Ann Patchett: "State of Wonder"
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-06-08/ann-patchett-state-wonder
Melissa Ann Pinney
Writer Ann Patchett describes herself as a housewife with a dog, who rarely leaves the home. But she has an adventurous imagination. Her sixth novel starts in Minnesota and quickly takes readers on an Indiana Jones-type journey deep into the Amazon. A female doctor is sent by the pharmaceutical company who employees her on an odyssey into the jungle. Her mission: to find a missing scientist and the secret lab where she’s developing a drug that acts like the fountain of youth for women. It’s a tale of medical ethics, cultural respect, friendship and love.
Guests
Ann Patchett
author of six novels, including "Bel Canto," which won the Pen/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize.
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Program Highlights
Aging, Medicine, Love, and Friendship
Ann Patchett's latest novel takes readers deep into the heart of the Amazon. It's a tragic comic adventure tale, replete with poison arrows, deadly snakes and rumors of cannibals.
Patchett says that she's perfectly happy imagining places that she may not necessarily have visited in person as settings for her novels. She did visit the Amazon, though, and said she thought it was the most beautiful and exciting place she had ever been for about three days. But by the seventh or eighth day, she says, she would have sold her soul to get out because the leaves and jungle cover were making her claustrophobic.
Patchett also experienced some of the Amazon's wildlife more closely than she would have preferred. On a boat tour, one of the fellow passengers, who turned out to be a naturalist, pulled a 15-foot anaconda into their skiff. "I wanted to leave that boat. I did," Patchett said.
Patchett's Writing Process
When she's writing, Patchett says, her characters come alive for her and she believes in them completely. "However, I will say that I am not one of those writers who says, and then the characters took the novel over and I had no idea what was going to happen and I was just typing like mad and they were talking, talking, talking. No," she said.
"Someone asked me at a reading last night, do you miss your characters when the book is over? Never. And I never think of them again. When the book is over, it's finished, I never read it again once I've finished copy editing it. I never have gone back and looked at any of my books," Patchett said.
Opening a Bookstore
Patchett surprised some listeners by revealing that she is opening her own bookstore where she lives in Nashville. "We lost our independent bookstores," she said. "There is not a bookstore in Nashville...I can't live in a city that doesn't have a bookstore." Patchett says she hopes to have the store up and running by Christmas.
Read an Excerpt
Excerpt from "State of Wonder" by Ann Patchett. Copyright 2011 by Ann Patchett. Excerpted by permission of Harper.
State of Wonder: Ann Patchett
Comments
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Interesting interview, but I am left in a "State of Wonder".
For instance:
Being somewhat familiar with boats, skiffs and dinghies, I wonder a bit about the overall accuracy of this author's OTHER comments. She mentions being aboard a 12 foot skiff along with eight other individuals. So I think about the physics of this situation, nine people in a twelve foot skiff. Even if the boat was twelve foot wide, that would allow less than two square feet per person, think about it. And then one of the occupants reaches outside the boat and grabs a wild FIFTEEN foot anaconda snake.
NINE PEOPLE IN A 12 FOOT DINGHY AND THROW IN A FIFTEEN FOOT ANACONDA SNAKE. Come on, lady..... Did all of those people stay aboard when that large fanged constrictor of a snake joined them on their boat ride?
Just how naive does this woman think we are? And becoming claustrophobic in a forest because of all of the leaves and no safe paths for a "walk in the park". She blames the claustrophobia on the hazards that are present out in the jungle, killer bees, killer ants.... come on, give me a break. But she goes off in a 12 foot skiff together with eight other people and a 15 foot anaconda......
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I was particularly fascinated by the reference in the last paragraph of the flap cover front page to "Hearts of Darkness" since this clearly is similar to that genre of Conrad. Also, I see a strong combination here in Ann Patchett's work to a merger of Richard Powers (lots of science) and Allegra Goodman (scientists working in a lab environment). I thoroughly enjoyed Ann's book, but am not sure how the title relates. Who is in a state of wonder? Marina I guess, or maybe the natives, because they chew the bark and eat the mushrooms all the time. As usual, at the end of the novel, we wonder what happens next to the characters? Does Marina stay at Vogel? What about her relationship to Mr. Fox? How about a sequel?
Before the Grieving
by isitpoetry
Before the grieving, I kept some not all but youth to keep.
And who she is I dreamed she was.
Since who I am, she is the wind and calmed the sea.
When after hell and heaven came to just before.
Then after is before it was the water there along it breaks.
Or being thus along the shore she struggled on the tower.
Maids and woman change and break the stubborn man.
Up the stalk I climb to fetch the rose.
Or paddle backwards to meet fate the head her master.
She is navigated by the sun,
and yellow young my sorrow twisted by, she never is.
I shot the fingerman with arrows hers passing by the leafy bud.
Falling down unto the ground I heard the snapping twig.
Often do the winds remind the field less of't of what she did.
A cave where water holds no shape,
and sand the sea wont take one angel makes.
Is It Poetry
For all the impressive research that clearly went into this engaging book, I was surprised to hear Marina recall having read "somewhere years ago" that "A butterfly rests with its wings open and a moth rests with its wings closed." Her source or her memory has gotten that bit of comparative behavior in reverse.
Quibble, quibble.