21st Century Literature discussion

What did you make of the novel as a whole? This is the thread to discuss any and all aspects of Euphoria in its entirety (spoilers allowed and encouraged so beware if you haven't yet finished).

I finished it last night and it's been buzzing around in my head. I dreamt about it last night; we were at Nell's wake and were discussing whether or not we could assume that there had been foul play, or that Fen was a bad person.

I really enjoyed the book. I massively identified with Bankson... is there much that's more compelling than a doomed love? Than feeling in your bones that this is right, but being told that pragmatic concerns mean it can never really be?

Going back to our discussion about the prose, I felt it was just right. As first person, it felt like his prose (or hers, in the diary extracts), and it got out of the way and let the story tell itself. There were some beautiful lines, but more importantly, I completely forgot that I was reading, that there *was* prose, and was there with Bankson, and Nell, feeling with them.

It s very sad and very real how their interactions ultimately affected the tribes they stayed with. Nell's gift/amends-giving via Bankson was extremely moving, as were Bankson's reflections on the consequences of his wartime rescue.

I do think that ultimately it was much about our inability to see others other than through the lens called our self. Fen's inability to do so cost everyone dearly. It wasn't limited to the tribes. He couldn't see his wife except through his own fears and envy and insecurities.

I also think it expertly explored the question of the validity of non-standard societal arrangements and relationships. We assume that our traditions have some precedence, that they make more sense than the alternatives, and the book calls this into question very well, without preaching. The way Nell summarised her quest was beautiful: searching for a groups of people who give each other room to be who they really are. It made me sad that she came so close to finding something like that in Bankson's, but was denied at the last.

Upon finishing Euphoria, I had goosebumps. A few days later, however I am struggling to form much of an opinion for some reason- so I will break it down.

The prose: as you said, Terry, was to me also very authentic. The voice was clear and genuine, the diary excerpts too were written just so. Warm, simple and clear. This is what I think made Euphoria so readable to me. It made the characters real people.

Fen was an incredibly insecure character, who it seems to me lost sight of his 'job' (passion?) as he projected his fears onto Nell and put the Tam people at massive risk in his quest for that 'flute'.

I think there is certainly a lot to be said for how Lily King portrayed anthropology. During the trio's venture along the Sepik river to find a 'suitable' tribe, I was struck with just how limited this vision was. Suitability - which meant a peachy location (search for a beach), and 'quality' art among other things. This latter, the idea of searching for a tribe with advanced art seemed to me as a need to find something Western in the tribes - skewing their research and view of the aboriginal people before even beginning.

There was of course the note of homosexual relationships running through this text - I almost wish this had been developed/explored more but recognise it would have been potentially inauthentic to do so. It was as if Nell was searching for a place SHE could be herself (not necessarily to live forever, but to know it existed).

Euphoria was a page-turner for me due, in part, to the authenticity of the voices as I mentioned above, but also to the central unrequited love and romance on Bankson's part. A very basic 'will they?! won't they?!' was on my mind at least and kept me flipping over. In saying that, and as I write, I can't help but feel I was also drawn in my the mystery of the tribes (what will happen?) and Fen's quest for the flute (impending doom).

There we are - my opinion drawn out in chunks. I wonder if it says anything that I don't hold much of an overall opinion? For me this maybe was not a masterful, stick-with-me novel - but it was fantastic and unique all the same.

I agree with most of what Terry said. When I first finished reading the book, back in September, I wrote a review. There I said: A beautiful book. The pieces slide together so neatly you don't notice them clicking into place. When I got to the end, I went back and double checked some early chapters to examine the connections more closely, and discovered an even denser weave than I had initially noticed.

The "doomed love" between Bankson and Nell was very compelling. At the end, it reminded me a bit of the end of A Farewell to Arms. Bankson's reaction to seeing Nell's button in the display case rang very true.

Charlotte commented on the note of homosexual relationships running through the text. I was very interested in Fen's reactions to Bankson. I think we had a true love triangle here. Both men were in love with Nell, and both Nell and Fen were in love with Bankson.

I thought the prose was perfectly suited to the story, and that the book was precisely the right length. Nothing extraneous add, no holes left.

Casceil wrote: "...no holes left. ..."

I've missed some of the "necessary pieces" about being an informer during WWII and the consequences. Sounded to me as if Bankson provided information to the Allies that rescued some men, but in the process a tribe or at least a village was wiped out?

Another one I missed was a clear sense of the conditions of Nell's apparent miscarriage while among the Mumbanyo?

I found Euphoria to be good storytelling. Is it literature that will last? I have my doubts.

I was relieved to find the story diverges significantly enough from that of the people who gave it inspiration that readers, particularly young readers, should be unlikely to conflate the people who lived and contributed to anthropology with the three lead characters in this novel. And that is not to say but what this story will definitely influence what may be searched for in their biographical accounts!

A second thought. As storytelling, Euphoria does remind me of James's The Aspern Papers -- the narrator looking at what he has done and experienced and felt.

After just finishing Blake Bailey's bio of John Cheever, I've been thinking about what constitutes great writing versus what my namesake here, Lily, refers to as good storytelling. There's a pejorative quality to saying something is good storytelling versus literature. I'm guilty of making those judgements all the time, and I'm trying to sort them out. So this is a bit of a detour.

Considered the American Chekov, Cheever was highly acclaimed during his later years. As esteemed as Updike and Bellow and Roth, he won the Pulitzer and many other prizes. He also was a favorite author for the New Yorker for many years. Is he read much today? No, except by writer who appreciate his prose and want to study his craft. Does that take away from his contributions to the writing world? I don't think so.

Euphoria is a skillfully constructed work, and it held my attention throughout for all of the reasons mentioned here. I was delighted to enter this world so unlike our own and am amazed that anthropologists take such extreme risks for their work. It's beyond fascinating. It's heroic.

While Lily King's work might not be read in 50 or even 25 years, it has captured many readers' attention and expanded their worlds. Perhaps that's all a writer can hope to do unless you are truly one of the great ones like Joyce and Dickinson.

I'll be interested in hearing your thoughts on the title and its overall meaning for the book.

@7Lily (IM) wrote: "There's a pejorative quality to saying something is good storytelling versus literature...."

Since I did not intend a pejorative connotation, merely a difference, perhaps I should have ended my statement at "I found Euphoria to be good storytelling."

I happen to be one of those who considers storytelling to be crucial and central to our identities as humans.

@7Lily (IM) wrote: "...I'll be interested in hearing your thoughts on the title and its overall meaning for the book...."

"Euphoria", as used in the book, reminds me of "flow" as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi used that term in his Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Sort of that peak sense of creativity when participating fully at the heart of some creative act viewed to have value.

Re Lily message 5: During WWII, Bankson provided his knowledge of the river and surrounding geography to help rescue some U.S. soldiers who were being hidden by a local tribe. The Japanese later wiped out the entire tribe in retaliation.

The details of Nell's first miscarriage are never spelled out. The strong implication was that Fen physically abused her in one of his temper fits.

I would have liked the novel to be longer. Not necessarily to give anything that was missing (I'm happy not to have everything explained), but to linger longer on the moments and details of what we already saw.

Casceil wrote: "Re Lily message 5: During WWII, Bankson provided his knowledge of the river and surrounding geography to help rescue some U.S. soldiers who were being hidden by a local tribe. The Japanese later wiped out the entire tribe in retaliation..."

Thx, Casceil. Okay. I missed some of the details of that, but what you write fits with my overall impression. Do we know if that correlates with a Bateson experience or is it a part of the wonderful (I mean that) fiction that King creates?

3/5 P.S. Just re-read the passage on p.37. Really couldn't be much clearer what Bankson did, but I understood its significance/meaning differently this time. The first time, it was like a puzzling factoid out of context. (How does the story get here?) Now it almost becomes an early statement of questioning of what have we as anthropologists done? A theme that will reappear.

The details of Nell's first miscarriage are never spelled out. The strong implication was that Fen physically abused her in one of his temper fits.

I had sensed that strong implication. Yesterday I found myself wondering if King had woven an open-ended murder mystery -- if a first violence had led to a miscarriage, had additional violence led to two, possibly three more deaths? (Let alone the murder of Xambun.)

I'll stay with my perception of LK as an apt spinner of stories.

Terry wrote: "I would have liked the novel to be longer. Not necessarily to give anything that was missing (I'm happy not to have everything explained), but to linger longer on the moments and details of what we..."

Can you suggest examples of where you might have liked more, Terry?

(I wanted more of the story of the flute. I felt it would have been easy for the casual reader to have missed its significance [evidence of an alphabet and written language]. Also, I wanted a bit more on what compelled Nell to throw it overboard. But thinking about that was what took me beyond just unfortunate tragedy to the murder mystery hypothesis. LK had spun the potential for both professional and sexual jealousy.)

I just wanted more moments, more scenes, more of each conversation, each encounter. I felt it held me in such a good place that I wanted to be held there longer. I wanted to travel more in step with their whole journey rather than have just snapshots of the key moments.

But maybe if I had that it would lose some impact in another way.

Terry wrote: "...But maybe if I had that it would lose some impact in another way. ..."

I understand the ambivalence, Terry. I did like the snapshots -- they did often leave me stopping to think, even if only briefly, what isn't said here? That power might have been lost, even as one wanted more.

Lily, as to what compelled Nell to throw the flute overboard. I think she felt she owed it to Xambun and Malun. Nell valued human life as sacred from an early age. Remember what she tells Bankson about her little sister? Very young Nell wanted to know what life was about, what purpose there was to it. And then she had a baby sister, to whom she was devoted, and felt her question had been answered. And then the baby sister died. She feels Xambun's death as a tragedy, and understands Malun's grief. She can't let Fen exploit the flute. I wondered why Nell didn't bail when Bankson gave her the opportunity. I think it was because she felt a duty to do something about the flute. From her last journal entry, she planned to get off the ship the next day and go back to Bankson. She didn't make it. I'm sure the missing flute put Fen into a temper, and that's why Nell started hemorrhaging, and why Fen wanted her buried at sea.

Lily M: I thought the title was pretty wrapped up in Nell's explanation to Bankson: "‘It’s that moment about two months in, when you think you’ve finally got a handle on the place. Suddenly it feels within your grasp. It’s a delusion— you’ve only been there eight weeks— and it’s followed by the complete despair of ever understanding anything. But at that moment the place feels entirely yours. It’s the briefest, purest euphoria.’"

She asks him if he's ever experienced it and he says no but in her presence he does begin to experience it (or share her experience of it).

A lot of scenes/passages from this book stuck with me. Two that spring to mind:
- Bankson realizing he never even considered offering his brother Martin's glasses to Bett the way he did with Nell
- That kind of simple but beautiful intimacy Bankson and Nell share when they're typing side-by-side while Tarzan is off on his flute adventure

Marc wrote: "Lily M: I thought the title was pretty wrapped up in Nell's explanation to Bankson: "‘It’s that moment about two months in, when you think you’ve finally got a handle on the place. Suddenly it feel..."

Marc -- Thx for pulling that quotation. I agree with that, too. I don't think it is entirely different from the "flow" Csikszentmihalyi talks about, although he does tend to emphasize the continuity possible to attain with discipline rather than the short intense periods followed by doubt.

Casceil wrote: " I'm sure the missing flute put Fen into a temper, and that's why Nell started hemorrhaging, and why Fen wanted her buried at sea...."

Well, I'll agree that's a logical interpretation of the story as LK tells it.

The morality/sacredness of causing its permanent disappearance is an interesting question/decision.

How sad is this... I was trying to stay up and finish last night and couldn't keep awake (having nothing to do with the quality of the book), so I finished this morning. I completely missed that Nell threw the flute overboard until I saw it mentioned above.

Lily, I think that "Flow" is very much a part of the anthropologists being fully engaged in their work (you can see it when the three of them are grooving on Helen's manuscript and developing the Grid), but what Nell is describing seems much more egocentric (whereas "Flow" is less emotional/ego-driven and more about being so engaged in the moment everything comes naturally and time passes almost unnoticed). I'm only making this distinction because the ego seems to be such a key part of this book (how one sees what one wants to see, identifying/searching for a way of being that fits the individuals, etc.).

I really found it fascinating that Fen is the one that talks about giving up the concept of the individual to be part of the group (e.g., getting lost in the celebration/dance) and yet his is the strongest ego/sense of individualism. Among the tribes, isolation/privacy equals danger; whereas, the West seems to have developed laws and customs to protect/secure that very thing (as readers, I imagine many of us are given to needing/wanting a fair amount of alone time, but still searching for a shared community... as if GoodReads were a tribe we felt fit us better).

OK, I have moved the following comment from another thread. I wasn't paying attention to things....


I felt compelled to source the Amy Lowell poem that Nell quoted to Bankson.

A Decade
By Amy Lowell

When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.
Now you are like morning bread,
Smooth and pleasant.
I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,
But I am completely nourished. - 1919

The poem is also referenced in the final line of her diary that Bankson reads. I was quite moved by the way Nell took her beloved Victorian poem and wrapped in in with the the beliefs of the Tam.
"He is bread and wine and deep in my stomach"
(Chapter 28).

Marc wrote: "...what Nell is describing seems much more egocentric..."

Interesting distinction you make, Marc. I hadn't put ego into "euphoria" so much as a sense of rapture, but what you say makes sense. Now, to think how it all fits an overarching theme for the book.... (I might have applied "euphoria" also to some of the communal rituals of the natives or even to at least parts of the ways they chose to live.)

Rather sadly, to my mind, M-W defines euphoria as "a feeling of well-being or elation; especially: one that is groundless, disproportionate to its cause, or inappropriate to one's life situation." Applied literally, that could lend a dark cast to the book's title? Belied a bit by the book cover's gay colors of the rainbow gum tree, which seem so cheerful and upbeat? And symbolic of the native tribes? Or of Nell's relationship with them? Or?

Lily, that makes a lot of sense. Euphoria carries with it a sense of the temporary, the limited. A brief span, allotted once then subject to repeated attempts to return. This could definitely apply to do many of the relationships in the book... Nell and Fen, Nell and her lover (whose name I've forgotten and I don't have the book to hand), relationships with the tribes... even Nell and Bankson eventually, probably (the real historic version didn't last forever).

On "euphoria", from a review by Carole McGranahan, for Paul Shankman, professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado:

"'Euphoria' refers to that point fieldwork when, for the first time, everything starts to make sense to Nell. Things become familiar; the confusion and frustration of the first months in the field give way to a period of intense productivity and sympathetic understanding."

The review itself (worth reading): http://savageminds.org/2014/09/04/the...

This location has a link to another review of a book by Paul Shankman speaking to controversy that has attended the work of Margaret Mead:
http://savageminds.org/2010/10/13/the...

It would have been an excellent ending if King would have bothered to show us the climatic ending rather than tell us.

How utterly underwhelming to read about it through Bankson. The opportunity to show great dramatic scene was tossed overboard. WHY?

We readers never get to be like Fen and experience life with this couple. We are kept as distant observers the whole time.

Oh! Is that the parallel? Is that some sort of clever literary device--keeping us as observers?

Sorry, that don't work for me.

I don't know why, but I still like this book, warts and all, and I am glad to have read it. Even though the anti-climatic part disappoints me I do love the last chapter and the last sentence about the button. That was an excellent touch.

I'll be a little more wary in picking up another King book, though, I can't trust her.



P.S. Did anyone else pick up that Fen was a physical abuser as well as a verbal/emotional abuser? I didn't see that until the end. Not until the natives told Bankson and even then I didn't connect the dots that Fen killed Nell by beating her and causing her to bleed to death.

I liked the consistency of knowing everything through Bankson. I think King very deliberately shows us this event through Bankson's eyes; it plays up the uncertainty about what actually happens, and seems real -- some of the most important things in our lives can happen while we're not there. I'm a big fan of things happening off-camera if it's done in the right way. Piecing together something from clues and responses can be just as it not more thrilling than seeing it, for me.

I'm with Terry. Also I disagree about this book being so much more tell than show. Particularly in the section where the three anthropologists are together talking about Helen's book. We get to see their thought processes in action. This was the point for me where Fen rose above stock bad-guy. He had independent ideas and contributed to the developing synthesis of the grid. I had been wondering how Nell hooked up with this loser, but that scene showed me the Fen that Nell first met. In my work I've done a fair amount of intellectual collaboration, and that chapter read as very true to me. Fen was carrying his weight and advancing the process, not just spouting comments that others would disregard.

I also think the foreshadowing was an important set-up in terms of making that ending work. If we'd had no inkling that anything bad was going to happen, then killing her off-screen might have been a let-down from my point of view... but he talked about not having time, we knew he had her journals from Helen... the whole timbre of how he talked about their liaison was tinged with a certain fatalism... I didn't know at the time it meant she died so soon and in that way, but when it happened, it felt right, it felt like the right payoff.

I don't have a problem with the ending itself but rather the delivery.

King had no problem with shifting from perspectives although she liked to stick with Bankson's POV most of all. There are parts in which the book is simply narrated--chapter one, for example.

She could have shifted to narration for the climax.

I'm glad the author did not switch to narration for the climax. The narration was sort of necessary in the very beginning to give us an overview of the characters, but once she established Bankson as the "voice" of the book, she gave us everything from his point of view. This included what he learned later, and Nell's journal entries fall within what he learned later, but switching back to an omniscient narrator at the end would just have felt wrong.

Bankson's is the relating of all of it. The way I read it, he's narrating chapter one, although he wasn't there. Of course, he could have narrated Nell's end, but he knew less about it for sure -- virtually nothing -- whereas I assume he pieced together or was told the first chapter.

Non-reader here with a question: Why do you think the author chose to mix up anthropology with a love story? It could have been about war or politics or gossip or a number of other things.

As soon as I ask that question, I think, Well, yeah, we're very sexy critters. Any version of anthropology that fails to hold this primary aspect in focus would fail.

Do the two foci in this work reflect each other well or poorly?

Reading the book, it's not so much "two foci" as parts of a spectrum. A major theme in the book is how people get to know each other, and to what extent a person's perceptions of someone else say as much about the observer as they do about the observed.

I see. Thanks.

I would argue many of the themes people have seen and praised in this novel are simply inherent in the material. Isn’t it anthropology itself that invites many of the questions people have praised King for raising? The real question is, did King develop these themes? For me this was essentially an intelligent romantic novel. What most interested King was clearly the love triangle. She was at her best when dealing with the tensions uniting and separating Nell, Fen and Bankson. The best chapters for me were when the various tribes were little more than wallpaper. (It doesn’t surprise me that real anthropologists found her depictions of the Sepik river tribes somewhat patchy and vague.) The real story perhaps was the egotistic male’s jealousy of his female counterpart’s success. The tyranny of patriarchy demanding a supporting role from the female. King offset this with the matriarchal culture of the Tam. This part worked well for me. As did the almost supernatural prophetic mirroring of Bankson and Xambun. Were there deep layers of cultural meaning emerging from the Nell-Fen-Bankson triangle? I’d say nothing we learned isn’t part of accepted knowledge about male/female relations of that time or so-called civilised society’s attitude towards indigenous cultures.

I think I realised about half way through that I was reading this book wrong. I was looking for things that simply weren’t there. Were I to read it again I suspect I might enjoy it a lot more. I also have the suspicion it’ll be one of those novels that could be better as a film because I was rarely convinced King was technically in command of her material.

In answer to your question Lacewing, I would say the romance very much came first and the anthropology was shovelled in afterwards. I never felt King felt any real love for or applied much intellectual rigour to her anthropological research. I agree with Casceil and Terry that she did a good job of energising the intellectual collaboration between the three protagonists but all the stuff about the tribes themselves seemed a bit cut and paste to me.

Just read what i wrote and feel like a horrible killjoy! Euphoria is a really good story. And I reckon, in the right hands, it could make a brilliant film. And a film would take care of all the show don't tell issues!

I have to say, I find myself agreeing less and less with each post you make about the novel, Violet.

I would find it hard to separate Nell and Bankson (and Fen) from who they were professionally. The whole seemed to me an excellent marriage of foreground and context, with the linking device of the the title and the euphoric moment it refers to. I agree that the book wasn't really about the tribes, but it was partly about how the three of *them* felt about the tribes, and by extension how people see the world around them through their own filters.

I think it's easy to say that anthropology itself contains these issues, but these to me are core truths about life that I see billions of people act as though they are ignorant of. I found the novel to bring these themes into sharp relief. In 2015, I think it's incredibly high bar to expect novels to have something entirely novel to say about the world. I'm happy if they bring something to the fore that makes me think more deeply about something I more or less already knew, or certainly that others in general knew.

I'm still a little vague on what King did that could suggest that she wasn't in command of her material. From my point of view, she seemed to have a definite aim, and employed means which amply achieved it for me. At no point did I get the sense that anything was accidental or careless. The anthropology seemed less of a part of the book than it might had she selected something different to be her story, bbut it certainly didn't seem shovelled in or cut and pasted to me. I find it almost impossible to imagine the love triangle and the characters that compose it without that context, and I think it would have been a completely different book.

As I've said before, no two people read the same book, so of course each person's mileage varies, of course. As you've said, perhaps your expectations were a key factor. It's very easy to want a different book, a different story, to the one the writer chose to tell, but from my point of view I feel that King very carefully, deliberately and expertly chose the elements and factors that would tell the specific story she wanted to tell.

Terry, I’m sure you’re right. I think my problem is I simply don’t feel very strongly for this novel one way or another. It’s true I might have enjoyed it more had I read it last month or next month.
One thing though, when I worked as a reader at a literary agency I was told every sentence, every paragraph, every page should be taut like the string of a musical instrument that when plucked gives off a true note. Too often I found King was writing sentences, paragraphs, pages that were drifting me outside of the novel. I suppose without citing every example this seems like a wholly subjective and rather pedantic complaint but here’s one example from late in the novel – “A tall brooding slightly unhinged Englishman is bound to capture the romantic imagination of some girl, and there was one from Shropshire who followed me around for a week or so, but she came to understand that my dark silences were never going to bloom into confessions of love, and took up with an Irish soldier.” Not only has she drifted us outside the story here, she’s also needlessly detracted some of its pathos. It’s a daft bit of writing that should have been edited out. This is what I mean about her not being wholly in command of her material. The lynchpins of the story I felt were great. The execution I liked a lot less.

I'd argue (as I'm sure would King and her literary publisher) that that sentence is purposeful (I prefer this word to 'taut'; every word should serve a useful purpose and there should be no 'fat', just lean... taut to me implies suspense which is not needed at all times).

It seems to me that whether it helps the story depends on what the story is. This sentence tells me, quite quickly and economically, about Bankson's life, a particular aspect of it, in the aftermath. It doesn't seem daft to me.

I don't think these things can help but be subjective. I'm not sure I'm right at all; I don't really believe there is a right. I can only comment on how something resonated or otherwise with me, and try to say why, as is true for all of us.

I liked that sentence. I remember liking it when I read it in context. I think it conveys a lot in a neat package. "A tall, brooding, slightly unhinged Englishman" gives us Bankson's view of how he must come across to others. "Bound to capture the imagination of some girl" is also a sort of self-deprecating way of explaining away why anyone might be attracted to him. "But she came to understand that my dark silences were never going to bloom into confessions of love, and took up with an Irish soldier," tells us that the girl was romanticizing a type of man, and suggests she was being a bit silly. That also tells us a bit about what Bankson thinks of himself. Only a silly romantic girl would be attracted to him. I think the sentence is an effective word-portrait of Bankson's self-image.

I neither loved it nor hated it though the award and plaudits it won certainly had me expecting something more exciting. I think perhaps the love interest swamped it – seemed to me King was more interested in the romantic feeling Nell inspired than in Nell herself - and if you weren’t particularly bothered about who Nell was going to end up with, as I wasn’t, there wasn’t a whole lot ultimately to hold your interest. I would have liked to have known more about Nell and Fen.

Does it matter that New Guinea apparently does not have indigenous monkeys? Especially given that King attributes the following proverb as the most repeated of the TAM: "Not even a monkey walks alone." p158

Somehow, that little factoid has grown in significance to me as I have continued to think about the novel and despite how much I enjoyed the read.

I find myself wondering if these three knew that: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/prize/j...

PS 10/11/15: The above link no longer leads to the judges who awarded the Kirkus prize to Euphoria. On a quick search, I don't find a current link to serve the purpose intended.

Lily,
I hadn't really considered it, but I think there is a dark cast to the book's title (especially given the definition you shared). And thank you for the links!

I also thoroughly enjoyed this book--found it quick and engaging, as well as fascinating for the anthropology issues it brought up and the whole watching-the-watchers aspect, but I couldn't help feeling like I was following a romance in the tabloids ("Bankson says Nell gripes about Fen every chance she gets!" "Fen goes native after hoped-for love triangle fails."). It was like the backdrop gave it gravitas but the actual characters seemed... self-absorbed? juvenile? Not sure of the right word here. Part of this was the point (I think Bankson says something to the effect that maybe all anthropology is self-reflection), but it felt like it was handled without the depth these characters warranted (was Fen really that much of a neanderthal?). More guilty pleasure than fully-rounded characterization maybe...

Marc wrote: "...was Fen really that much of neanderthal?..."

I think we must consider Fen to be the character King gives us. What similarities he shares with Reo Fortune seems quite another matter. For one sense of Fortune's personality, contributions to anthropology, and career difficulties after divorcing Mead, try: https://ojs.lib.byu.edu/spc/index.php...

I did find myself musing, although observation is certainly different than interventionism for anthropological studies, in what ways was Fen's participation with the men greater than or less than Nell's introduction of western toys to the children.

Glad the links were of interest, Marc.

It was actually a lot of the anthropology issues that intrigued me about this book. What does it mean to observe vs. intervene? Bankson makes comments about Fen and Nell's approach almost being like colonialism (they move in, build a big place, and get the locals to serve them). It seemed like there are/were a lot of issues at play: white privilege, power relations, etc. Not knowing anything about the real world anthropologists, I didn't observe or care about historical/factual discrepancies much, but I did think both Nell and Fen came up a bit short as characters (I think Ben phrased it well when he wrote: "seemed to me King was more interested in the romantic feeling Nell inspired than in Nell herself").

As the first chapter was written in the third person you’ve got to assume King experimented with this method of telling the story and discarded it as either not suited to the story she wanted to tell or too difficult to sustain. The story she wanted to tell was clearly the love triangle. I though think there was a much richer story which, as Marc suggests, involved developing the characters of Nell and Fen more and diminishing what at times came across as the schoolboy crush of Bankson. If this is what Violet means by not having full command of her material I would agree. And it would also have resolved the problems Tome reader had about virtually all the action taking place offstage – I’d agree King sacrificed a lot of dramatic excitement by telling so much of this story, something the film won’t do. I’d have preferred the novel to begin with Nell and Fen with the Mumbanyo. We could have seen up close how the dark atmosphere of that tribe affected relations between Nell and Fen. Fen could have been given more body as a character instead of rather cheaply been restricted to pantomime villain. It’s a shame Martin, our writer, isn’t here because I would imagine and would like to ask him if writing historical fiction in the third person doesn’t demand a more thorough researching of your subject whereas a journal narrative allows a lot of slack as does a first person narrative because both concentrate more on the inner than the outer.

Thanks for all these links, Lily. I’m enjoying learning about the real life models for Nell, Fen and Bankson.

Ben, I’m going to shut up regarding my misgivings. I’ve just read lots of the reviews here on Goodreads and us sceptics are very much in the minority so I’m going to put down my lack of enthusiasm to personal taste. I agree though that it will make a cracking film because it’ll address some of the misgivings some of us had regarding the show/tell issue.

Oh Violet, never shut up because you're in the minority. Your misgivings are every bit as valid and interesting as other peoples praise.

I am enjoying everyone's perspectives here. I get so much out of these discussions. So much to think about.

Ha ha. Thanks Tome. Yep, I'm really enjoying the discussion too. And it'd be boring if we all agreed.