I finally was able to read this book, highly acclaimed by the critics and hard to get from library since so many people were in line ahead of me. I did finally get it but Evie got to it first, so I didn't begin it until four or five days ago. Fortunately, it was a beautiful week to read, out on the dock and sunshine, warm Indian Summer days, apropos, as much of the novel is set on water, the mighty Amazon, in the jungles of Brazil.
The major character, Marina Singh, the daughter of an Indian grad student and a Caucasian mother and works at Vogel Pharmaceutical, as a researcher in their lab in Minnesota. Her colleague, Anders Eckman, is sent to Brazil to check on some secretive research taking place in the jungles of the Amazon. The novel takes off when Marina receives a letter from Annick Swenson, the reclusive and idiosyncratic head of the Amazon research station, telling her that Anders has died of a fever. For some reason...friendship? love? loyalty? guilt?, Marina takes this lost as a mission and agrees, at the instigation of Mr. Fox, Vogel's CEO but also her secret lover, to go to the jungle to find out what happened to Anders. Why she agrees, why he sends his lover, suggests something about their relationship, their characters. She needs to find herself, lost years earlier when she mishandles a C section during her residency, sending her out of the hospital and into the lab.
The novel really begins when she arrives in Manaus, the starting point for visits to the Amazon jungle. There she meets the Bovenders, a young couple charged with protecting the reclusive Anick Swenson and her research team from prying eyes. Eventually, Marina gains their confidence and slowly acclimates to the climate and the culture. Out of no where, Annick appears, ironically at an opera, acts as if she has known all along that Marina has been looking for her, then takes her back to the station. Marina's life at the research station is filled with conflict, with Annick, with her desire to find out what happened with Anders, with her need to see if the research is going anywhere, as well as to find out what is it's goal. Soon, she gains the confidence of all, finds out that they have discovered a drug that will prolong pregnancy in women, up to 70 or 80 years, as is evident in the many older pregnant natives. The research also proves that women who eat of the bark of this special tree are immune from malaria, the accidental consequence of this research. We feel intimately the isolation and oppressiveness and danger of the jungle though Marina becomes comfortable, with the researchers, with Annick, with the jungle, especially with Easter, Annick's adopted son, deaf but skilled at almost any task.
Much of the novel revolves around discussions between Annick and Marina, as Annick tries to convince Marina to stay on, take over her work, prove herself. Annick finally acknowledges that she is pregnant, a test case. and needs to Marina to manage her Cesarean, ironically the operation that drove Marina out of the hospitals into labs. And, to add complications and bizarre coincidence, Annick was the head doctor when Marina mishandled the Cesarean some twenty five years ago. A bit too coincidental, I thought, having to operate on the doctor who literally drove you out of medicine. Once Marina performs the procedure, the Bovenders and Mr. Fox arrive, having sighted on there journey out a white man among a tribe of natives. Annick admits that she never did see the body of Anders, assuming he had gone off into the jungle and died of a fever. Marina, however, is convinced that Anders is alive, takes a boat along with Easter, finds the tribe, barters with them for Anders, and reluctantly gives up Easter, who coincidentally, was lost by this tribe.
Marina and Anders eventually leave, arrive in Manaus, take a plane home to Minnesota, drive to Anders home, where Marina drops him off, as he runs to his sons playing in the front yard. And it ends. Nothing about Annick, the success of the research, what happens to Marina.
Looking back, the novel's strength and interest lies in the relationship between Annick and Marina, not the plot. The setting dominates the novel, taking the reader into the heart of darkness that Conrad so aptly described. Expediency constantly argues with humanity in this book. What is the right thing to do, worry about a natives health or continue with the research, which in the end might save millions of lives. These are the kinds of conflicts that fill the novel. For me, Marina is troubled personally and it's exacerbated by the trip to the jungle and the facing of her mentor, Annick Swenson. And Annic Swenson is a parody of other legends who have gone off into the jungles only to lose themselves and go native, from Kurtz to Livingston to Rockefeller.
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