I had been doing so good this year with keeping up with my book post, but suddenly I find myself now three book behind... and it's not like I can blame that I am reading so fast or that the books are so short (particularly the one in this post). But have been dealing with some "stuff" recently -- which I am no longer blogging about (not sure the last time I blogged something fairly personal/"real life") -- so I'll blame the backlog on that! But anyhow... onto the next book!
I am really not sure what is going on between myself and Ann Patchett. She seems to have vaulted herself to the upper echelons of great American writers and while I find her books to be quite good, there is a part of me that is just not getting all the fuss.
This is third Patchett book I have read. Eons ago, I recall good things about the first book I read of hers, The Magician's Assistant, and I didn't read anything else until her acclaimed novel, Bel Canto (here's a link back to my review from December 2007!). That my first real "hmm?" moment with her in that I, as what I just said above, it was good, but not great... which seemed to put me in the minority. So as critics and regular readers alike were swooning over her latest book, State of Wonder, I figured I'd give it a chance (and not reluctantly), but ... cutting to the chase... I still found it to be quite good -- or "competent" is even a better word -- but just did not all gel into this cohesive "wow" reading experience.
As is often the case with books, it seemed as if the parts were greater than the whole. Barring a terrific early scene where she has to break the bad news to a co-worker's wife, it took me awhile to get on board with Patchett's protagonist, Dr. Marina Singh, who travels to Amazon to investigate the death of her pharmaceutical company co-worker (who was down there investigating yet another of the company's employees, a research doctor who had "gone rogue.") Marina has the gravitas of supporting player, but thrust to front and center, it is a case of varying degrees of success.
The problem is that I think Patchett creates such a literary rock-star with the mysterious and "rogue" Dr. Annick Swenson, that that character overshadows all the others, even before she (Annick = female) makes her first appearance in the book, though there is a quite pleasant surprise of young Easter, a native Amazonian, who becomes the emotional heart of the book. But even beyond that, I believe the true star of the book, perhaps even eclipsing Dr. Swenson, is the Amazon itself. I found the book to be a bit of a slog at times -- and I mean that in a complimentary way -- as Patchett really makes you feel the soupiness of the air, the thickness and oppressiveness of the jungle and all of its inhabitants always bearing down on it.
There is a lot of fascinating and highly original stuff going on here along with plenty of twists that I would be skeptical to believe if anyone said they saw them coming. But again, I found them to be in varying in their success. I love a good surprise, but some stretched beyond my realm of believability (and I'm not even talking about the craziest one, which I was quite willing to play along with). The ending I found to be a bit rushed and an odd mix of "neat bow" tying and a lot of loose strings.
I struggled my rating for this book. I will be the first to admit, I hold authors of the caliber of Patchett to higher standard than others and giving State of Wonder 3.5 stars. Goodreads doesn't have those 1/2 star ratings, so while I felt I should round it up to 4 stars, even with my perceived flaws with it, there really does seem so much to "talk" about (a great "book club" book). But my gut was that it was quite good and competent, but ultimately I was a bit disappointed ... yet another victim of hype and high expectation, that can hardly be blamed on the author or the book, but inescapable in rendering my final verdict of the round-down to 3 stars. Tho again, I hedge that by saying by no means should a 3-star Patchett should not be compared with a 3-star Stephenie Meyer (my regular Twilight whipping post, but ideal example) or even a 3-star Alexander McCall Smith (a favorite author who I quite enjoy, but who I don't read for "great" writing).
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