State Of Wonder

Anne Patchett

Bloomsbury

Otago Daily Times, July 23rd 2011

Some writers can take the familiar details of everyday life and re-present them to us as in a mirror. Others excel at transporting us into unexplored territory. Ann Patchett’s latest novel takes the reader deep into the Amazon, one of the few places on earth that where the unknown remains. 

Somewhere at the furthest reaches of the Rio Negro is a tribe where the women bear children for their entire adult lives. In the hope of discovering the secret of their extended menarche, a major pharmaceutical company has been paying Dr Annick Swenson to living and working among them for several years. Much to the frustration of the investors, however, not only is there no sign of the groundbreaking new infertility treatment they dream of, Dr Swenson refuses to even provide progress reports.

Pharmacologist Anders Eckman is dispatched to visit the elusive researcher and persuade her to speed up her work, but three months go by with little news. Then a brief telegram arrives informing them that Anders has died and been buried in the jungle, and his colleague Marina Singh, is sent to complete his mission.

Once a student of Dr Swenson’s, Marina is terrified of both the physical dangers of the journey and the thought of facing a woman whose approval once meant everything to her, but she is left with little choice. When she finally encounters her former mentor, the doctor appears as indomitable as Marina remembers, but over time the relationship between them gradually shifts towards something approaching equality. Not only does she begin to understand Dr Swenson, Marina discovers she is needed in ways she could never have imagined.

Patchett combines mystery and adventure with contemporary ethical issues in pharmacogenetics; should women in their 60’s and beyond expect (or be expected) to carry children? What are the consequences of Western researchers becoming involved in the lives of indigenous cultures? Is providing any outside assistance a moral obligation or prohibited lest it foster dependence? Is it better to exploit such people to develop a drug for the rich or one for the poor?

This may sound heavy handed, but they arise naturally as a consequence of the subject matter, and Patchett provides no easy answers to such complex, and troubling questions, leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions.  And although they linger in the mind, it is Marina’s journey of self-discovery and the gradual humanisation of the enigmatic Dr Swenson that drive the novel.

While the author cites Werner Herzog rather than Joseph Conrad as her major influence, this is a circle already closed by Apocalypse Now, and the novel resounds with echoes of Heart of Darkness. Yet Dr Swenson is a more sympathetic character than Kurtz, and as a scientist I identified closely with the dedication and self-sacrifice that her work requires of her. In State of Wonder there is darkness but there is magic here too, and the possibility that this time the horror can be faced and overcome.

https://www.odt.co.nz/entertainment/books/angels-and-allegory