Oh, and did I mention that the Fallen series, of which it is the penultimate volume, is being marketed as the next Twilight (with a Disney movie to follow)?
I was therefore pleasantly surprised to find the novel features both an interesting plot and comparatively hyperbole-free writing style.
Central to the story is Daniel (one of seven fallen angels who hold the balance of power between Heaven and Hell) and the mortal Lucinda (Luce for short just in case you missed the symbolic significance). Perfect soulmates, they are fated to be forever separated by love, the mortal Luce consumed by Daniel's immortal passion and reincarnated only to die in his arms once more.
Only now the pattern has shifted, and Luce has discovered a way to travel back through her past lives. Determined to understand and undo the curse, she travels further and further into the past in search of clues, pursued both by Daniel, terrified he will lose her forever, and other forces terrified she will succeed.
While I don't think I will bother with the rest of the series, it was an entertaining diversion and I think that fans of supernatural affaires-de-cour will be well satisfied.
The author, Daniel H. Wilson, has a PhD in robotics and his prewar world, where self-drive cars and basic household robots are a normal part of life, is not too far removed from now. In this respect the scenario is much more realistic than that of Transformers or Terminator, but it falls down in other ways. Each episode is bracketed by Comac's commentary, so we are repeatedly told how important this particular character or event is to the course of the war.
Many are also transcripts of oral accounts, yet protagonists talk as though writing rather than narrating a story (which is made more irritating by the occasional extract that is in the appropriate register).
That said, it is a good story and will make a great movie. Spielberg and Dreamworks have been involved in the project from the start, and I suspect it will be coming to a cinema near you soon.
At the furthest reaches of the Rio Negro is a tribe where the women bear children for their entire adult lives. In the hope of discovering the secret of their extended menarche, a major pharmaceutical company has been paying Dr Annick Swenson to live and work among them for several years. Much to the frustration of the investors, however, not only is there no sign of the groundbreaking new infertility treatment they dream of, Dr Swenson refuses to even provide progress reports.
Pharmacologist Anders Eckman is dispatched to visit the elusive researcher and persuade her to speed up her work, but three months go by with little news. Then a telegram arrives informing them that Anders has died and been buried in the jungle. His colleague Marina Singh is sent to complete his mission. Once a student of Dr Swenson's, Marina is terrified of both the physical dangers of the journey and the thought of facing a woman whose approval once meant everything to her, but she is left with little choice.
When she finally encounters her former mentor, the doctor appears as indomitable as Marina remembers, but their relationship gradually shifts towards something approaching equality.
Not only does she begin to understand Dr Swenson, Marina discovers she is needed in ways she could never have imagined.
Patchett combines mystery and adventure with contemporary ethical issues in pharmacogenetics. Should women in their 60s and beyond expect (or be expected) to carry children? What are the consequences of Western researchers becoming involved in the lives of indigenous cultures? Is providing any outside assistance a moral obligation or prohibited lest it foster dependence? Is it better to exploit such people to develop a drug for the rich or one for the poor?
This may sound heavy-handed, but they arise naturally as a consequence of the subject matter, and Patchett provides no easy answers to such complex and troubling questions, leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions.
But it is Marina's journey of self-discovery and the gradual humanisation of the enigmatic Dr Swenson that drive the novel. While the author cites Werner Herzog rather than Joseph Conrad as her major influence, this is a circle already closed by Apocalypse Now, and the novel resounds with echoes of Heart of Darkness. Yet Dr Swenson is a more sympathetic character than Kurtz, and as a scientist I identified closely with the dedication and self-sacrifice that her work requires of her. In State of Wonder there is darkness, but there is magic too, and the possibility that this time the horror can be faced and overcome.
It is set on a small island occupied only by a young girl called Minou, her philosopher father, a priest who is afraid of the dark, a former magician who makes boxes for sawing women in half and his dog called No Name. Minou's mother used to live there too, but she went for a walk one morning and never returned. The adults think she is dead, but Minou is certain she will return and is writing down everything that happens so she can tell her about it when she gets back.
For the adults the island is a sanctuary; Minou's parents are refugees (from what war and when we are not told), Boxman has a broken heart and Priest keeps the lights of the church on all night to ward off the terrors that have driven him there. For Minou, it is encompasses everything she knows, although the security of her universe has been undermined her mother's disappearance. Then one day the outside intrudes in the shape of a dead boy washed up on the shore. While they wait for the supply boat to collect his body Minou and her father take turns to sit with him, he in the hopes of finding Truth, she to keep him company. But it is Minou, and not her father, who finds answers that she needs.
The story is told by Minou and moves between the three days of waiting, the history of the island and the events leading up to her mother's departure (which Minou believes is her fault).
Her narrative is like a child's drawing, full of bright primary colours and surprising details enlarged to unusual size; her mother's arrival on the island in a rowboat accompanied only by a peacock in a golden bowl, her neighbours named only for their occupation, the scarves Minou knits for everybody, including the dog.
She reports things without fully understanding them, leaving much unsaid but rich with implication, and can be read as fairy tale, a piece of magical realism reminiscent of Angela Carter, or as an allegory for the first, tentative intrusions of adult concerns into the world of childhood. It also deals sensitively with the emotions that accompany the loss of a parent, and would be an ideal story to share with a child going through the grieving process.
It is hard to define who the intended audience for this novel is, for older readers will get as much enjoyment out of it as the young adult audience it will probably be marketed towards.
This is a novel that will stay on my shelves for my daughter to read one day.
- Dr McKinney is a Dunedin scientist.
PASSION
Lauren Kate
Doubleday
ROBOPOCALYPSE
Daniel H. Wilson
Simon & Schuster
STATE OF WONDER
Ann Patchett
Bloomsbury
THE VANISHING ACT
Mette Jakobsen
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