State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

It is a tribute to Ann Patchett's charming style and story telling abilities that this book is highly readable despite having characters behaving in illogical ways and enough plot holes to sink most novels. While I was reading it I enjoyed the book very much, but when I finished it I was annoyed at the author for manipulating me and irritated at myself for being carried along on what turned out to be a pointless and fallacious journey.

Dr. Marina Singh, a research scientist for a pharmaceutical company, is asked by her boss (and lover) to go to the Brazilian jungle to find out the status of a research project on fertility financed by the company and to learn more about the circumstances of the death of one of her colleagues who had been sent previously. To complicate matters, the leader of the jungle team is an intimidating former teacher of Marina's who was responsible, in part, for her decision to leave obstetrics in favor of research.

Marina's eventual journey into the jungle initiates the most riveting part of the book, as she confronts a frightening alien landscape. She gradually learns that female fertility is not the only focus of the research, that her colleague's death might not have occurred exactly as reported, that she is more competent than she had believed, that she can fight and defeat a giant anaconda, and that she craves the bark of a certain tree. Really.

It becomes apparent that Marina's journey is somewhat symbolic of a journey of self discovery and self realization, but for the reader the trip becomes secondary to the realization that the background does not make that much sense.

(SPOILERS INCLUDED HERE.) Here's a brief summary of some of the major suspicious plot turns:

*The jungle scientists have been with the Amazonian tribe for five years, and the professor who leads them has been there, off-and-on, for more than twenty years, and yet not one can speak the language of the tribe. And yet they have persuaded the women to give frequent blood samples and cervical swabs. How likely is that?

*The professor submits no reports and refuses to have a phone and nobody back at the pharmaceutical company knows exactly where she is, and yet the company continues to finance her and she has unlimited charge accounts back in the nearest Brazilian city. For five years. How likely is that?

*Although she has been a teacher in the fields of obstetrics and gynecology, the professor evidently does not realize that her 73-year-old body is incapable of carrying a baby to term, even if she can become pregnant. How likely is that?

*And that's not a complete list.

Other complaints:

*The native Indian tribe is treated dismissively, as almost childlike in comparison to the researchers. The women apparently spend most of their time grooming each other and going every five days to chew the bark off of specific trees (giving them life-long fertility). No mention is made of how the bodies of elderly natives handle the gestation of babies. As a side effect, none of the women contract malaria. The men do, and they don't chew the bark. Are they so childlike that they don't ever realize the connection?

*Marina forms a connection with a deaf mute native child, and sleeps curled up with him in a small bed. The only problem for the reader is that the boy is identified as being 12 years old. Does an educated woman not realize that even a pre-pubescent boy should not be sleeping curled up with a grown woman? Shouldn't Ann Patchett have realized that?

Suffice it to say, that even though I found this book enjoyable, I was extremely disappointed when I finished it; especially so so since Patchett's Bel Canto was completely enchanting for me.