Certainly I liked that the character was shown with above average intelligence, but the methods of communication and the interactions others had with this character were difficult. I won’t say much more about it (because there are so many spoilers) but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was off about the portrayal of this character. End of SpoilersĪdditionally, there is also another character who is deaf. Marina’s thoughts on this occasion are quite interesting as she has insights into the exploitation of the native people and the falseness of the tourist experience but also is more concerned with getting back to the Lakashi and continuing her work. The tourists assume Marina is a native and she ends up in the dance and later posing for pictures with the tourists as they comment about her in the English that is her mother tongue.

Marina is wearing a Lakashi dress and there happens to be a party of tourists at the trading post where another group of natives is performing a dance for them. 236, several scientists and natives go to a trading post in the hope of getting some letters mailed. She identifies strongly with Anders’ longing for his homeland as expressed in letters to his wife, but others don’t recognize Minnesota as her homeland because she is not white. Her skin color constantly set her apart in Minnesota, her beloved homeland, but she didn’t feel quite comfortable when visiting India either. A major theme of the book dealt with her difficulties as the child of a Scandinavian Minnesotan and an Indian exchange student. The author is a white woman, but I felt she did a decent job of addressing Marina’s ethnicity. I think a mature high school student could read it, but there is quite a bit of adult content – I would definitely not give it to my students. The leveling puts this as a middle school read, but it is clearly intended for adults. It was surprisingly gripping! There are so many points to discuss which are major spoilers, but I’m going to limit the spoilers here as much as possible. This was a free book from the library that I grabbed after forgetting my bag so I couldn’t read Hidden Figures on my break. The company wants to know what happened, and so does his widow. But Marina’s plain, comfortable world shatters when a letter arrives relating his death. She’s quite happy sitting in her small windowless lab running pharmacological tests, and her lab partner Anders Eckman was happy to go into the Amazon as long as he could take some side trips to photograph rare and unusual birds. Marina Singh has no interest in going to Brazil. Best book of the year 2011 from ten different news sourcesĭr.

Ann patchett state of wonder review