Publishers (first published 2011)

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Jul 04, 2011 Tara rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: ebook

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This book never felt right. The characters were weak and hard to identify with, the plot seemed like something of a time past (yet wasn't), and the outcome of it all was ridiculous. The book would head in one direction for a while, then veer wildly in another. My pet peeve is when authors play fast and loose with characters and established world facts in order to advance plots. Lazy!

Let's go for a ride:
-American researcher dead in the jungle and his colleague goes to Brazil to find out more - R ...more

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Sep 04, 2012 Danielle McClellan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

I thought that Ann Patchett had made her great contribution to literature with "Bel Canto," which seemed to me to be the perfect novel, and stays high on the list of my very favorites. It is the book that I sold by hand as a bookseller and the book that I still pass along to friends. I should keep a stack of them since I have handed mine off so many times that I never know if I have a copy or not. A jewel box of structure, character, and language that left me overwhelmed with admiration.

Since r ...more

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Mar 18, 2015 Carol. rated it it was ok

Recommends it for: perhaps Patchett fans?

Shelves: lit-fiction, female-lead

Alas, I did not reach a state of wonder reading this. I would say I was in State(s) of: Interest, Appreciation, Mild Irritation, Interest Modified by Moments of Irritation, Shock, and then Milder Shock that dwindled into a State of General Annoyance, which would possibly make it the longest book title in history.

A super-summary: Although she trained as an OB/GYN doctor, Marina is ~~working in service of evil~~ a pharmaceutical drug researcher who has studied cholesterol for the past seven years with ...more

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Sep 17, 2014 Will Byrnes rated it really liked it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Mistah Kurtz, he dead, well, Mr. Eckman anyway. At Minnesota-based Vogel pharmaceuticals, weeks-old news of bio-researcher Anders Eckman’s Amazonian demise leads the company to send another scientist to find out what happened, and to complete Eckman’s charge. He had been sent to determine the status of research, on a long-overdue revolutionary fertility drug, being conducted by the reclusive, and somewhat scary Doctor Annick Swenson. (think Kurtz) Pharmacological researcher Marina Singh (think Mistah Kurtz, he dead, well, Mr. Eckman anyway. At Minnesota-based Vogel pharmaceuticals, weeks-old news of bio-researcher Anders Eckman’s Amazonian demise leads the company to send another scientist to find out what happened, and to complete Eckman’s charge. He had been sent to determine the status of research, on a long-overdue revolutionary fertility drug, being conducted by the reclusive, and somewhat scary Doctor Annick Swenson. (think Kurtz) Pharmacological researcher Marina Singh (think Marlow) is sent to the remote Brazilian research station to investigate. Along the way she has to overcome several obstacles, including a pair of gatekeepers in a Brazilian city, conflict about leaving her significant other, and a fear of facing her former teacher. In addition there are the physical challenges of travelling up-river into this remote and forbidding place, some incoming poison arrows, a plague of insects, a very large snake, and some persistent nightmares.

In a road-trip-journey-of-self-discovery story, it is first imperative that one identify with the searcher. While Marina is a somewhat sympathetic character, it is tough to feel wholly supportive of her, let alone empathetic. She has committed some errors in her life, like the rest of us, but she keeps making such dumb mistakes that she makes one think she might have been better off staying home. (Following is borderline spoiler material, so you might want to close your eyes for a line or two.) For instance, she leaves her satellite phone in stowed luggage rather than with her carry-on materials. Any guesses what happens? Yep. Not only does she lose her sat-phone (when the airline mislays her luggage) on arrival in Brazil, she then proceeds to lose all her new belongings once again when she arrives at her up-river destination. There is a much bigger error in judgment that happens near the end but I will spare you that one. Suffice it to say that it makes one shake one’s head and mutter “Schmuck!” I understand that the sequential loss of property is a mechanism for stripping the character down to her core, but if our identification with the searcher is undermined, what is left?

A fair bit actually. What I most enjoyed were the echoes of Joseph Conrad and other classical references to be found here. Conrad’s book had a lot to do with the relationship between the western and third worlds. Marina is herself the embodiment of such diversity, being the product of an Indian (as in South Asian, not Native American) father and a Caucasian American mother. The Congo that Conrad wrote of was a source of natural resources for European colonialists. In this contemporary version, it is the potential for pharmacological resources to be found in Amazonia that the West is looking to exploit. I cannot cite a page number but I am pretty sure there was purple smoke wafting about, which summoned for me an element of Coppola’s cinematic interpretation of Conrad. And Minnesota offers an image of coldness to contrast with the heat of the Brazilian jungle.

In the quest for self-discovery, a Campbell-ian hero ventures from his/her quotidian home, in this case Eden Prairie, where Vogel Pharmaceuticals is ironically located, to a place of supernatural power, slays a dragon, literally or figuratively, thus gaining power, and boogies on home, enlarged. Patchett has some fun with this, naming the company’s Brazilian guide Milton, for example. A young native character is Easter, which must have something to do with sacrifice and return, ya think?

[Marina] understood that in life a person was only allowed one trip down to hell

That she attends an opera of Orpheus and Eurydice reinforces this. What might be thought of as a tree of knowledge shows up as well. Considering the stripping of her externalities that came before, it seems pretty clear that someone is being reborn.

He walked her into the water up to their knees and then up to their waists. It was like a bath, silky and warm. The current was so slight it barely disturbed her clothes. She wanted to lie down in it. Milton dipped his own handkerchief into the water and spread it wet over the top of her head. “It’s better, isn’t it,” he said, though it wasn’t a question.

A harpy eagle, reminiscent of the harpies of mythology, puts in an appearance, toting a soul to Hades, no doubt. In fact, birds show up a fair bit.

The pharmaceutical company in question is called Vogel, German for bird. A large white bird, a jaribu stork, flaps through. In Egyptian mythology, this bird is associated with the soul of the dead communicating with the living. Feathered friends pop up a few more times, but I did not catch any obvious (or easily researchable) references from them. Marina is seen in avian plumage as well:

she was unsteady in her shoes, which, along with the ridiculous dress, made her the human equivalent of a bird with a broken wing to any predator who might be out trawling the streets late at night.

The color purple, the color, not the story, turns up several times. This is usually associated with either royalty or spirituality. I am going with the latter here. OK, OK. I know I tend to go overboard with such things, and it is always possible, likely even, that the author did not intend all these references. But just in case.

Finally hope as a theme comes into play. The core of the jungle research is a fertility drug. What could symbolize hope more than that? The dead researcher’s wife charges Marina with the task of finding out just what happened to her late husband. She harbors faint hope that he might still be alive. Swenson’s dedication to her work, and to keeping the corporate suits at bay, is based on hope for a great scientific breakthrough. Marina gains some hope of redemption. On the other hand:

Hope is a horrible thing, you know. I don’t know who decided to package hope as a virtue because it’s not. It’s a plague. Hope is like walking around with a fishhook in your mouth and somebody keeps pulling and pulling it.

But then:

Had they not been so hopeful [Marina’s parents] and guileless her birth would have been impossible.

Maybe things in Patchett’s tale are not quite so dark as in Coppola’s bleak vision, or as in Conrad’s. Some light does seep through. State of Wonder can feel slow—maybe like a journey up-river?—but while the story takes a long time to get where it is going, it is an enjoyable read, particularly if you like playing literary treasure hunt, as I do. There is content to be had, questions raised, moral dilemmas to be resolved, and some bio-tech issues to consider. This is a thoughtful and interesting read.
...more

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Feb 19, 2012 Clare Cannon rated it it was ok

Shelves: adults

A scientific jungle experiment/investigation involving an elderly and rather secretive matriarchal doctor who leads the experiment, a missing/deceased company representative who was sent to investigate what the experiment is up to, and a female company representative (who happens to also be a former medical student of the matriarch) who is sent to investigate what happened to the previous company representative.

In spite of lengthy descriptions of the experiment and professorial soliloquising by the matriarch, the science and ethics of the experiment is secondary to the drama of the story, and perhaps because I didn't really care for any of the characters I cared even less about their dramas. The general plot kept the story going in an unobjectionable direction: the experiment was a little bizarre (extending the fertility of women beyond the normal time of menopause) but the direction the matriarch headed with it was fairly balanced, and she combined it with experiments that were more urgently needed for the health of the poor.

Yet many of the characters had confused little escapades along the way, the main character is in a non-public physical relationship with her 20-years senior boss, and (view spoiler). The two specific scenes were described, but more 'poetically' than graphically.

Personally I don't think it's worth the read, but if melodramatic and rather bizarre scientific experiments set in the middle of the jungle and told in the style of a higher-level tv drama sound enticing, then the quality of the writing may make this slightly higher-level than others of its type. www.GoodReadingGuide.com ...more

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Jun 03, 2016 Arah-Lynda rated it it was amazing

Shelves: top, 2011, i-said

This marks the third time that I have dipped into the writing pool of Ann Patchett and let me tell you, she does not disappoint!
Dr. Marina Singh embarks on a trip to Brazil in an effort to determine two things: What happened to her colleague, who had died there scant weeks ago and what kind of progress was being made by her former mentor in the development of a new fertility drug that was being funded by her pharmaceutical company. Both of these tasks prove to be most complex and difficult to a ...more

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Aug 03, 2011 Maggie rated it really liked it

This novel was just what I've been looking for this summer: a dazzling story, a meaty pile of ethical questions, characters that endure long after the book is over, and prose that gets more beautiful the more you notice it. I didn't love the novel's end; it was a bit too rushed for me, and the sudden pile-on of action left me wanting more of the slow build-up that carried us to the climax. It occurs to me, though, that wanting more of a book is as good a sign as any that it won me over ...more

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Jul 24, 2011 Paddy rated it it was ok

After all the rave reviews, my expectations were high. But this is no Bel Canto. The infuriatingly hapless heroine does not look ahead to scout out minor(everyone knows to pack some necessities in carry-on luggage, including cell phone)or major consequences of her actions and is locked in past failures and losses (one grows tired of her lost father nightmares and all her screaming). One could also hope for subtler symbolism and metaphors, less stilted dialogue, more skillful writing. For ...more

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Oct 14, 2011 Kerry rated it did not like it

Shelves: fiction

I really wanted to like this book. After all, there are all the raving reviews, and it's the kind of story that usually grabs and holds my interest (jungle adventure + medical drama), but I couldn't finish it. In fact, I gave up after the 4th disc (the audio book has 11 discs). The story plods on like the stifling heat of the jungle, so slow, that it was all padding and no plot for almost half of the book! The author wrote painstaking all the tedious details of Marina's past (she has father ...more

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Apr 03, 2013 Florence (Lefty) MacIntosh rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: Cultural: S American - Amazon

Recommended to Florence (Lefty) by: Arah-Lynda Hay

Shelves: dark, cultural, favs-recent, suspense, 2013, lit-usa, reviewed

I won’t give too much detail; you need to read this spoiler free. It’s deliciously gloomy and atmospheric, a dark adventure with Hitchcock style suspense. You’d expect a fearless heroine in a novel like this; instead you get Dr. Marina Singh, a neurotic woman with a really bad case of low self-esteem quite content with her life as a pharmacologist. That is till her boss & lover Mr. Fox (exactly the kind of ass insecure women go for) bullies her into taking on the quest of finding a missing ...more

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Jul 11, 2013 Uomo di Speranza rated it it was amazing

Shelves: cooler-than-sliced-bread

WARNING: SPOILERS PRESENT!
When everyone was in about second grade, their teacher taught them about how each butterfly was once an entirely alternative being called a caterpillar. She also must have thrown in the term "cocoon" while you were thinking about how mean the cockney in front of you was for stealing your colorful eraser. Nevertheless, most everyone conceived the concept that there were two inseparable stages to a butterfly's life, two states completely indistinguishable from one another WARNING: SPOILERS PRESENT!
When everyone was in about second grade, their teacher taught them about how each butterfly was once an entirely alternative being called a caterpillar. She also must have thrown in the term "cocoon" while you were thinking about how mean the cockney in front of you was for stealing your colorful eraser. Nevertheless, most everyone conceived the concept that there were two inseparable stages to a butterfly's life, two states completely indistinguishable from one another. Being the conceited little priss that I was, my brain never thought this knowledge would be applicable to life in the future. And I was only to be proved wrong years later by a book my very eyes devoured.

State of Wonder by Anne Patchett describes the experiences of pharmacologist Marina Singh when getting to and living in the Amazon rain forest. After a colleague of Marina's named Anders Eckman dies there, Marina is sent by her boss and lover, Jim Fox, to both discover the exact cause of Eckman's death and oversee the progress of brilliant Dr. Annick Swenson, who is studying the indigenous Lakashi people so that a drug permitting lifelong fertility in females can be forged. Singh's determination to discover how her colleague perished is intensified by a heart-wrenching plea from Karen Eckman, Anders' widow who is left with three mourning boys while she is still miserable herself, for information about the death. One found phenomenon unexpectedly turns out to be an alternative Dr. Marina Singh-the scant resources and dire situations that the Amazon present cause our main character to perform previously unthinkable actions. When an anaconda threatens to strangle her ever-lovable companion, a deaf boy named Easter, Marina suddenly finds enough courage to murder the great snake with a machete. Marina was once Dr. Swenson's gynecology student, but switched her major to pharmacology after performing a hasty cesarean (something I am so glad we didn't have to complete a lab about in biology) that blinded the baby she was delivering. When a Lakashi woman is in desperate need of a cesarean because her infant is (for lack of a better word) stuck, Marina finds herself forced by an incapable Dr. Swenson to actually conduct the necessitated procedure on a wooden floor with unsterilized equipment and shoehorns to hold open the uterus. When Dr. Fox actually comes into the Amazon to check on her, Marina doesn't tell him the imperative secret every doctor there is incubating: that Fox's investment is being used for, along with that fertility drug, the development of a malaria vaccine from which he will not fiscally benefit. Then it is discovered that Anders is really alive, which leads to Marina having sex with her former colleague on small cot.

The Marina Singh who boarded that plane bound for the Amazon would never have executed any of the aforementioned actions. She loved Dr. Fox and therefore would never have desired to hurt his well-being. Karen Eckman was a morbid woman who reached out to Dr. Singh in a time of need, not a person whose spouse she would desire as a sexual partner. The bleak lab at Vogel Pharmaceutical company was her home, a place where discomforts meant tedious faculty meetings, not watching an anaconda strangle the life out of her friend. She had palpably turned into a butterfly somewhere along the way...

All humans experience dramatic change-in-state's throughout their lives. It is imperative that after these changes transpire, we do not completely revert back to our previous state. What comes to the forefront of my mind when I think of this concept is the drastic change from childhood to adulthood-would I witness Barney singing on my television every twenty-four hours nowadays? Would I hold on to my parent's hand every time I cross the street now that I am a teenager? The reason behind this prohibition is that our previous states cannot support us as we attempt to fulfill our current potential for success. As arrogant a priss I was, there is no way I would be writing this post at the present time if I was yet to learn long division.

Dr. Singh eventually returns to her Minnesota hometown with Anders and fondly watches her colleague's reunion with his family. It is then that Ms. Patchett composes an immensely vague sentence to culminate her narrative: "And Marina brought him back, and without a thought that anyone should see her, she told the driver to go on.(page 353)" I interpret this to mean that Marina brings the spirit of Anders and therefore the Amazon (the two are intertwined since she knows how that Amazonian endeavor started and ended because of him) back to her and uses them in forging her decision to once more be at the side of Dr. Swenson, who both predicted Marina's return and desired that Singh stay to work on the project with her. It is in the Amazon, not in Minnesota, that the new Marina can fulfill her potential to help develop the fertility drug and malaria vaccine. I cannot study records of a 1920s newspaper for my novel tomorrow if I spend all of the day at a day-care. Uomo di Speranza has switched from being raised by others to raising himself.

So, my dear friends, insure that you do not crawl on the ground once you have turned from caterpillar to butterfly. You cannot be squashed by an unsuspecting foot if you are flying. ...more

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Mar 02, 2012 Bucket rated it it was ok

Shelves: reviewed, literary, diversity, nature-the-outdoors, science, life-and-death, women

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. First, if you haven't read the book and intend to, don't read this review. I spoil just about everything, including the ending, below.

This just didn't work for me. So much bothers me about the way State of Wonder is written and the way the story plays out that I'm overwhelmed by where to begin.

I guess the first thing that bothered me was Dr. Swenson - she's a caricature. Her actions and words are absurd and the way the other characters respond to her is worse. It's not just that I didn't like First, if you haven't read the book and intend to, don't read this review. I spoil just about everything, including the ending, below.

This just didn't work for me. So much bothers me about the way State of Wonder is written and the way the story plays out that I'm overwhelmed by where to begin.

I guess the first thing that bothered me was Dr. Swenson - she's a caricature. Her actions and words are absurd and the way the other characters respond to her is worse. It's not just that I didn't like her - she also made no sense. How would someone like her have ever gained such power over those around her? Why in the world does Mr. Fox wait years and not cut off funding? Even if he wants the drug, she could be laying on the beach down there and he has no idea. It's nonsense.

While Marina was a decently well-rounded character, there was a weird issue towards the beginning of the novel where her big secret is being divulged to the reader. Marina isn't stating it aloud - the reader is basically inside her head - yet there are continual interruptions where she has a conversation or notes something she sees or hears. Of course, this is meant to drag out the suspense, but stylistically it's bizarre. Are we meant to believe that Marina is literally thinking out the words we're reading and keeps getting interrupted? She's not writing or speaking. She's not even narrating, really - who writes that way??

As the book moves forward the sheer volume of convenient plot twists and coincidences made me want to scream. Everything feels forced into moving the plot along. For example: no one would ever put their phone in their suitcase instead of their carry-on and why didn't the other tribe kill Anders if that's basically what they do?

While I was happy to accept the fiction of the story (that there are trees that will let you be fertile into your 70s and beyond) I couldn't accept the coincidences and the tendency of characters to behave completely out of character to further the plot.

The worst part was absolutely the end. Anders and Marina have sex? For real? Our author justifies this by saying that they needed to be intimate after what had happened, and they would have been intimate with their respective partners had those people been available, but they weren't so they just had each other. Really? That is insane. Honestly, the idea that someone has to have sex with someone, doesn't matter who, because a rough experience has ended is offensive. The worst is over - I must have sex! Ridiculous.

There is one thing that is quite good about this book - the writing about the jungle. The description is excellent and made me feel like I was there among the endless green of the trees and the roots and the vines and the creepy crawlies. This, coupled with the decent characterization of Marina, is why I'll give Ann Patchett another try.

Themes: science, research ethics, culture, medicine, fertility, women, relationships, biological clock, Amazon, communication, biology, suspense ...more

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Sep 01, 2015 Margitte rated it liked it

From the official blurb:
"Award-winning "New York Times"-bestselling author Ann Patchett (Bel Canto, The Magician's Assistant) returns with a provocative novel of morality and miracles, science and sacrifice set in the Amazon rainforest--a gripping adventure story and a profound look at the difficult choices we make in the name of discovery and love.

In a narrative replete with poison arrows, devouring snakes, scientific miracles, and spiritual transformations, State of Wonder presents a world of ...more

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Jun 25, 2011 JoAnne Pulcino rated it really liked it

Shelves: adult-fiction, book-club-selection

STATE OF WONDER
Anne Patchett
This marvelous atmospheric and multi layered novel takes place in the Amazon jungle where an emissary from a pharmaceutical company dies under mysterious circumstances at a research facility.
Dr. Marina Singh is sent to find the remains and effects, but must first locate the famous and reclusive gynecologist, Dr. Swenson who is in charge of the research. Dr. Swenson is researching the women of a local tribe who can conceive well past middle age, and other secret remedi ...more

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Jun 14, 2011 Jenn rated it it was ok

Shelves: fiction, novel, e-book, read-2011, bought-2011

This book has made me despair for the American publishing industry in a way I hadn't, yet. Why despair? Because it is only the constant pressure to produce, to publish, that would make a company like HarperCollins and a writer with the ability of Ann Patchett push forward this work, which is at best uneven and at worst something that I would expect to emerge from a blinded-by-friendship writer's group. Does that seem harsh? If it is, it's because I expect -- perhaps unfairly -- more of Patchett This book has made me despair for the American publishing industry in a way I hadn't, yet. Why despair? Because it is only the constant pressure to produce, to publish, that would make a company like HarperCollins and a writer with the ability of Ann Patchett push forward this work, which is at best uneven and at worst something that I would expect to emerge from a blinded-by-friendship writer's group. Does that seem harsh? If it is, it's because I expect -- perhaps unfairly -- more of Patchett than this book has offered.

In State of Wonder, the main character, Marina Singh, is a Minnesotan doctor whose office/lab-mate, Anders Eckman, has died in the Amazonian jungle of Brazil while on assignment for the pharmaceutical company for which they both work. Marina's boss/lover, Mr. Fox, and Eckman's widow, Karen, pressure her to go looking for his remains and the full story of his death. Mr. Fox also wants Marina to finish Eckman's assignment: track down the rogue researcher that the company is funding in the jungle, find out how her fertility project/miracle pill is progressing, and report back.

The loveliest scenes in the book happen in Minnesota, where Marina must break the horrible news to Mrs. Eckman and come to her own sad peace with his death. These scenes also offer us some flashbacks about the character that provide further reason for her reluctance to go to the jungle: she knows the rogue physician who's out there, Dr. Annick Swenson, as she was once Swenson's student. A negative experience under Swenson's supervision led to Marina's abrupt shift into pharmacology, away from obstetrics/gynecology, and she's not thrilled to have to face the abandoned mentor again. But go she does, because, as the author is careful to tell us (though not show us), she is a sensible woman who follows and often exceeds directions and orders.

It is in Brazil that both the book and its main character lose their ways. There was never much hope for Marina. She is forced to live out the title for the length of the book, constantly in a "state of wonder" that makes her the main engine for silly questions. Though we are meant to believe that she is an intelligent woman of some poise, she is constantly flummoxed, bewildered, exhausted, angry, unreasonable, or just plain weird. It is absolutely realistic to believe that a woman accustomed to Minnesotan living would be out of her depth, immediately, in the Brazilian jungle, but it is tiring to see that she hardly learns from any experience she has. Her extraordinarily commanding and, initially, unsympathetic mentor/hero/objective, Dr. Swenson, is built to point out exactly how unreasonable Marina is acting at every turn -- and while she's often so vocally odious that a reader does not want to side with her, she's also, as the book tells us again and again, right.

Ann Patchett's other books have done well at placing "normal" characters into extraordinary circumstances and then showing the internal and external effects. The Patron Saint of Liars was a book that made me believe in the utility of the happy ending again. The Magician's Assistant played beautifully within a created (but well-researched) world of sleight-of-hand, love, and difficulty; the award-winning Bel Canto was bolder in its imagination, and bolder in its reward. That book's ending was almost criminally neat, in some ways, but it was also proof that Patchett knew she would often have to kill her darling characters to create a sense of consequence similar to reality.

In this book, as in her last, Patchett's ability to imagine a difficult situation is still firmly in place, firmly wonderful, but her reliance on created coincidence makes the books much more difficult to believe. In Run, a woman just happens to be hit by a car; a boy just happens to see it occur; a family just happens to recognize the significance. In this book, the coincidences are too great to list, but by the time a boat just happens to take a wrong turn down precisely the right river and see the right face at the right time, there's nothing left that's impossible in this world. It is revealed to be completely one of imagination, completely unreal, and though the author lands a few heavy blows at the end to show that it's not a world without consequences, it's all too over-created for a reader to completely believe or care that anyone here could be hurt. We are meant to read this book in a constant state of wonder, perhaps, but to do so requires a suspension of disbelief that I cannot lend Patchett by the end. ...more

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Maria Elena I love your review because it completely encompasses each and everything I would want to write about it but can't. Marina was likable enough, ...more
Jun 18, 2011 10:29AM

Jenn Maria wrote: "by the end of the book I have lost respect and admiration for all of them

Yep, exactly. It's hard to keep reading at that point, I think.
Jun 24, 2011 01:10PM

Rebecca I also did not like this book. Marina just wasn't likable for me. She seemed so clueless and naive for a medical researcher. And all the flashbacks ...more
Jul 17, 2011 06:20PM

Feb 01, 2012 Madeline rated it really liked it

Full disclosure: I fucking hated Heart of Darkness, so when I read that this was sort of a female version of the story, I was wary. But State of Wonder is, fortunately, nothing like Heart of Darkness. For one thing, it's coherent (bazinga!) and although there are thematic similarities, the story stands on its own merits. Conrad can suck it.

The story follows Marina Singh, a researcher at Vogel Pharmaceutical. For years, Vogel has been funding a research project in the Amazon, led by Singh's form Full disclosure: I fucking hated Heart of Darkness, so when I read that this was sort of a female version of the story, I was wary. But State of Wonder is, fortunately, nothing like Heart of Darkness. For one thing, it's coherent (bazinga!) and although there are thematic similarities, the story stands on its own merits. Conrad can suck it.

The story follows Marina Singh, a researcher at Vogel Pharmaceutical. For years, Vogel has been funding a research project in the Amazon, led by Singh's former med school teacher, the formidable Dr. Swenson. Swenson is researching an isolated tribe, the Lakashi, who have freakishly high fertility rates, in order to create a new fertility drug. The only problem is that Swenson is extremely secretive, to the point where she barely communicates with Vogel and won't reveal the location of her research station in the jungle. When a research who worked with Singh dies while visiting Swenson, Singh is dispatched to the Amazon to find Swenson and the research station, and find out what happened to the man who died.

It takes a good chunk of the book just to find the damn researchers, but once Singh does this it only gets more exciting. In fact, every time the story was in danger of dragging, a new twist or piece of information was revealed, and I was hooked again. All the characters are good (although Marina Singh was, admittedly, my least favorite. shut up about your malaria nightmares already), especially Dr. Swenson. If she doesn't remind you of at least one teacher from your past who intimidated the everloving crap out of you, then I envy your innocence.

Patchett's descriptions of the Amazon are glorious and evocative, and since I've never been to the Amazon her portrayal could be total bullshit for all I know, but it's exceptionally convincing either way:

"At dusk the insects came down in a storm, the hard-shelled and soft-sided, the biting and the stinging, the chirping and the buzzing and droning, every last one unfolded its paper wings and flew with unimaginable velocity into the eyes and mouths and noses of the only three humans they could find. ...When it was fully dark only the misguided insects pelted themselves into the people on board while the rest chose to end their lives against the two bright, hot lights on either side of the boat. The night was filled with the relentless ping of their bodies hitting the glass."

Also there's a scene where two characters catch and kill a fifteen-foot-anaconda, and I can't quote the whole passage because it's like two whole pages, but rest assured that it is awesome and will haunt my snake-fearing dreams for months.

There are issues with the story, of course. Your belief must be firmly and securely suspended to enjoy this book as much as it should be enjoyed. It's true: if a researcher refused to give any contact information or progress updates to the large pharmaceutical company sponsoring her research, her funding would be cut off like that; if a researcher died on said secret location, said pharmaceutical company would launch a full investigation rather than sending one lone researcher to find the lab location and get the details (y'know, because it worked so well the first time); if an isolated tribe had women who could give birth into their seventies the tribe would grow into the millions pretty damn fast and they wouldn't be isolated for long; also, mushrooms are not magic.

But this issues were surprisingly easy to ignore - to the point where I wasn't even aware of them until I read other reviews pointing them out. In fact, considering my experience with Ann Patchett's novels (the other one I've read, Bel Canto has similar leaps in plausibility and realism), I think her books can be enjoyed much more if you think of them as taking place, not in the real world, but in an alternate universe that is similar to ours, but just different enough to allow the stories she tells to happen. Does that make sense? I don't think this story could have taken place in the real world, but I don't think it was supposed to. Heart of Darkness was written as a fever dream by man who had seen way too much evil to be able to properly process it (or was that Apocalypse Now? I don't care), and State of Wonder takes place in a similarly dream-like universe that operates by its own rules, and I loved visiting it. ...more

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Jul 06, 2011 Julie - Book Hooked Blog rated it it was amazing

Shelves: literary-fiction

My all-encompassing love for Ann Patchett is not a secret. She is my absolute favorite living author and I own every single one of her books. (Side note: remember that time she came to Chattanooga and I couldn't afford to go to the signing - still bitter about that). I've been anxiously waiting on the release State of Wonder for a while now, so when TLC gave me the opportunity to review, you know I was all over it. The day it came in the mail I called Luke at work because I was so excited. And My all-encompassing love for Ann Patchett is not a secret. She is my absolute favorite living author and I own every single one of her books. (Side note: remember that time she came to Chattanooga and I couldn't afford to go to the signing - still bitter about that). I've been anxiously waiting on the release State of Wonder for a while now, so when TLC gave me the opportunity to review, you know I was all over it. The day it came in the mail I called Luke at work because I was so excited. And when I started it last week he told me he couldn't believe I had waited three whole weeks to read it. But I wanted to draw out the anticipation as long as I could - and it was SO worth it. The complexity of the plot, the themes, and the characters is way to difficult to describe in detail without giving things away, so I'll just summarize by saying: the Amazon, a miracle fertility drug, anacondas, cannibals, and the mystery surrounding a man's death. Read the full publisher's description here for more details. The book is fascinating and engrossing and below I will tell you all of the reasons why you ought to go find a copy of this book and start reading now.

Writing
This novel is no Bel Canto. And by that I don't mean that it isn't as good as Bel Canto - I mean it is so completely different from that novel and everything else that the author has written that the two defy comparison. It's one of Patchett's strengths, I think, that she can craft a beautiful story that is so completely different from everything else she's written. Another thing that I loved about this book in particular, and most of her other books, is that it's not about anything. I mean, it has a plot, and it's obviously got a compelling story, but it's not an issue book. It's not a book about being a woman, or a book about falling in love, or a book about a timely topic. Even though a good portion of the story centers around the development of this miracle fertility drug, the book isn't making a statement about fertility treatments or addressing the current state of pharmaceuticla companies - she's just telling a beautiful, unique story. And, yes, questions of morality and ethics are raised, but not in the way they are in so many "issues' books.

Patchett also does an excellent job, as always, with setting. Like Bel Canto the book is set in South America, but that is where the similarities end. The descriptions of the insects, the heat, the trees, the suffocating atmosphere are integral to the story and are conveyed beautifully. I would go as far as to say that the jungle itself is a character in the book and the way Patchett weaves it into every part of the story is engrossing.

I have absolutely zero complaints about the writing. Beautiful, moving, engrossing, perfect.

Entertainment Value
Again, not a single complaint. I have to admit that I am not typically one to grab up literary fiction. I think most of the time literary fiction sounds like it's trying to be literary and winds up being boring. It's fashionable to write books about people who are bored with life, which can make for very boring reading. This is an exception to the rule. Not only is the writing amazing, but the book as a whole is engrossing. From the first page I was committed to finding out what would happen to the characters.

The characters themselves are believable and largely sympathetic. I love when authors are able to make unlikable characters sympathetic. It's so much closer to real life. People do bad things and make bad decisions, but they also have redeeming characteristics. In reality people are rarely completely wicked or completely noble and pure, and Patchett's characters follow reality.

Honestly, I just can't recommend this one highly enough. It hasn't taken the place of Bel Canto as my favorite Patchett book, but it has come in as a very very close second. And really it's hard to compare the two at all because they are such very different books. I rarely recommend a book to every reader. I usually give some stipulation ("You'll love this if you're a fan of YA" or "this one is for people who are interested in romance"), but I truly think anyone and everyone can and should read this one. Seriously. If you can read what I'm typing right now, there is no reason I can think of that you wouldn't love State of Wonder.

Major, major thanks to Trish at TLC for letting me in on this tour! For all of the tour information and to see other readers' opinions, check out the tour page here. ...more

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Oct 02, 2012 Sarah rated it liked it

I read this at my mother's request and recommendation. She rarely recommends books and even more rarely asks me to let her know when I've finished so we can discuss it. And also, it talks place in the Amazonian rain forest, a place where I had recently spent some time. As you can probably tell, I'm delaying the start of this review. The book was okay. And I guess for me it falls into those categories of books I sometimes describe as "writers workshop-y" where the author's hand of god is felt ...more

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Feb 13, 2014 ☮Karen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Most definitely my favorite Patchett book. Such an adventure, interesting and complex characters; and throughout the jungle scenes I found myself thinking of Barbara Kingsolver and the many wonders she has created for us on the pages of her books. I had imagined so many horrible endings from other reviews I read, but nothing like what played out here. The "rushed" conclusion seemed fitting to me, to match the emotions and actions that developed. I know that down the road this story will come ...more

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Oct 20, 2014 Debbie "DJ" rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, animals, adventure, cultural

I really liked this story a lot, but at times found myself getting bored. What? Bored? I think this had to do with Patchett's language being so straight forward at times, when what was happening was so fantastical, magical, and extraordinary. It might also be unfair, as I have been reading some very provocative writing styles.

This is a story of a secret lab in the Amazon who's researchers have discovered a tribe who have amazing abilities. I won't spoil what these are, only to say they are extr ...more

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Sep 05, 2011 Reddwhine rated it did not like it

I don't understand the 4 and 5 star ratings for this book. Maybe Patchett and I just don't speak the same English. I disliked Bel Canto intensely but the description of State of Wonder made it seem really appealing and so I decided that maybe Bel Canto was a fluke. Wrong! I forced myself to finish this book only because the premise was really interesting and I kept hoping that as I got further into the book it would do something...anything. Marina was so flat, her relationship with Mr. Fox so un ...more

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May 22, 2012 Katie rated it it was ok

Shelves: book-club-book

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Aug 02, 2011 Debra rated it really liked it

Shelves: mystery-thriller

This was my first Patchett book and I wasn't disappointed. I've read the thoughtfully-written positive and negative reviews, and can see the points some people have made about the main character's (Marina) unbelievable naivety, stupid choices, and deep feelings about a seemingly shallow relationship with her boss. Thoughts of marriage to him, come on! One reviewer said she should have run off with Milton and I absolutely agree. I wanted to shake her silly sometimes. And, yes, the science doesn't ...more

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Oct 29, 2012 Dana Stabenow rated it it was ok

I should have known there would be opera. After Bel Canto, I should have known. I'm sorry, but Patchett, Pretty Woman and Moonstruck notwithstanding, I just can't get behind the idea of opera as a redemptive force.

A modern retelling of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, that feels more like Apocalypse Now. Beautifully written. Some good situational humor ("The shaman would no doubt have direct billing with Vogel."). Plot wandery and repetitive, and, I suppose most damning for me, I didn't give a hoot a ...more

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Dec 17, 2012 Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship rated it liked it

Shelves: 3-stars, brazil, latin-america, contemporary

I had a good time with this book, and would like to give it 4 stars for enjoyment, but some significant flaws detract from my ability to recommend it to others.

State of Wonder is about a scientist, Dr. Marina Singh, working for a pharmaceutical company that is attempting to develop a new fertility drug in the Amazon. The company sends Marina to the research site to report on the progress of the drug, the brainchild of Marina’s former teacher, Dr. Swenson. But Marina, naturally, finds much more t I had a good time with this book, and would like to give it 4 stars for enjoyment, but some significant flaws detract from my ability to recommend it to others.

State of Wonder is about a scientist, Dr. Marina Singh, working for a pharmaceutical company that is attempting to develop a new fertility drug in the Amazon. The company sends Marina to the research site to report on the progress of the drug, the brainchild of Marina’s former teacher, Dr. Swenson. But Marina, naturally, finds much more than she bargained for.

The story never failed to engage me; while not hard to put down, I was always happy to pick it back up and read more of Marina’s adventures in the Amazon. Patchett’s fluid, accessible prose is easy to fall into, and she does a good job creating a vivid setting. The relationship between Marina and the formidable Dr. Swenson is especially interesting and true to life, and Dr. Swenson is a great character who steals every scene she’s in; I can’t recall ever encountering a character like her in fiction before, although she reminds me of one or two people I’ve met.

But there are some problems. The book’s structure is lopsided; the first 200+ pages out of 350 are introductory, while the conclusion is rushed. Meanwhile, Marina herself is a dull character, as if Patchett went too far in making her a foil for Dr. Swenson; she’s passive, fearful, and so lacking in common sense that she manages to lose all her luggage, twice! There are some point-of-view oddities; while 99.9% of the book is told from Marina’s POV, the occasional jarring sentence seems to come from someone else's head: “Dr. Budi smiled shyly, having made so few successful jokes in her life.” Marina could not possibly be responsible for this comment, having only just met Dr. Budi.

The story is also full of improbabilities, beginning with the pharmaceutical company’s allowing someone on its payroll to operate for years in an unknown location and without giving progress reports, and including some important plot points. (view spoiler)

And as for the ethical issues it supposedly examines.... they are not so much explored as mentioned in passing. Dr. Swenson will explain why she doesn’t think the doctors should treat the local people.... and that’s it; there’s certainly room for readers to discuss the issues, but the book doesn’t follow up with new twists on the question or explore the consequences of the scientists’ choices. This is particularly unfortunate with regard to the local tribe they’re studying. Patchett likely wanted to say something about their treatment (and it’s surely deliberate that the only local character to play any significant role is deaf and literally voiceless), but wound up creating a childlike group of natives, who never get to speak for themselves and apparently have nothing better to do than cheerfully mob the foreign doctors upon all their arrivals and departures. Yikes.

Despite the problematic elements, though, I genuinely enjoyed this book. It’s not quite as good as Bel Canto, but for me it was worth the read. ...more

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Feb 20, 2012 Sue rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, favorites, brazil, around-the-world-in-52, read-in-2012

Patchett brings the Amazon to life in this novel. It's a smothering, overwhelmingly hot, green, creature-filled jungle approachable by waters infested with beings that can kill humans in myriad ways. Yet it's also home to tribes of natives who live with and from the jungle. There are fantastic birds and scary insects and snakes. And there may be a cure for infertility. That is the beginning of the story and the basis on which the protagonist, Dr. Marina Singh, travels to Brazil to track what ...more

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Nov 25, 2011 Nancy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction

I've read two previous Ann Patchett novels (Bel Canto and Run) and was disappointed by both. I wondered if I was being sucked in one more time by erroneous good reviews. No. I raced through this book, finishing it on Thanksgiving even though I had house-guests.

State of Wonder weaves together a number of threads that build a good novel where nearly everyone can find a personal "hook"-- personality conflicts, infidelity, secrets, wilderness exploration, science, medicine, parenting. One is the end ...more

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Aug 13, 2014 Megan Baxter rated it it was ok

This book gets a solid "meh." I didn't connect with it, never felt that it had anything deeper or meaningful to say about about life, about medicine, about family or children, and then, near the end, one thing made me enraged. I don't know what Ann Patchett was trying to achieve with this book, but I didn't get it. There was the surface layer, and then...?

Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decis ...more

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Jul 08, 2011 Ed rated it liked it

Shelves: read-on-kindle, 3-and-a-half-stars, 2011, tournament-of-books-2012, amazon-best-book-of-the-month

I am not sure what's going on between me and Ann Patchett. This is the third time around the block with her. I remember good things about The Magician's Assistant many moons ago, but seemed to be in the minority when it came to Bel Canto. While I thought it was quite good, I struggled with what I just didn't "get" that apparently a whole lot of others did. Such is the case with her latest, State of Wonder, which seems to have critics and a lot of readers swooning. Again, I found it to be quite g I am not sure what's going on between me and Ann Patchett. This is the third time around the block with her. I remember good things about The Magician's Assistant many moons ago, but seemed to be in the minority when it came to Bel Canto. While I thought it was quite good, I struggled with what I just didn't "get" that apparently a whole lot of others did. Such is the case with her latest, State of Wonder, which seems to have critics and a lot of readers swooning. Again, I found it to be quite good -- maybe competent is even a better word -- but it just didn't all gel for me.

I think it's a case where the parts are greater than the whole. Barring a terrific early scene where she has to break the bad news to a co-worker's wife, it took me awhile to get on board with Patchett's protagonist, Dr. Marina Singh. She has the gravitas of supporting player, but thrust front and central here to varying degrees of success. I think it's just that Patchett creates such a literary rock-star with the mysterious Dr. Annick Swenson, that she overshadows the other characters even before her first appearance in the book (tho there is the quite pleasant surprise of young Easter, the emotional heart of the book). But the true star of the book, perhaps even eclipsing Dr. Swenson, is the Amazon. I found the book to be a bit of a slog at times -- and I mean that in a complimentary way -- as Patchett really makes you feel the soupiness of the air, the thickness and oppressiveness of the jungle and all of its inhabitants always bearing down.

There is a lot of fascinating and highly original stuff going on here along with plenty of twists that I would be skeptical to believe if anyone said they saw them coming. But again, I found them to be varying in their success. I love a good surprise, but some stretched beyond my realm of believability (and I'm not even talking about the craziest one, which I was quite willing to play along with). The ending I found to be a bit rushed and an odd mix of "neat bow" tying and a lot of loose strings.

My rating is 3.5 stars. I feel as if I should round it up to 4 stars, as even with my perceived flaws with it, there seems to be so much to "talk" about. And again, my general feeling is that it was quite good and competent, but ultimately I was a bit disappointed ... yet another victim of hype and high expectation, that can hardly be blamed on the author or the book, but inescapable in rendering my final verdict of the round-down to 3 stars. ...more

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Jan 20, 2016 Ana Ovejero rated it really liked it

This story is truly an incredible adventure, peopled by intriguing characters and puzzling settings; a genuine page-turner.

Dr Marina Singh works for a pharmaceutical company. Her partner in the laboratory, Dr Anders Eckman travels to the Amazon jungle to check on Dr Annick Swenson, who has been doing a research for a new drug, very pricy for the company, and hasn't given reports about it. After weeks of no correspondence, a letter from Dr Swenson arrives saying Eckman is dead. What? When? How?

Th ...more

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About Ann Patchett

Patchett was born in Los Angeles, California. Her mother is the novelist Jeanne Ray.

She moved to Nashville, Tennessee when she was six, where she continues to live. Patchett said she loves her home in Nashville with her doctor husband and dog. If asked if she could go any place, that place would always be home. "Home is ...the stable window that opens out into the imagination."

Patchett attended hi ...more

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“Never be so focused on what you're looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find.” — 1663 likes

“Hope is a horrible thing, you know. I don't know who decided to package hope as a virtue because it's not. It's a plague. Hope is like walking around with a fishhook in your mouth and somebody just keeps pulling it and pulling it.” — 116 likes

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