"State of Wonder," by Ann Patchett

I just finished listening on CD as the actress Hope Davis read “State of Wonder” (Harper, 2011; HarperAudio, 2011), the new novel by Ann Patchett, the author of the wonderful earlier novel “Bel Canto.” This book is eventful, suspenseful, psychologically fascinating, and sometimes painful. Dr. Marina Singh, who works for a big pharmaceutical company, is sent from Minnesota to the Amazon to find out what happened to her colleague Anders Eckman. He, in turn, had been sent there earlier to find out what was happening with the top-secret research Dr. Annick Swenson was doing there on behalf of the company. To complicate matters, Dr. Swenson had been Marina’s professor in medical school many years before, and was witness to a traumatic episode during Marina’s residency that made Marina change careers from medicine to pharmaceutical research. In any case, the trip to the research site is filled with obstacles, and once she reaches it, she learns amazing facts, endures difficulties, yet finds a certain satisfaction in her time there. As in her past, she has mixed feelings about Dr. Swenson, yet she gains a new relationship with her. She gets to know the Lakashi people among whom Dr. Swenson and a small, secretive group of scientists are doing the research. She becomes attached to a deaf child, Easter (what a symbolic name!), who is an integral part of the story, including in the climactic surprise ending. There are important ethical questions to be wrestled with, about the drugs Dr. Swenson has discovered, about whose life is worth how much, and about what tradeoffs may need to be made. The descriptions of the Amazon and the jungle are vivid, and somehow both oppressive and liberating. Both Marina and Dr. Swenson are well-drawn, compelling and complicated characters, and Marina’s journey toward Dr. Swenson creates “Heart of Darkness”-like reverberations. Although this is not the type of novel I am normally drawn to (with its overwhelming and dangerous jungle setting), I am glad I read (listened to) it. It is perhaps not quite as magically entrancing as “Bel Canto” was, but it comes close.

Two Memoirs of "Missionary Kids" in India

I recently read two memoirs by authors who had been the children of missionaries in India, as I was: “Ramblings with Ruth” (Quiet Waters, 2004), by Sam Schmitthenner, and “Sepia Prints” (Kindred, 1990), by Viola Bergthold Wiebe.” These memoirists' childhoods in India were both much earlier than mine; Schmitthenner’s children were contemporaries of mine at school, and Wiebe’s son became principal there some time after I left. But they write of the same areas in South India that my family lived and went to school, and they write of many similar experiences; thus their books are very evocative for me, as I am sure they are for others who share these experiences. In particular, the parts of both books about Kodaikanal School (“Kodai” for short), the boarding school where my brothers and I went, evoked much nostalgia in me. Although that time in my life was decades ago, it is still -- for me, as for most Kodai alumni -- a critically important part in our lives, and one we will never forget. One of the joys of modern technology is that Facebook and Kodai listservs have brought many of us back in touch. I know that many people feel nostalgic for their school years and experiences, but in our case, there were two extra elements intensifying those school experiences: first, that of living in boarding school, making school an even more all-encompassing experience than in day schools; and second, that of being members of mostly American background living in a (to us) foreign country, being both “of” and “not of” the country where our school was located. This was the beloved country of our childhoods, yet it was not our own country, and almost all of us returned to the United States or Canada. Nowadays Kodai is an international school, the majority of students are Indian, and students come there from around the world as well; despite these changes (and they are good ones), the spirit of the school and its experiences for its students appear to continue in many ways the traditions we remember. A recent reconnection with Kodai, for me, is that one of my nieces studied there about nine years ago, and another is studying there right now for her junior year of high school. What an experience this is for her! And for my brothers and me, it is so interesting to read about and see pictures of her experience there, bringing back many memories for us. I have also reconnected to that time through my research and writing on “missionary kids” and “Third Culture Kids.”

Highlights of the Current New Yorker

The current (9/19/11) issue of The New Yorker includes several fascinating stories. First is a compelling childhood memoir, “Dear Life,” by one of my very favorite writers, Alice Munro. Munro grew up in a fairly rural area, and her stories are a mixture of happy memories despite family troubles, and little hints of the madness and pain that can be found in rural Canada as well as anywhere else. Her memoirs sound so much like her wonderful stories: detailed, intimate, yet always with a little bit of the cool remove that accompanies her astute observations. Also in this issue is an Ann Beattie short story, “Starlight,” about Pat Nixon; Beattie’s new book, “Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life,” will be published this November. Beattie captures how very odd and difficult the Nixons’ last day in the White House, and then the years in California, must have been; she also captures President Nixon’s odd, stiff demeanor and conversation. The third article of particular interest to me is one on T. S. Eliot, written by the critic Louis Menand, and titled “Practical Cat.” Of course, like every English major, I read and admired Eliot’s poetry in college and grad school, especially “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and “The Waste Land,” but I must admit I haven’t read it much if at all since those days. The article here is in response to the recent publication of a two-volume collection of almost two thousand pages of Eliot’s correspondence. Apparently these letters shed new light on the period of 1898 to 1925, and most particularly on the brief years when he produced most of his work in London, 1917 to 1925. It seems that no one knew Eliot very well, as he was a bit of a chameleon, making connections and friendships with members various factions in literary life in England at the time, yet keeping himself a bit apart; throughout, he subtly let it be known that he had a “cool and disinterested contempt” (Menand’s words) for all the English writers. He did admire Joyce, but that seems to be about it. The article also discusses Eliot's very unhappy first marriage, his increasingly conservative, right wing views, and his enormous literary influence. In sum, says Menand, “He made a revolution. He changed the way poetry in English is written....He is the most important figure in twentieth-century English-language literary culture.” I don’t think I agree with this last sentence. What about Joyce? What about Woolf? But Menand makes a good case for his claims. I ended the article not liking Eliot much, but with a renewed appreciation for the magnitude of his achievements in his poetry and literary criticism. Maybe I will go back to re-read his poetry. Thank you, The New Yorker, for these three stimulating and informative pieces!

Readers are Happier

“People who read often are happier than those who watch more TV, according to researchers at the University of Maryland – even if the plot of their paperback is depressing.” (Parade Magazine, 7/31/11). You won't be surprised to hear that I completely agree with this research finding! A reader, a citizen of the wide world of books, has so much to explore, to learn, to laugh at, to empathize with, to be challenged by, to be comforted by, to be stretched by, to be provoked by, and to think about. Television, while it has its place and its enjoyments (and I, like most of us, do enjoy it sometimes), can never compete with the breadth and depth of the world of books.

Memorable American Pioneer Novels

Novels about American pioneers may not be high on my list to look for and read, but I have read and and been fascinated by a few such stories over the years. One that particularly gripped me and stays in my mind still, although I read it well over 30 years ago, is "Giants in the Earth," by Rolvaag. What I most remember is how vividly it portrayed the bleakness and extreme flatness of the prairies, and how one of the main characters, a woman, became extremely depressed by that bleakness. As I remember the story, she ended by hiding in a trunk that had carried her treasures from back East. For some reason, I can still see that striking image: the flat, flat prairie land and the despairing woman taking refuge in the trunk that was a reminder of home. I was also particularly impressed by Willa Cather's pioneer novels; as I have written here before, I admire Cather's work very much. I list these and other memorable pioneer novels below:

Cimarron, by Edna Ferber
Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather
Giants in the Earth, by Ole Edwart Rolvaag
The Leatherstocking Tales (series), by James Fennimore Cooper
Little Big Man, by Thomas Berger
Little House on the Prairie (series), by Laura Ingalls Wilder
My Antonia, by Willa Cather
O Pioneers, by Willa Cather
The Tie That Binds, by Kent Haruf
The Virginian, by Owen Wister

"Birds of Paradise," by Diana Abu-Jaber

Diana Abu-Jaber’s new novel, “Birds of Paradise” (W. W. Norton, 2011), shares with her other novels the starring role of food, especially baked goods, in her characters’ lives. One of the main characters in this novel is the baker of delicate, intricate, artistic pastries that taste ethereal as well as delicious; another runs a grocery store specializing in local, seasonal, organic food. But the main theme of the novel is the mysterious estrangement between parents Avis and Brian, on the one hand, and their daughter Felice, on the other hand. Felice had been close to her parents and to her brother Stanley until about age 13, when she started periodically and then finally disappearing from her home. As the novel begins, Avis doesn’t know where her daughter lives, and only sees her every few months when Felice calls and arranges to meet in a café, where she sometimes is very late and sometimes doesn’t show up after all. There are alternating chapters from the points of view of the four family members. In Felice’s chapters, we are soon given hints that something bad happened at school or with a school friend, something that Felice cannot forget or forgive herself for, and this is connected with her leaving home. This story reminds me a bit of several novels with runaway daughters, including the wonderful late Carol Shields’ moving last book, “Unless.” There is the same sense of bafflement and grief felt by the parents, the wondering what they did wrong, what they could have done differently, and the aching pain of missing and worrying about their estranged daughters. I have to mention too that this novel is set in Miami, and to a greater degree than with most novels, the city is almost a character in the novel. We watch the four main characters and a few others move through the city; the city and its neighborhoods come alive in Abu-Jaber’s descriptions. We see the physical beauty of the beaches, water, and vegetation; we see the glamor and glitz of the city, along with the tawdriness and greed. We see the mixture of people from many backgrounds, and the large amounts of money being spent everywhere, especially on real estate, in this just-before-the-bubble-burst era. I happen to have visited Miami for the first time this past June, so I was particularly interested in the vivid descriptions of the city. Hurricane Katrina is also a character in the novel, and its aftermath plays an important part in the resolution of the story.

Memorable Novels about Americans in Europe

Americans have long gone to Europe to experience older cultures than their own, to see the sights, and to feel sophisticated. Writers have always been among the most vulnerable to the call of Europe, and often their writing reflects this fascination. Below are some of the more memorable novels by American writers about Americans in Europe.

The Ambassador, by Henry James
The American, by Henry James
The Custom of the Country, by Edith Wharton
Daisy Miller, by Henry James
Dodsworth, by Sinclair Lewis
A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway
For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway
French Lessons, by Ellen Sussman
Giovanni’s Room, by James Baldwin
The Golden Bowl, by Henry James
The Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain
Le Divorce, by Diane Johnson
The Marble Faun, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Le Mariage, by Diane Johnson
Nightwood, by Djuna Barnes
The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain
Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James
Prague, by Arthur Phillips
The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald