Discussion Guide for State of Wonder

Book:      State of Wonder

Author:   Ann Patchett
Edition:   HarperCollins first edition, hardcover.

Warning: these contain spoilers!  Read after you have finished the book.

Background

I recommend reading and viewing the photos in an article from The Atlantic on Ashaninka. Also view a

short BBC clipshowing aerial footage of a group of humans in the Amazon that haven’t been contacted by other humans.

In addition, the themes in this book go far beyond the few starting points below.  Follow the current of your own group and let your discussion flow where it may.

Characters

Dr. Marina Singh, a medical doctor, now research scientist for Vogel Pharmaceutical, sent to Brazil to track down Dr. Swenson

Dr. Annick Swenson, a medical doctor in her 70s working in the jungles of Brazil and Marina’s former mentor

Anders Eckman, Marina’s lab partner who was sent to the Amazon to track down Dr. Swenson

Karen Eckman, Ander’s wife

Mr. Jim Fox, President of Vogel who sends Anders and then Marina to the Amazon

Milton, driver in Manaus

Rodrigo, Milton’s brother-in-law and local storeowner

Mrs. Barbara Bovender, keeper of the gate to Dr. Swenson, self-proclaimed writer, described as bohemians

Mr. Jackie Bovender married to Barbara, self-proclaimed surfer

Easter, deaf boy who pilots Annick’s boat and takes care of the visiting adults as he craves a parenting figure

Discussion Topics

Marina

Ann Patchett describes Marina as overly tall and bony with impenetrable eyes and heavy black hair that set her apart from all the Swedes.  How do you describe her?  Did you find her a likeable character?  Which scenes made her a more believable character?

Marina’s Relationship with Mr. Fox

Throughout the story, Marina refers to Mr. Fox as “Mr. Fox” not his first name, Jim.  Yet she claims she loves him.  How would you characterize their relationship?  How does their relationship change once Marina finds Dr. Swenson? Will Marina’s relationship to Mr. Fox continue in Minnesota?

Marina’s Nightmares

As soon as she starts taking the Larium, Marina’s nightmares of losing her father start up again.  How do Marina’s nightmares reflect her sense of loss? What finally banishes her nightmares?

The Bovenders

At one point, Marina realizes that (page 149) “without the Bovenders there to remind her, she might have forgotten what it was like to be enthralled, to fall hard in love for principles and a singularly remarkable mind.  … there was something in their shiny nature that made them indestructible.”  Have you met people like the Bovenders?

The Bovenders act as the gatekeepers to Dr. Swenson.  How do they shape Marina’s view of Dr. Swenson’s work?  What feelings does Marina have for the Bovenders?

Dr. Swenson

Our first knowledge of Dr. Swenson is through Marina and her memories of her internship and reflects Dr. Swenson’s high standards, lack of sentimentality, and seeming lack of warmth.  (Page 11) “A tiny woman made tinier by distance fixes one hundred people to their seats with a voice that never troubles itself to be raised, and because they are all afraid of her and because they are afraid of missing anything she might say, they stay as long as she chooses to keep them… Marina believes the entire room exists as she exists, at the intersection of terror and exaltation.”   On the boat heading to the Lakashi village, Marina feels like Oliver holding up his bowl as she wants to learn more from Dr. Swenson.

Then we hear the Bovender’s perspective: (page 96) “Once you understand Annick you know there’s nobody like her… She’s such a force of nature… completely fearless, someone who saw the world without limitations.”  When we meet Dr Swenson, she is cut and dry and matter of fact about Anders and his lack of suitability for the rain forest.    Dr. Swenson is referred to as the kingpin to the Lakashi.

Whose perspective better summed up Dr Swenson’s nature for you?   How do your feelings toward Dr. Swenson change or become more fixed through the book? 

Easter

Dr. Swenson, Anders and Marina each informally adopt Easter.  How do each of their parent-child relationships differ?  What role does Easter play in the story?

After Marina saves Easter from the snake, Annick tells Marina “you can’t make a hearing boy out of a deaf boy, and you can’t run everyone you meet into an American… He is not available.”  How would you respond?

How did you react to Marina’s decision to leave Easter behind?  Do you think she would have made the same decision had she had more time to think through the situation?

Jungle

The jungle itself is a character in the book, at once alive with sound and pleasure and dangers.  At times it seems as tight as 20 chain link fences. On page 174 the jungle is compared to an orchestra as Marina tries to rest in the pontoon boat on the way to the lab.  How does Marina’s view of the jungle change over the course of the story?  How does the jungle change Marina?

Lakashi

How do Annick and Marina each interact with the indigenous people?   At one point Annick says, “the question is whether or not you choose to disturb the world around you, or if you choose to let it go on as if you had never arrived.  That is how one respects indigenous people.”  And as she says about Dr. Rapp, “He would have respected the order that was in place.”  Which sits better with you?  How do Annick and Marina walk the tightrope between helping and letting their culture remain undisturbed?

Watch the BBC video In the BBC video, Jose Carlos Meirelles, the man working to maintain land for the tribe says, “Their future doesn’t depend on them. It depends on us, our conscious…”  How does Dr. Swenson, Marina and other characters in the novel support or refute this statement.

Meirelles also says, “It’s important for humanity these people exist.  They remind us it’s possible to live in a different way.”  Who in the novel do you think would concur with Meirelles statement?  Who would not?  What do you think?

Fertility

Annick admits, “by straying into the territory of the biologically young I have been punished.”    And on page 287, “I’ve never believed the women of the world are entitled to leave every one of their options open for a lifetime.”

Should women of all ages be able to have children?  What would be the benefits to the individual and to society?  What would be the difficulties to each?

Loss

Loss is a central theme recurring throughout the book.  At times it is heartbreaking, Marina’s and Karen’s initial reaction to Ander’s death and the loss of Easter. Other times the loss is less painful, but still difficult, the loss of Swenson’s baby, Marina’s loss of her life as a doctor, Mr. Fox and the Bovenders getting lost on the river and Marina’s recurring nightmares of losing her father.  And at times the loss is trivial— Marina losing her luggage twice.

On page 269, Marina realizes, “There was no one clear point of loss. It happened over and over again in a thousand small ways and the only truth there was to learn was that there was no getting used to it.”

What do the characters in the book learn from loss?  How are the varying reactions healing?  Which reactions are less helpful?

Life Lessons

Beyond lesson of loss, the story is peppered with reflections on life and how we each approach our lives.  On page 246 Dr. Swenson remarks, “Never be so focused on what you’re looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find.”  While she says this as she is explaining that what she has found is something much greater and much more ambitious that anything hoped for—her work focused on a vaccine for malaria, not only a fertility drug.

Have you ever found you’ve been so focused on one goal, you miss opportunities that are right in front of you?

Orpheus Story

Marina’s story parallels Orpheus (Greek musician who travels to the underworld in an attempt to retrieve Eurydice) as she travels to the darkness of the jungle to bring Anders back from death.  The Bovenders can be seen as the gatekeepers to Hades.  And many of the trials she meets come right from Greek mythology—beheading monsters like the anaconda and trading with cannibal tribes.  Discuss some of the parallels you saw.  In what way was Marina’s journey mythical?

After the Story

What happens in your sequel to State of Wonder?  Will Marina return to the rain forest and continue Dr. Swenson’s work?  Which of Marina’s relationships will persist and which will end (have ended) at the close of the story?  Will her work become reality?  Will Easter be happily reunited with his family or return to one of his foster parents?