State of Wonder Q&A

I hope you are all right that this is a great book as I have just downloaded it on my Kindle and you all have a lot to answer for if it isnt!

Ha Ha! Gracesmum yes, it really is interesting and different. Enjoy it!

I've enjoyed just about every aspect of this novel. The characterisation is great, with some very interesting and unusual characters. For once, a novelist who isn't trying to show how 'ordinary' the characters are. Dr Swenson is a great invention. Quite a bit of the plot is preposterous, when you think about it, but hey, this is a psychological adventure story and part of the craft of spinning the story is the way that the author weaves an atmosphere that is quite dreamlike, on the edge of nightmare - and then there are the 'real' dreams and nightmares that the characters experience. My question to Ann Patchett is 'How did you dream this story up? Where did it come from?'
Thanks!

Reminded me a little of 'the trouble with lichen'

The trouble with lichen is that I never know how to pronounce it - Litchen or Liken?

Second!

We have been here before - it can be either.

Pronounced 'eether' or 'eyther'

I am only halfway through, so sticking my fingers in my ears for any spoilers!

I am quite interested in the long-distance relationships in the book - Anders and his wife, Mr Fox and Marina. Particularly how the lack of communication makes it almost an imaginary relationship (as Anders never received Karen's letters etc) - do you think that's accurate? (Certainly rang a bell with me!)

State of Wonder inevitably draws comparisons with Evelyn Waugh's horribly chilling Handful of Dust and Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible.
Were you influenced by these books, intentionally or unintentionally? Or do you find such comparisons annoying? (If so, sorry!)

Have you spent time in the rain forest yourself? If not, how do you make the descriptions so detailed and so vivid? At times it made my skin crawl.

Dr Swenson is so extraordinary - is she based (even a teeny bit) on anyone real? In fact, are any of your characters based on people you've met - and would they recognise themselves? Would it worry you if they did?

Am enjoying it too. Took a while to get into it though but now am hooked and finding it compelling - am about two thirds through!Finding myself drawn into the density of the rain forest. The characters of Marina and Dr Swenson are very well drawn. Dr Swenson is single minded strong and ruthless and Marina
trusting and naive. Feel she is being drawn deeper into something....... Find it quite interesting that Mr Fox is not given a christian name which makes his and Marina's relationship seem even more distant. was this deliberate to highlight
Marinas isolation?

I'm more than half way through and enjoying the story. I think all my questions have been asked. Have you been to rainforest,is any of it based on fact? You must have done a lot of research for the book,how long did you take from start to finish?

I thought it was very clever the way you manipulated our feelings about Dr Swenson. I was convinced she was malign for much of the book. Was it part of your intention to play about with the reader's perceptions? Were you in some sense writing a book about they way we look at things?

The Bovenders were great characters. They seemed incredibly vivid, although they didn't belong in their setting, somehow. Are you fascinated by misfits and eccentrics? Were they based on people you'd met or observed? I thought in many ways they were utterly repellent, and brilliantly written!

It's obviously not a very naturalistic novel - there's magic, and dream sequences and in some ways a preposterous basic idea (about extended fertility). I wondered to what extent you were using the jungle to explore ideas about modern American society?
Very enjoyable read!

I found Marina a bit infuriating. A lot of the time she seemed unreflective and obtuse. Was it part of your plan to make her unreliable and emotionally unintelligent?

(I must admit that for me this cast a shadow over the book; it got in the way of the story. I kept thinking, 'oh, don't be so useless!' But perhaps you didn't want us to identify with her too closely?)

I really enjoyed the book. What's your view about the way women think about menopause? In your research, did you look at how women react to the loss of fertility in different parts of the world? (It's sometimes said Japanese women cope much better than women in the west because they're not so obsessed with youth - I don't know if that's true). Was it your intention to comment on the way society treats women once they've passed childbearing age?

Yes, like others I wondered at first when the story would take off, and then it did and I was hooked. Marina, emotionally stunted by her terrible mistake as a young doctor and also her cultural confusion has chosen a career that doesn't involve much social interaction and an older "father figure" partner. I've known people like that. The Bovinders just have a lot to learn. Freeloaders, because they can.
In a way, it's all about couples, relationships, even Dr Swenson still holding a torch for Dr Rapp. My questions are all about what happened next. I'm curious.
Did Easter make it back? What about Marina and Mr Fox? Can she settle in Minneapolis ever again or is she Swenson's natural successor...I sort of hope not, although the relationships she had in the jungle are so much more meaningful than her solitary life at home. Is she now purged of her guilt as a doctor? How do Marina and Anders continue in their working life after what happened? The only solid thing seems to me to be the Eckman family. There's so much in this novel.
Thank you Gransnet.

Oh yes, another thing (sorry!)...
We know that female fertility is heightened by chewing the bark. Marina does this. She then has unprotected sex with Anders. Result pregnancy?

When do we get Ann Patchett's replies? So looking forward to hearing what she has to say.