DICTIONARY.COM; THESAURUS.COM; MEANINGS. It's probably impossible to avoid making comparisons between Ann Patchett's new novel STATE OF WONDER and Joseph Conrad's classic novella "Heart of Darkness," so I'm not even going to try. The letter reports the death of Dr. Anders Eckman, Swenson's colleague at a drug research site in the Amazon rainforest. Patchett's heroine leaves her comfort zone in Eden Prairie armed with little more than the talismans of Western civilization: a volume of Henry James, a back issue of the New England Journal of Medicine and a high-tech, GPS-enabled cell phone so sophisticated that it can "make a phone call from Antarctica". The drug whose research Vogel is funding is one that will prevent or undo menopause and allow women to give birth throughout their lives. 1 a : to be in a state of wonder. Patchett's South American jungle is bursting with creepy-crawly people and insects, all of which pose a potentially lethal threat to the novel's civilized scientific wayfarers. Wonderment is a synonym for the noun definition of wonder.It is a noun meaning a state of reverence or adoration. They swim in the river in packs with "their long throats stretched up like turtles" and they swarm in a beam of light like massive schools of oversized fish. She is also Associate Director of the Columbia University Center for the Critical Analysis of Social Difference. Fernanda Eberstadt calls the novel “an engaging, consummately told tale.” In the same newspaper, Janet Maslin’s review praises the novel, writing that “this book’s central issue, its unresolved rivalry…[is] the dragon of a teacher who lurks somewhere in every student’s academic history.” [2], Laura Ciolkowski calls it “a suspenseful jungle adventure with an unexpected ending and other assorted surprises,” but complains about the novel's “tendency to…offer up a curiously clichéd view of life beyond the knowable edges of home.” [3] Susan Storer Clark writes that "Patchett’s gift for combining the mythic with the practical, her ability to create memorable characters and truly ingenious plot twists make State of Wonder a rich and rewarding read."[4]. She travels to the Amazon seeking answers for herself (about the mysterious circumstances of Anders' death and about the meaning of her own life) and information for the Vogel Pharmaceutical Company (about Dr. Swenson and her progress in the development of a revolutionary new fertility drug). http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/books/chi-books-review-state-of-wonder-patchett,0,1721600.story. It is the story of pharmacologist Marina Singh, who journeys to Brazil to bring back information about seemingly miraculous drug research being conducted there by her former teacher, Dr. Annick Swenson. Unlike Marina or Dr. Swenson or Anders or any of the other figures who are temporarily transplanted from civilization to Amazonian wilderness, Patchett's natives are only semi-human; they don't possess civilized language, but make sounds "less like words and more like the call and answer of birds." You can remember the verb meaning of wonder if you notice that it is spelled almost exactly like the word ponder , which also deals with imagining or thinking about something. The boys … Luckily, FreeBookSummary offers study guides on over 1000 top books from students’ curricula! Any progress you advance to them will be undone before your back is turned. Dr. Marina Singh, the novel’s protagonist, is an intensely loyal, empathetic, and talented researcher and pharmacologist in her early 40s, struggling to extricate herself from troubling romantic patterns and a traumatic past. b. Wonderment definition, wondering or wonder. The book was published by Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom and by Harper in the United States. It is the story of pharmacologist Marina Singh, who journeys to Brazil to bring back information about seemingly miraculous drug research being conducted there by her former teacher, Dr. Annick Swenson. She travels to the Amazon in search of Dr. Eckman's body and the details behind his death as well as the progress in Dr. Swenson's project. The book was published by Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom and by Harper in the United States. The novel traces the steps of 42-year-old Marina Singh, pharmacologist at the Vogel Pharmaceutical Company in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Part scientific thriller, part engaging personal odyssey, State of Wonder is a suspenseful jungle adventure with an unexpected ending and other assorted surprises. verb. Mr. Fox eventually visits the research site with Mrs. Bovender and a local taxi driver. How to pronounce wondering (audio) \. A sense of wonder (sometimes jokingly written sensawunda) is an intellectual and emotional state frequently invoked in discussions of science fiction and philosophy Definitions. Swarms of bodies cycle anonymously through the novel and around Marina as her personal voyage unfolds. The women of this tribe bear children until the end of their lives, an ability they gain from eating the bark of an endemic tree called the martin. Only a few months earlier, Marina's lab partner Anders Eckman was sent to the Amazon on the same mission. The insatiable, minimally rational and barely-human appetites that drive the indigenous people of the novel are, finally, best embodied by the tribe of sinister cannibals who keep the scientists on their toes as they hover menacingly just on the margins of the story, at least until the novel's nail-biting eleventh hour, when Patchett propels them into position front and center. We know immediately that we are going to be in unusual territory because one thing that wonder indicates is something remarkable. State of Wonder is a 2011 novel by American author Ann Patchett. It was critically well received, and was nominated for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction, among other nominations. ©2013 LaGuardia Community College. State of Wonder is rich in symbolism. State of Wonder revisits the South American locale and even features a key scene that takes place in the Manaus Opera House deep in the Amazonian rain forest of Brazil. The novel opens with Dr. Marina Singh reading a letter from Dr. Annick Swenson to Marina's boss and secret lover, Mr. Fox, CEO of the pharmaceutical company Vogel. In State of Wonder Patchett writes with the confidence and authority of an author-explorer endowed with the power to imagine a universe divided into ill-mannered natives and the modern men and women from Minnesota who teach them table manners, instruct them in the art of wiping their feet before they get into bed, and train them to be docile subjects, "submitting themselves to constant weighing and measurement, allowing their menstrual cycles to be charted and their children to be pricked for blood samples". 14. The basic plot of "State of Wonder": In the first sentence we learn that Dr. Anders Eckman is dead. Laura Ciolkowski teaches Literature at Columbia University. State of Wonder tells the story of Marina Singh, a forty-two-year-old woman who works for a pharmaceutical company called Vogel. Please click on the links below to access additional posts. State of Wonder is Marina's interior, psychological journey back in time to confront her past, in the shape of her former medical school professor Dr. Swenson; and a vivid account of her travels through snake-infested rivers, malarial swamps and "thick walls of breathing vegetation.". See more. Unfortunately, if somewhat predictably, Marina's luggage never makes it with her to Dr. Swenson's remote research station in the jungle, leaving her with some serious chinks in her techno-scientific armor. So “State of Wonder” is headed for Brazil. The unique compound found in the bark of the Martin Tree has two groundbreaking medicinal properties. No one has time to read them all, but it’s important to go over them at least briefly. No wonder definition is - —used to say that something is not surprising. It was always a complete surprise and I was in a state of wonderment over these creatures. a feeling of great surprise and admiration caused by seeing or experiencing something that is strange and new: The sight of the Grand Canyon stretching out before them filled them with wonder. State of Wonder, Patchett's sixth novel, is a riveting variation on [the] tightly plotted journey from darkness to light. This is the first in a series of posts about Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder. The emotion aroused by something awe-inspiring, astounding, or surprising: gazed with wonder at the northern lights. 1. the feeling aroused by something strange and surprising 2. something that causes feelings of wonder 3. a state in which you want to learn more about something Familiarity information: WONDER used as a noun is uncommon. Marina flies to Manaus, Brazil, and finds that the only people who know Dr. Swenson's whereabouts are an Australian couple named Jackie and Barbara Bovender, who are tasked with hiding her whereabouts from the outside world. Wonder means to question or imagine as a verb, and a state of wonder or excitement or a magnificent object as a noun. Eventually Dr. Swenson surprises Marina in Manaus, and they travel in a boat piloted by a young deaf boy named Easter to the rainforest research site, near the encampment of an indigenous people called the Lakashi tribe. The book has received mostly favorable reviews. 'State of Wonder' is an imaginative tale of mystery, morals, ethics, and the delicate balance that can exist within the world, both within a single ecosystem and within ourselves. Marina learns that Dr. Swenson has become pregnant, at the age of 73, making herself the first human test subject for the fertility drug. Dr. Swenson's research into the miraculous post-menopausal fertility of the women of the Lakashi tribe is so valuable to Vogel that the company funds Dr. Swenson's secret work with an open checkbook and virtually no questions asked. Marina is both an MD and a PhD. Marina allows Mr. Fox to leave without finding out the dual purpose of the drug he has been funding. This is a particular problem because the Brazil of State of Wonder is a perilous and threatening place. State of Wonder Character Analysis. Along the way to, their boat was attacked by a local cannibalistic tribe known as the Hummocca; Mrs. Bovender sees a white man among them who she thinks is her father. The quality that arouses such emotion: "Her long fair hair was girlish: and girlish, and touched with the wonder of mortal beauty, her face" (James Joyce). wondered definition: 1. past simple and past participle of wonder 2. to ask yourself questions or express a wish to know…. Marina makes her way to a place deep in the bowels of the jungle, "somewhere on a tributary off the Rio Negro" in Brazil, and then must fight her way back home to the bright, frozen landscape of Eden Prairie. He was in the Amazon searching for Dr. Swenson, who had gone AWOL. Over time, Marina discovers that, unknown to Vogel, the bark of the martin also serves as a vaccination against malaria; it is this drug that Dr. Swenson is primarily concerned with. Patchett is unbelievably talented and this book left me with a feeling of Wow. Wonder definition: If you wonder about something, you think about it, either because it interests you and... | Meaning, pronunciation, translations and examples But Anders never returned, leaving Marina to puzzle over the announcement of his sudden death and leaving Mr. Fox, the 60-year-old suit-and-tie-wearing Vogel CEO who is also Marina's lover, to scramble for a "plan B." Dense clouds of insects clamor for blood, and armies of natives mass around the fluorescent lights of a storefront in a frenzy to get inside, or the lonely beam of a flashlight in the jungle. Writing in the New York Times,[1] Marina and Anders return to camp without Easter; Dr. Swenson is outraged that the boy she cared for was left behind. Doomed to a life outside of the grand narratives of Western progress, left behind by the forward march of modernity, the Lakashi coexist with archaic creatures, like the "freakish brand of great white bird with a wing span of a pterodactyl" and are seemingly impervious to evolutionary change. State of Wonder starts with the death of Anders Eckman, a Research Doctor for pharmaceutical company Vogel. Marina and Anders return to Minnesota; Anders rejoins his wife and sons, and Marina continues on home. State of Wonder raises questions of morality and principle, civilization, culture, love, and science. How to use no wonder in a sentence. When Eckman's widow begs Marina to find out what happened, Mr. Fox agrees to send Marina to the Amazon. All rights reserved. This Study Guide consists of approximately 52 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of State of Wonder. Wonder definition, to think or speculate curiously: to wonder about the origin of the solar system. The word thus occurs particularly in the plural, in such phrases as " doleful dumps." Review State of Wonder. a state of wonder, perplexity or melancholy. (wŭn′dər) n. 1. a. This phrase is widely used in contexts that have nothing to do with science fiction. 15. ", "2011 Wellcome Trust Book Prize shortlist", "Orange prize 2012 shortlist puts Ann Patchett in running for second victory", "Runner-up Ann Patchett over-promoted as 'winner' of Orange prize 2012", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=State_of_Wonder&oldid=978012594, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 12 September 2020, at 10:14. This entry focuses on one specific use of the phrase "sense of wonder." She fears that no pharmaceutical company would fund such an unprofitable venture, so she uses secrecy to acquire the funds for her humanitarian project; also, she worries that the Lakashi people would be destroyed if the outside world discovered the potential of the martins. It was critically well received, and was nominated for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction, among other nominations. The novel traces the steps of 42-year-old Marina Singh, pharmacologist at the Vogel Pharmaceutical Company in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Another word for wonderment. We also know before cracking the cover that we may experience awe as we read—that is, we may find ourselves in a state of wonder. And yet, Patchett's greatest strength, her imagination, ultimately gives shape to a host of platitudes about the primitive pleasures and dangers that lie out there in the jungle. Learn more. State of Wonder. Finding Dr. Swenson proves to be difficult. The publisher blamed it on a printing error and claimed to pulp all remaining erroneous copies of State of Wonder. Meanwhile, Dr. Swenson's fetus has died and she has Marina perform a Caesarian section on her; the baby is born still and with sirenomelia. Find more ways to say wonderment, along with related words, antonyms and example phrases at Thesaurus.com, the world's most trusted free thesaurus. Afterwards Dr. Swenson tells Marina of her suspicion that the man Mrs. Bovender saw was really Anders, whose death she had never confirmed. b : to feel surprise. State of Wonder - Summary. Marina is sent to the Amazon by Vogel Pharmaceuticals in pursuit of a rogue scientist, Dr. Annick Swenson. Dr. Marina Singh. by Ann Patchett. State of Wonder is a masterpiece novel, written by true wordsmith Ann Patchett. wondered; wondering \ ˈwən- d (ə- )riŋ. [7], This article is about the Ann Patchett novel. In most cases, wonder would be sufficient.However, one might consider using wonderment if wonder’s alternative meanings might result in a clarity issue. 2. State of Wonder Summary. In a matter of weeks, Marina is sailing on a pontoon boat "down a river into the beating heart of nowhere", a would-be Charlie Marlow voyaging into Conrad's heart of darkness. State of Wonder, Patchett's sixth novel, is a riveting variation on [the] tightly plotted journey from darkness to light. State of Wonder Chapters 10-11 Analysis; The average student has to read dozens of books per year. When they find the tribe, Anders is indeed living among them, but Marina discovers that the only way they will give him up is to exchange Easter (a Hummocca himself) for Anders. der. The Martin Tree. MEANINGS. Wonder is a complex emotion involving elements of surprise, curiosity, contemplation, and joy. Another word for wonder: think, question, doubt, puzzle, speculate | Collins English Thesaurus In a second edition of State of Wonder, Bloomsbury Publishing incorrectly printed on the cover the novel had won the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction, which actually went to Madeline Miller's debut The Song of Achilles, also published by Bloomsbury. Along with Easter, Marina sets out to find the Hummocca and rescue Anders. Marina Singh: She is the main character. Emoji; Slang; Acronyms; Pop Culture; Memes; Gender and Sexuality; Mixed-up Meanings; WORD GAMES. It allows women to extend their reproductive cycles indefinitely, and it inoculates against malaria. Anders had traveled deep into the Amazon at the behest of his employer, a Minneapolis-based pharmaceutical company that has a researcher working at a secret site on a secret drug that will revolutionize the world. Marina is both an MD and a PhD. See more. STATE OF WONDER Anne Patchett This marvelous atmospheric and multi layered novel takes place in the Amazon jungle where an emissary from a pharmaceutical company dies under mysterious circumstances at a research facility. The novel was nominated for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize (2011),[5] and shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction (2012). Dr. Swensen explains, "They are an intractable race. But there are detours in its way. If State of Wonder falters, it is its tendency to rely on Western truisms about exotic lands and indigenous peoples and offer up a curiously clichead view of life beyond the knowable edges of home. Marina makes her way to a place deep in the bowels of the jungle, "somewhere on a tributary off the … Identify a few—for example, Eden Prairie (Marina’s Minnesota home), Easter (the young deaf native boy), Milton (the Brazilian guide)—and talk about how Ann Patchett uses them to deepen the story. State of Wonder Symbols & Motifs. Mr. Fox's other motive is that Dr. Swenson was given a blank check to conduct research into a new miracle drug, and refuses to inform him of her progress. You might as well come down here to unbend the river." Dr. Marina Singh will be this "plan B.". State of Wonder is a 2011 novel by American author Ann Patchett. Definition of wonder (Entry 2 of 4) intransitive verb. 2 : to feel curiosity or … [6] It was listed for a Salon Book Award (2011), Christian Science Monitor Best Book (2011), Time Magazine's Best Books of the Year (2011), The Morning News Tournament of Books (2012), Publishers Weekly's Top 10 Best Books (2011), and New York Times bestseller (2011). 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