91. Euphoria
Rating: ☆☆1/2
Recommended by: Julie Horowitz
Author: Lily King
Genre: Historical Fiction, Anthropology
256 pages, published June 3, 2015
Reading Format: Book
Summary
Euphoria is the story of three anthropologists in 1933 New Guinea who find themselves caught in a passionate love triangle. English Anthropologist Andrew Bankson has been alone in the field for several years, studying a tribe on the Sepik River in the Territory of New Guinea with little success. Increasingly frustrated and isolated by his research, Bankson is on the verge of suicide when he encounters the famous and controversial Nell Stone and her mercurial husband Fen. Bankson is enthralled by the magnetic couple whose eager attentions pull him back from the brink of despair. Inspired by events in the life of revolutionary anthropologist Margaret Mead, Euphoria is a story of passion, possession, exploration and sacrifice.
Quotes
“It’s that moment about two months in, when you think you’ve finally got a handle on the place. Suddenly it feels within your grasp. It’s a delusion – you’ve only been there eight weeks – and it’s followed by the complete despair of ever understanding anything. But at the moment the place feels entirely yours. It’s the briefest, purest euphoria.”
“You don’t realize how language actually interferes with communication until you don’t have it, how it gets in the way like an overdominant sense. You have to pay much more attention to everything else when you can’t understand the words. Once comprehension comes, so much else falls away. You then rely on their words, and words aren’t always the most reliable thing.”
“I’ve always been able to see the savageness beneath the veneer of society. It’s not so very far beneath the surface, no matter where you go.”
“I asked her if she believed you could ever truly understand another culture. I told her the longer I stayed, the more asinine the attempt seemed, and that what I’d become more interested in is how we believed we could be objective in any way at all, we who each came in with our own personal definitions of kindness, strength, masculinity, femininity, God, civilisation, right and wrong.”
“Why are we, with all our “progress,” so limited in understanding & sympathy & the ability to give each other real freedom? Why with our emphasis on the individual are we still so blinded by the urge to conform? … I think above all else it is freedom I search for in my work, in these far-flung places, to find a group of people who give each other the room to be in whatever way they need to be. And maybe I will never find it all in one culture but maybe I find parts of it in several cultures, maybe I can piece it together like a mosaic and unveil it to the world.”
“I try not to return to these moments very often, for I end up lacerating my young self for not simply kissing the girl. I thought we had time. Despite everything, I believed somehow there was time. Love’s first mistake. Perhaps love’s only mistake.”
“It came to him that he didn’t like holidays. . . . They bore down on you. Each one always ended up feeling like an exam . . .”
My Take
While Euphoria has won a whole swath of awards (WINNER, KIRKUS PRIZE FOR FICTION 2014, WINNER, NEW ENGLAND BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION 2014, FINALIST, NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS 2014, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, 10 BEST BOOKS OF 2014, TIME, TOP 10 FICTION BOOKS OF 2014, NPR, BEST BOOKS OF 2014, WASHINGTON POST, TOP 50 FICTION BOOKS OF 2014, AMAZON, 100 BEST BOOKS OF 2014, #16, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, BEST FICTION BOOKS OF 2014, OPRAH.COM, 15 MUST-READS OF 2014), it was not my cup of tea. Sometimes, I find there is an inverse correlation between awards received and enjoyment of reading. That was the case with me and Euphoria. I could not get into either the characters or the story and had to plod through it to finish. Obviously, many critics disagree, but that’s my two cents.
