Servants of the Map: Stories

by Andrea Barrett

"Luminous....Each [story] is rich and independent and beautiful and should draw Barrett many new admirers."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

Ranging across two centuries, and from the western Himalaya to an Adirondack village, these wonderfully imagined stories and novellas travel the territories of yearning and awakening, of loss and unexpected discovery. A mapper of the highest mountain peaks realizes his true obsession. A young woman afire with scientific curiosity must come to terms with a romantic fantasy. Brothers and sisters, torn apart at an early age, are beset by dreams of reunion. Throughout, Barrett's most characteristic theme—the happenings in that borderland between science and desire—unfolds in the diverse lives of unforgettable human beings. Although each richly layered tale stands independently, readers of Ship Fever (National Book Award winner) and Barrett's extraordinary novel The Voyage of the Narwhal, will discover subtle links both among these new stories and to characters in the earlier works.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Travel, Literature, Literary Fiction, Nature

280 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Andrea Barrett is the author of The Air We Breathe, Servants of the Map (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), The Voyage of the Narwhal, Ship Fever (winner of the National Book Award), and other books. She teaches at Williams College and lives in northwestern Massachusetts.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Maciek · Rating 4 out of 5]

I discovered Andrea Barrett through Ship Fever: Stories, a collection of stories which won the National Book Award in 1996. For some reason I thought that I'd be reading science-fiction, but what I got instead was fiction about science - a rare breed, which I'll hopefully get to reviewing one day soon.

Andrea Barrett writes beautifully about very different people who all share several common traits: a desire to know, the ability to closely observe, analyze, and marvel at the wonder of discovery - both personal and scientific. Each of the stories can be read independently, but the true pleasure of this volume comes from reading them all in succession, and seeing characters from one story suddenly reappear in the other.

The theme which runs prevalent through the volume is longing - for understanding, solace, company. In the titular, opening story, Max Vigne is a real servant of the map - a young Eglish surveyor in the northern mountains of India during the 1860's (the time of Great Trigonometric Survey, which determined the height of K2, Mount Everest and Kanchenjunga), who feels little connection to the rest of his crew and enormous loneliness in the unmapped, foreign country. The only things which keep him going are his passion of botany fueled by the amount of strange plants in this foreign land, and the letters that he writes to and receives from his wife, Clara - sometimes months late, and sometimes not at all. Max is torn between his love for Clara and their two daughters and what he sees as a slow but unavoidable change within himself - is he the same person to whom Clara was writing the letters months ago? Can he return home to her and resume his previous life? Clara herself plays a major role in the concluding story, The Cure, and wonders about Max, asking the same question.

Personalities clash in Barrett's world, like the elderly and poised Polish geologist who goes on an unlikely misadventure with a much younger American woman; a brother and a sister separated at birth, each inhabit a different story and longing for one another, who meet again years later to a surprising result. There is a lot to be savored in this volume, as in the relatively short length of these stories Andrea Barret managed to created characters one can like, relate to and root for - but most importantly understand and care for, as they are not unlike us. Compassion and humanity resonate within this volume of classical stories, and I'm looking forward to reading more of her work.

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 (and one of my own personal favorites from that summer), the stunningly crafted Servants of the Map is composed of six interconnected tales of the natural world and the complex inner lives of the scientists, explorers, and others who feel its pull.

Andrea Barrett, author of the National Book Award-winning Ship Fever and The Voyage of the Narwhal, received her degree in biology and, fortunately for us, became a novelist. As with these two books, Servants of the Map delves into the minds of memorable characters, including a 19th-century surveyor who faithfully writes to his wife from his post in the Himalayas, knowing that his passion lies far from a life with her; a pair of sisters (appearing in two of the stories) who watch their lives converge and retreat over time; a woman who has immigrated from Ireland and lost track of surviving family members, learns that a brother is still alive.

Although some characters resurface from previous Barrett's books, this familiarity is not a prerequisite for taking immense pleasure in this magnificent book, which brings a genuine appreciation of the realm of science to non-specialists.

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Women who love science--as I do--often find ourselves "odd ducks" in the halls of academia as well as in literature, but Andrea Barrett delights in women characters who are passionate about science without being dull or quirky. Barrett observes and reports on her characters and their quests with the eye of someone trained in science, and the result is stories that both teach and delight.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

For someone who has a science background and loves historical fiction AND serials, this book of short stories was a delight. Barrett's prose is beautiful and she renders somewhat complicated subject matter (not to mention arcane) as fascinating. I love that she weaves (ever so subtly) characters from many of her stories together throughout the book, and I understand that in fact the characters and some of the tales are carried through many of her books... which can only mean that I will half about half a dozen more good reads to look forward to as I get my mitts on them.

[Jan Priddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was knocked down by her Ship Fever so the only real surprise is that this is only the second of Barrett's books I have read. I suppose I might love this collection of linked stories about as much as anything I have read in months. I should begin reading it from the beginning, in fact I would enjoy a second read very much. So it will go in my favored bookcase, even if I must take something out to make room.

These stories, long stories and each one spanning a life, are connected. Elizabeth of "The Cure" who cares for tubercular patients at the end of the book is the daughter of Max in the far east in the title story. In between are grandchildren and great grands, though I lost track. I did not mind too must losing track of the connections. I had not known they would exist, so the realization that all these people are family was a delightful surprise. Only now, of course, I wish I'd taken notes.

[Cindypbarnard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Got this out of my library on the recommendation of my bookie friend,Leslie. Read about 25 pages. Made a quick decision that this was NOT going to work for me. The first story is told at the beginning, mostly through letters which I usually love. But it was slow and it just didn't call to me. I pushed on for another 25 pages and WHAM I was in. Picture me scrambling eggs with one hand and reading this book with the other. That's how good it was. Not so short stories that all had were connected through one or more characters. Sometimes the connection surprised me but as I got closer to the end the connections became stronger and more obvious. THIS WAS GOOD. Thank you Leslie.

[Nathalie (keepreadingbooks) · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Rounded up from 3.75 stars)

Servants is as well-written and well-researched as Ship Fever and The Voyage of the Narwhal (the collection and novel that precedes this collection and which are loosely connected to it). Yet it didn’t quite enthral me in the same way. I think this had something to do with the fact that the stories are nearly all ‘sequels’, featuring characters from the previous two books; these sequels, or continuations, felt weaker and without their own isolated purpose, though there is certainly pleasure in knowing what happens to certain characters (disclaimer that I’m not sure they would seem the same way to someone who has not read the previous stories, but they did to me). The most intriguing story, in my opinion, was the title story; a brand new one, with new characters, thus backing up this theory. I also personally find Rose and Bianca to be the least interesting characters, and they got two full stories in this one, which might have contributed as well. That being said, I’m not sure I can dislike a Barrett book – I am utterly won over by her writing and subject matter, and I am loving this series of interconnected books.

[Sumit · Rating 5 out of 5]

There hasn't been a book of Andrea Barrett's that I haven't loved; the combination of subtly intertwined stories and the intersection of personal histories with scientific discovery are always compelling to me. Since I discovered "Ship Fever" in graduate school, I've read every book of hers that I can get my hands on.

That said, in this particular volume, I found the first section (Max, writing letters to his wife Clara, while seeking exotic plants in the Himalayas) a bit slow - perhaps it was the letter format, which takes the reader away from Barrett's lyrical narrative voice. The rest of the book was wonderful.

[Keerthi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heart-wrenchingly beautiful and so so utterly human.

[Patrick Halston]

Grabbing Hold, for Departure’s Sake (April 2006)

Max Vigne makes use of the ostensibly dangerous Himalayan mountain range as if it was a Green World, that is, as a place which facilitates experimentation, self- discovery, and renewal. It’s an odd place to use as a playground, but he needed some place that would serve: it is clear that his life in England was safe but routine—hum- drum. It is what was afforded him after a shock—his mother’s death—necessitated a life moved by necessity rather than by romance. Though he at first makes it seem as if his surveying position abroad is really about bettering his position at home, not long into the text it becomes apparent that it is really about rediscovering a life of “charm” (22), a life he had been familiar with before his mother died.

But this is not to say, however, that his initial way of characterizing the point of his travels inhibits self-discovery. Instead, very likely, it enables it—for those who’ve been traumatized by the loss of a parent can be overwhelmed by too much change. Because for them experimentation/play can be as much about the loss of the familiar and comforting as it is about the acquisition of the new and pleasing, it is risky business, to be undertaken with care. Therapists know that the traumatized need first to be made to feel secure before they can be brought to engage with the world experimentally, and Max may have prepared himself for a risky and playful re- evaluation of what he wants to do with his life by first having established himself as a respectable bourgeois Victorian—that is, by constituting himself as the sort of gentleman his own culture would lift up as a good example for other young men to emulate.

His journals entries delineate a sort of threat the Kashmir environment could present him with—namely, becoming lost and freezing to death—and his first action is to make himself feel less vulnerable to this threat. He does this by distinguishing himself from the lost man “found on a mountain that is numbered but still to be named” (17). While the lost man was untethered, unconnected, someone who traveled alone, Max is “attached to a branch, however small and insignificant, of the Grand Trigonometrical Survey of India” (17)—is part of confident Victorian expansionism abroad. But he is in fact connected to two empowered entities which lend support and security in this new environment. That is, as important to his sense of security as is his attachment to a respectable and grand survey company, is his attachment to his wife at home, who is made to seem so much the suffering angel in the house. Though he attends to the difficulty he experiences in connecting to her through letters, though our attention is drawn to all he cannot convey to her for fear of frightening her, we should not overlook the fact that she is someone he can turn to for attendance and nurturance—she is someone he expects will attend closely to whatever she receives from him, to whatever he has to say to her. She writes “mothering” letters to him. His companions laugh at her advice for him to “wear [his] [. . .] woolly vest” (22). But he doesn’t need to deem them—simply jealous—in order to find some comfort in their jabs, for her letter helps establish her as the sort of admonishing but nurturing and empowered mother-figure Victorians believed determined the nature of their public sphere. It helps establish her as the kind of mother-figure we all needed to know we could turn to for periodic support, when we first explored the exciting but strange world we were born into.

The particular nature of his life back home provides him with a secure departure point; he maps for himself a secure arrival point in the future, the end of his journey, which will ostensibly mean a better position at home; and he has linked himself to a company which makes him feel securely placed in the present: there is a sense that he helps make himself feel secure through what might aesthetically feel like the sort of triangulation he attempts to effect for his wife at the end of the text, in an effort to make her feel secure. But of course he is on a journey, he is moving: he is never a set, stationary point that can be clearly demarcated on a map. But his movement is made to seem as if it amounts to little more than moving from one secure point to another one well within sight. He describes his team as tied together. He moves with a “line of men”—“chainmen” (27). This formation makes his movement through the mountains seem rigid and limited, but also delimited—known.

And in some ways this manner of journeying is akin to the one he was already familiar with back home: it follows the beaten path. He travels with men who literally are not trailblazers. They are those who follow paths first established, demarcated, by “the dashing scouts of the triangulating party” (26)—that is, by those who “dig through feet of snow” so as to “expose” “level platforms” and “supporting pillars” (26) for them to stand and step on, by those who are the ones most susceptible to falling victim to insecure snow bridges, to falling into crevasses. The crew Max is associated with “merely” adds “muscle and sinew on their bones” (27). In a sense, though he tells his wife that “[e]verything [he is] [. . .] seeing and doing is so new,” that “so much is rushing into [him] [. . .] all at once [that he] [. . .] gets confused” (26), it is not quite accurate to depict his life abroad as involving constant encounters with the wholly strange and new: in truth, much has been already been processed for him by the brave scouts at the forefront of the party, at the forefront of experiencing an as-of-yet unmapped world.

He encounters his new environment to some extent as a tourist would some place he’d never been to, or as a watcher or reader of a never-before-seen play would experience everything he witnesses within a Green World environment, or as he and his wife encounter their letters to one another, which they know will be edited so that much of what could frighten has been removed. That is, he encounters “the new” without fear it will shock or disorient. When he tells his wife “that all one’s pleasures [there] [. . .] are retrospective [. . .] [, that] in the moment itself, there is only the moment, and the pain” (42), he comes close to universalizing not just how one would experience the Himalayan mountain range but how one might experience any unfamiliar environment. But of course not everyone takes more pleasure from recalled than they do from immediate experience. We note that Annie Dillard’s narrator in Tinker Creek, for example, often exults in unprocessed, intense, even overwhelming experience. She prefers to look upstream rather than downstream; she prefers to expose herself to the impact of the new rather than situate herself so all lived experience amounts to what has already passed at least someone by—to a perpetual re-encounter with history. And it may be that people who have not learned early on that life could at any moment present them with experiences they are unprepared to deal with, share Dillard’s narrator’s preference for unmediated, unprocessed experience.

Both temporal and spatial distance from threats help Max develop a mental state well suited for self-reflection and exploration. The company he travels with can threaten him: Michael is one of three men who make sexual advances upon him. But he rebuffs them; and since this action leads to Michael, at least, “ceas[ing] to deal with him directly,” for him to “communicate [to Max] by sarcastic notes” (30), it effectively distances them from him and makes their communication something under Max’s control: he determines when to read Michael’s letters, and can thereby be sure to be well braced to deal with whatever they might contain. Though even when in a crowded group he still finds ways to create room for himself—he tells us of how he successfully created “the solitude he so desperately need[ed]” through writing to Clara, and of how his reading led him to feel drawn to, closer toward, those whose works he had been reading—clearly he prefers to keep physically distant from the rest of his company whenever possible. He manages just this the evening Michael tells a triangulator to tell a tale Max knows could lead to campground disorder. When he guesses things might get out of hand, he “fle[es] the campfire [. . .] and roll[s] himself in a blanket in a hollow, far from everyone, carved into the rocky cliffs” (46). So ensconced, he is safe from whatever carnage developed that evening. And he thereby positions himself so that upon his return he would once again deal only with processed, denatured experience: when he returned to the site in the morning he would encounter only the remains of whatever happened the night before.

We note that by having fled he thereby enabled more play for himself. The next morning offers a surprise: what developed from the evening of story-telling. He hides, and therefore the next morning, can seek! And there is play in another instance in which he creates physical distance between himself and his companions— specifically, the time he falls into a fissure after having left his companions, who had prematurely set up camp. He escapes the crevice by essentially making himself into a bridge—that is, through play. He admits he actually enjoyed being in the crevice; and given that it meant being physically removed from and to some extent protected against “capture” by a group that annoyed him, we can understand why he found the “cold and quiet” (37) seductive. But he might take pleasure in the incident for another reason: because it staged for him exactly the sort of calamite he feared he was most vulnerable to while journeying and let him know that he was in fact capable of handling dangerous situations without aid. Though he eventually will be shamed into deeming this episode not so much something he shouldn’t write home about but something not worth writing home about, it provides him with the sort of experience he can use to make himself feel less the tourist and more a manly adventurer.

It is not quite accurate to say he relied only on his own resources to emerge from the crevasse, though, for we are told that “it was the thought of not getting to read” his wife’s letters which inspired his efforts. It is, then, an incident which shows how strongly he needs to think of his wife as someone he must return to, as someone to draw strength from. But it is also one which speeds up his reliance upon, his attachment to, other people. His next letter is moved by his enthusiasm to tell her about his developing letter relationship with Dr. Hooker, and to inform her of how drawn he is to men such as Darwin, Gray, and Hooker. It is one where he tells her he “plans to share his records with Dr. Hooker and however else is interested” (42). We note that when he first mentioned receiving a letter from Dr. Hooker he made contact with him seem akin to his seeing K2 for the first time. That is, he made it seem akin to what a tourist would feel upon closing upon greatness: it enraptures, but does not obligate—it could forever after be an encounter he might dazzle others with but which doesn’t necessitate any soul-shifting on his part in any substantive way. When he first describes his renewed interest in botany to his wife, he makes it seem something which would enhance but not “deform,” harshly alter, their life together upon his return; it will simply allow him to point out more things to her in their garden. But in this letter it is evident that his involvement with Hooker, and his rediscovery of his interest in botany, will involve distancing, not closing, the distance between his wife and himself.

At the end of the text we are told of Max’s need to prepare his wife to accept difficult truths, and he shows the need to slowly prepare himself for as much as well. When he first mentioned great personages he is or is becoming connected to, such as Hooker or his relation Godfrey Vigne, he made their connection to him seem indirect and inconsequential. He actually says that he is (only) “tangentially” (20) related to Vigne: he tells himself there is no direct, pressing link between them. When he mentions Hooker’s letters to him, he identifies them as an effort of Hooker’s “to encourage an amateur” (40)—that is, he chooses to believe that Hooker writes to him more out of kindness than out of respect for the work he had undertaken. But though from such statements of his as, “What draws me to these men an their writings is not simply their ideas but the way they defend each other so vigorously and are so firmly bound” (40), it is clear that though he looks to these men as those he might bind himself to, he is not yet prepared to make firm the link. But he is preparing himself, constructing “bones” upon which, after he comes to believe that he is in fact worthy of sustained communication with Hooker and/or of identifying himself more squarely with his great relation, “muscle” and “sinew” can be added later.

He more boldly characterizes himself to seem more similar than dissimilar to these men—and different from his wife—after he re-establishes a link to his childhood life, to his mother. He becomes fully aware of the continued existence and relevance of this link after his fall into the crevasse. After that experience, he writes, “He himself has changed so much he grows further daily from her [i.e., his wife’s]

picture of him. It is his mother, dead so many years, who seems to speak most truly to the new person he is becoming. As if the years between her death and now are only a detour, his childhood self emerging from a long uneasy sleep” (48). Did the landscape somehow help consolidate his attachment to his past life? There is reason to believe so, for he fell into the crevasse after wandering through an environment that made him feel as if he was stepping backwards through time. And he admitted his desire to sleep, perhaps to hibernate, while enclosed within snow at the bottom of the crevasse. Though, then, his wife helped extricate him from the crevice, he emerged someone prepared to believe his life with her but a long detour, to make himself feel more awkwardly related to her than to greats like Godrey Vigne.

His wife is made to seem a kind of useful object. In a Winnicotian sense, she is the primary object to be left behind only once the venturing “child” has securely attached himself to transitional ones. She is someone who must be construed as good and pure, as someone he desperately wants to map his soul for, as someone to return to, until he feels less in need of her support and love. After he has revived and reattached himself to his early childhood self, and after he has begun to link and identify himself more and more with Hooker, he is prepared to admit to himself that his previous home is not something he is actually all that eager to return to. Initially he said that both he and his wife decided he should go abroad, even though it was clear the decision was mostly his own. Initially his complaint about being away from her was that he was unable to keep in constant contact, to provide her with a well- documented map of his soul. Now we hear of him choosing not to write to her for months at a time. His experience with Dima is something he uses to help him reassess his time with her. He compares her to his wife, and, as he witnesses Dima’s charm fade away, admits that much of his life with his wife lacked charm: it lacked precisely what he knew along side his mother as a child and what seems newly available to him should he continue to add to his already established relationship with professional botanists.

He leaves Dima behind, but his attachment to her facilitated his peers’ acceptance of him. It lends him some of the mystique men such as Dr. Chateau, of those who have been in the mountains for decades doing—who knows what?, possess. It lends him some of the mystique his relation Godrey possessed. Fitting more naturally to his new environment, he begins to distance himself from terminology, ways of thinking, he had adopted earlier. We are told, “Nobility, duty, sacrifice—
whose words are those? Not his. He is using them to screen himself from the knowledge of whatever is shifting in him” (54). He may well have used them, however, to enable such shifting to occur in the first place, for they too made him seem to embody, to partake in, a buoyant Victorian ethos. We note, though, that he describes himself as morosely beginning to doubt the real benefits and righteousness of Victorian expansionism. But he may be beginning to doubt the rightness of efforts by those such as Hooker he had previously hero-worshipped, because he is better prepared to detach from them as well.

That is, when he begins to doubt the legitimacy, the righteousness of his mapping efforts, he has become a skilled draftsman who has learned through trial and error how to articulate his environment through maps and notes, and an adventurer, who has successfully lead men through mountains. He is no longer an amateur. He has demonstrated to himself that he is worthy of the attention of people like Hooker. But perhaps, because not adjusting his estimations of Hooker and Godrey would entail an obligation to continue becoming like them, would limit his freedom, his ability to establish his own future, he now cooperates in making them seem less worthy of his loyalty. Time has come for him to leave even more behind him, to forage on ahead, a true trailblazer—now no mere servant of the map.

Work Cited

Barrett, Andrea. Servants of the Map: Stories. New York: Norton, 2002. Print.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now here's a breath of fresh air, and a very comfortable read. There are a couple of authors that I just know I'm going to like based on what I've heard about them and their works. So I pick up their books when I see them second hand, and say I'll read them some day - hence one tier of my 2015 Challenge, lol. Andrea Barrett is one of these authors (Ann Patchett is another). This is the first book of Barrett's - I have three - that I've read. And my assumption was right!

Servants of the Map is technically a short story collection. However, the individual stories aren't particularly short and they all turn out to be related to one another in some manner, big or small. In turn, these stories are connected to other books by Barrett. Which I now just HAVE to read and conveniently already own. I love it when a plan comes together.

I enjoy the links to scientific discovery that each story contains. Nowhere is it overly technical, but it does remind you that the great explorers and discovers had some mix of parents, wives, siblings, and children that they managed relationships with, along with the geopolitical realities of their times.

Andrea Barrett is extraordinarily economical with her prose. She can tell you more in a page and a half than most can in thirty pages, and do it elegantly, too! In this way, Servants stands in sharp and pleasant contrast with the long and dense The Great Glass Sea, which I recently finished.

And another thing about Barrett. Many authors use characters who are borderline insane or evil to drive conflict forward, or plot events that are cruel or violent, to show how their characters persevere. But pretty much everyone in Servants of the Map is within the bounds of what reasonable people would call normal. They might be interested in unusual things, but they are decent and human. As one review I read said, "How often do you find a story where two characters who are each likable themselves, fail to get along?" In fact the subtitle of this book could be: Servants of the Map: Adventures in Ambivalent Siblings. But even so, no one would say that these characters had it easy, and some had it very rough indeed.

I don't know, I feel like I'm really failing to do the book justice here. It hits all of my high points: invokes a strong sense of nostalgia? Check. Multiple narratives that don't progress linearly? Check. Geographic/scientific bent? Check. Wonderful and imaginative ways of turning a phrase? Yep, it's all here.

Final call:

Sometimes a person and book just click and this one did for me. Don't wait as long as I did to start reading Barrett!

This review was originally posted at roadmindwind.blogspot.com.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this collection of stories, and I will be exploring more of Barrett's work in the future. She weaves a subtle web of family connection and passion among the characters throughout her distinct tales, making them not so much a series as an interlocking puzzle. Key to that puzzle is the cognitive dissonance that unexpected interconnections sometimes create - a thesis that objective awareness and acceptance of these unexpected and untidy "coincidences" is vital to a full understanding and experience of life.

These characters, dedicated to objectivity in their various scientific fields, experience conflicts created by their own blind spots. A Victorian cartographer dedicates himself to making knowable to all the most remote areas of the world, while isolating himself from the people and places he should be most intimately familiar with. A preacher fervently attempts to reconcile a Biblical account with the natural evidence before his eyes, but his attachment to one theory betrays him. A sheltered young woman devoted to the dry and painstaking nature of paleontological classification struggles to put in order the tumult of her own biological passions. A young academic defining the cutting edge of biochemistry and an old lion resting on the laurels of his own antiquated and obsolescent life work experience a provocative and most unexpected meeting of minds that makes them both reflect on the past in ways they'd rather not. Young siblings are traumatically separated, then reunite decades later only to realize that life experience has played a far larger role in their respective identities and pursuits than have their shared genes. Throughout all, as some characters long for lost relatives, hoping they are out there somewhere and that their paths will cross again, while others interact with extended family without any awareness of recent biological kinship, Barrett poses a question: for human beings, what is the sociobiological importance of family?

[MicheleinNJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great book from Andrea Barrett, this one of short stories and novellas. It helps to have at least a rudimentary interest in science, but it is not absolutely necessary to enjoy her books. She weaves bits of science in with the lives of the people who inhabit her books, making it all interesting. While the main characters are fictional, in all her books Barrett also casually includes real people in minor roles in a way that I find delightful. In one story, "Theories of Rain," the main character visits a neighbor, William Bartram. This is a real person perhaps not recognized by all, but I used to work at Bartram's Garden, America's oldest living botanic garden, founded by John Bartram and his son William. Coming across William in this story was my small pleasure of the day. Another pleasure as you make your way through this book is recognizing characters from both other stories in "Servants of the Map," and especially from previous books she has written. It is like getting a few bonus pages from the previous books as you get to learn what happened to some of the main characters long after the book they were featured in ended. I highly recommend this, and all Barrett's books, to all.

[Tracey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I believe Servants of the Map was a recommendation from here - if so, thanks to whoever mentioned it!

It's a collection of short stories, with an overarching theme of how the study of science influences our lives. For example, the title story's protagonist is a cartographer, mapping the Himalayas at the turn of the century. There are also links between the characters in the different stories - sometimes hard to find (at least if you're reading this in bits & pieces). The characters were engaging, and the weaving in of the scientific aspects of the stories was skillfully done, as well as intriguing. Entomology, germ theory and the infancy of archealogy are examples of topics touched on in these stories.

This was a library read, but I'll keep an eye out for this book at the second hand stores - or make it my New Book Purchase of the Month.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since reading Ship Fever, I have become a huge Andrea Barrett fan. This collection of stories amazes with the links to those in her other collection. In "The Forest", she expands on her tale of the Marburg sisters, in essence diving into one of the openings she created in her initial story. Most of the stories she composes are riddled with esoteric scientific information and factoids, woven together like threads in a fine tapestry to create a complete story. In the title story, she takes a little known piece of history regarding the mapping of the Himalayas and weaves it together with the letters and imaginings of one of the mappers. It's a fascinating construct. I'm still not completely sold on some of her endings, but I always enjoy the ride.

[Rrshively · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short stories which are really connected in some way and seem more like a novel are the basis for this book. It was interesting to see how the various characters and even objects in a box were interconnected. All of the main characters in this book were curious about the natural world or science in some way. I was happy to meet again some characters that I had first met in Voyage of the Narwhal. Someday I would like to re-read the book and make a time line and diagram of how these people are interconnected. I was also very concerned for Max's safety at the beginning of the book. I hope it's not a spoiler to say that he survived his expedition to survey the mountains in the K1 and K2 area.

[Jennifer Osterman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought that I would like this book of short stories better than I did. The subject matter, natural history, is one of great interest to me, however I found the stories a bit dry. The 19th century views of science that she portrayed were quite entertaining, and the prose gave me the feel of walking though a Victorian museum filled with curio cabinets containing jars of esoterica with handwritten paper labels.

Many people who gave this book high reviews were entertained by the fact that these stories were populated with characters from some of her novels - perhaps if I had read the novels first, I would have been more engaged in the characters.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of stories is amazing. Andrea Barrett draws you into the lives of scientists as they mapped the Himalayas centuries ago to those researching today. Her control of point of view gives the reader the feeling they are living inside these people's heads, as the characters struggle to move science forward while living real lives. Powerful stuff.

[Filippa Depaolo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this beautiful collection of 4 stories and 2 novellas. Andrea Barrett got a degree in biology before becoming a writer so all of her characters are in the scientific realm: naturalists, nurses, botanists, surveyors. Each tale stands independently, but there are subtle links among the characters that are a treat to discover.

[Ferris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, after reading every book Barrett has written, each a fabulous and unique experience, she can still surprise me. She is able to weave characters from "Ship Fever" into a completely new collection of short stories. It is actually mindboggling to me. Fantastic!

[Magdelanye · Rating 4 out of 5]

These long stories concern themselves with the passionate dedication of those intrepid women and men whose commitment to their work became their whole life.

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the way her characters interweave throughout all the stories. Not just in this book, either. Her books make me want to be a scientist.

[Old Man JP · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely good collection of short stories. All are loosely based around science of some sort but are, primarily, about relationships. An unusual combination but well done in the hands Barrett.

[Kim Zinkowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book very much. I'd like to get it back.

[Aditi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sigh. I wanted to like this book so much more, because of its compassionate humanizing of scientists and their stories, struggles, humors. Each story is well crafted, and deeply rooted in the nature of those that seek answers from their world, sometimes compelled despite themselves and their circumstances. However, somehow these stories did not move me. I didn't feel connected to these characters and their struggles, which perhaps I had falsely expected I would, being a scientist myself. Despite the rich descriptions and beautiful prose, I found the stories wanting and the people difficult to empathize with. Despite experiencing many similar struggles in my own life, the stories failed to be evocative. The wonder and joy of the first discoveries felt manufactured and rote. The one thing I did love was the way in which all stories were connected; how seemingly loose ends and scattered characters created a whole. And if I had to pick a favorite from the collection, it would be the Cure. Overall, it is a fairly engaging read.

[Emma Wentworth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn’t finish this novel, as I couldn’t meaningfully engage in the stories presented to the reader by Barrett. The beginning story seemed to drag and I felt there was no narrative or desire to deliver real meaning. Dry and dull. Perhaps the story being told is just not an inspiring scientific journey to me.

The book was given to me as a gift in high school by one of my wonderful English teachers. Providing each student in her class with a unique book she felt called to each individual, this book was suggested to me for adventure and inspiration in travel and science.

I may return to try finishing this read, as I hate to give up on it after the personal sentiment was bestowed to it. I’ll be back to complete my full review if I can manage to swallow my boredom and patiently push through the text. Perhaps in doing so I can reveal more depth in the narrative and at last find entertainment in the read.

[Katie Scarlett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Andrea Barrett's book, Ship Fever, which won the 1996 National Book Award for fiction, is one of my favorite reads of the last 20 years, so I was both excited and a little nervous to read this Barrett story collection, published six years later. I'm happy to report that it did not disappoint.
Servants of the Map begins with the novella of the same name, which introduces Max Vigne, a self-taught botanist. Through letters to his wife and the narrative we become privy to Max's inner conflict between his love for his family and for field botany. As in this novella, nature and science are the backdrop for each of the remaining stories.
I don't want to have to use the spoilers alert, but I strongly suggest you read Ship Fever first to have the full experience of these two volumes.

[Eva Silverfine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Servants of the Map is the title story of a collection of stories. The volume caught my eye, simply because I am drawn to maps, and I am glad of that. The six stories are variably connected by characters and themes, each connecting the past to the present (although the “present” may well be in our past). In some stories this theme is echoed in the physicality of geology and fossils or book volumes of past theories of natural phenomena. Scientists—botanists, geologists, entomologists—individuals who study the world around them—live in these pages, made complex people with a range of motivations. The stories weave history, science, and people to yield exquisitely rendered explorations.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found this yet unread book on my shelf with a postcard dated August 08..Dear Meg sorry not to see you this time...really enjoyed Intuition by Allegra Goodman(I had lent it to her; my twin sister had given it to me; my husband is a biologist as is "Cath")...she goes on: I'm guessing you already know Andrea Barrett, but maybe not this collection--one of my favorites; well I just loved it and agree with my "reading buddy"; a bit of science, history and romance..all rolled into delicately told tales..right up my alley.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great read from Andrea Barrett. I really enjoy and envy the depth of her characterization. My interest in the subject matter waned from story to story, but I always found something to connect with in each story.
There is another book that includes some of these characters, which I will probably read and she has a book of short stories that recently came out. I love how she treats the subject matter and her character’s obsessions.
She’s a gifted writer and I look forward to reading more.