Euphoria

The majority of the story was sad, especially the ending. Don’t care for books where women are abused by their husbands.

Euphoria presents a classic love triangle among three anthropologists in New Guinea between the world wars. The main charcter is Nell Stone, modeled after Margaret Mead, a free-thinking, insightful, deeply empathetic student of native cultures. Her husband Fen is her opposite, cynical, greedy and dismissive of local sentiments. Between them comes Bankson, the narrator, looking back years later on their brief time together in a small village, trying to control their lusts but not their ambitions. The story is well told, more absorbing and suspenseful as the book progresses. The author, like Nell, has a quick feel for other characters. Minor characters are well drawn with a few telling details. You especially feel for several of the villagers whose lives are changed by their observers. The audiobook has a serious flaw, namely, the drab narration by Simon Vance. Bankson should be an energetic, passionate, vibrant young force of nature, despite his failed suicide attempt at the novel\’s start. Instead, Vance reads as a depressed and weary old man. This drains the novel of much of its excitement. Xe Sands, reading as Nell Stone, is far better, with the right enthusiasm and wonder in her voice. Overall, however, this was an excellent book.

A beautifully-written and compelling book about fascinating people. The anthropologists are as interesting as the tribes they are studying. I could have gone on listening to this for quite a while longer and am sorry it\’s over. I completely disagree with the reviewers who panned Simon Vance. No, his reading of Bankson isn\’t euphoric, but neither is Bankson\’s character. So much of what is going on in the book is in the contrast between his approach and that of Nell and Fen, and Simon Vance and Xe Sands (whom I also loved) nailed this aspect. Great book, great narration all around. I loved it.

A story about domestic violence, a whinny friend and giving cigarettes to the natives for information. The writing was good. The narration is OK, but there are some rough edit locations.

This is one clever author. King creates a claustrophobic, small world in the vast tropical miasma of New Guinea. Andrew Bangston, whose loneliness is almost a fourth character in itself; brilliant and driven Nell Stone; Nell\’s lout of a husband Fen – these anthropologists are really the only three characters as the rest are set pieces and background. King does a great job capturing the arrogance and indeed racism of early 20th C anthropologists – you do wonder what their subjects thought when these frail people plopped themselves into a village that had been peacefully minding its own business. Each anthropologists\’ approach is shaped by their own demons and biases, and the relationship between the three is glued together by Bangston\’s desparate loneliness. The ending snuck up on me, which I appreciated. King had a way of making the reader think the book was about one thing, when it was really about something else.

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