Book Report: State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

So, several years ago I read Bel Canto by Ann Patchett and it wore me out.  It was evident what she was going for, and I got it.  It was a different approach, to strip people of their human comforts and see how they reacted over several months time of a pressure cooker hostage situation.  She showed relationships that never would have formed otherwise, social orders that fell apart and mindsets that disintegrated.  Something about it, though, was too dramatic for me.  Too much drama in a story, movie, whatever, begins to read unrealistic to me.  It is sort of my problem with Sean Penn, a fine actor I am sure.

Anyway, my book club is reading State of Wonder this month, and I was skeptical.  However, it turned out to be the perfect blend of denial of human comforts, strange environment, mystery and finding yourself.  I loved it, and mowed through it in a couple of days couch time while my son was down with the swimmers ear.

The gyst of the story is this:

A research physician finds out about the untimely death of her office mate in a remote jungle in  South America where he was doing fertility research with another more senior research physician.  The death seems to be strangely reported, and the research physician is entreated by her office mate's widow and her boss to go down to South America and find out from the elusive senior research physician the exact details.

It turns out that the senior research physician is guarded closely from being found, her ethics are dicey, her research is intensely personal, and she can't produce a body.  Oooh, Anne Patchett hooked me on all fronts.  The intrigue and frustration, the narrow misses and what you learn about yourself when you are locked in a remote South American jungle and lose all your luggage and clothes were fascinating.  I have to recommend it.

I felt like this book really did establish Ann Patchett as a believable teller of a tale that looks at our souls. Bel Canto began to snooze me with its grandiose nature, and I wanted her to sum up in a short story.  I was invested in every ounce of State of Wonder.