State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

There is too thin a line between Ann Patchett and Ann Patchett’s heroine in State of Wonder. As the term “cultural appropriation” itself is increasingly (and distractingly) appropriated by the self-appointed justice crusaders that dilute the very equality they’re promulgating it can be a difficult topic to take seriously, one that is consistently marginalized by those deriding the “sensitivity police” and “snowflakes” and our society now “obsessed” with political correctness.

But the fact remains that people, good and bad, can Other, (yes, I learned that can be a verb) populations and people. And authors can certainly tell stories that exacerbate the rampant Us and Them culture that marginalizes populations already struggling with disenfranchisement. 

What is unclear, however, is if Patchett is the mastermind using her heroine and her main characters to make a savvy point about this, about classism and Othering, or if Patchett herself is guilty of nativism even in fabricating an ethnicity from what appears to be an amalgamation of stereotypes of numerous cultures.

The “Lakashi” are a product of Patchett’s imagination. For some fifty years an interdisciplinary team of Johns Hopkins medical professionals have ingratiated themselves to a tribe of jungle-dwelling illiterates that are described, when they are described at all, as jungle-dwelling illiterates. With as much nuance as Out of Africa or The White Masai. That is to say, when they are mentioned it is as set dressing. They are described visually, the same way the scenery is – the insects, “the hard-shelled and soft-sided, the biting and stinging, the chirping and buzzing and droning, every last one unfolded its paper wings … ” are described with more character depth than the “enthusiastic locals.” 

The “natives”, save for one boy, do not have personalities, back stories or even names. And the one boy who does have a name and a personality and fears and joy is named by white people and named after perhaps the holiest of Christian holy days. A boy who can “never get over” the long blonde hair of a young trustafarian woman.

It vacillates between a seemingly serious treatment of neocolonialism and just another iteration of Fern Gully.

I suspect Patchett thinks she sidestepped any racism or cultural insensitivity by a.) inventing a tribe instead of depicting a real one, and b.) making her main character half-Indian and including a supporting character from Java. But her story is still implicitly classist. Now that doesn’t mean Patchett is classist. And it certainly doesn’t mean that she has anything to do with the astonishing concentration of global wealth and the opportunities that allows for. But. It doesn’t mean that she’s not.

And while this story does have an intriguing premise, the attainable pursuit of which does not even begin until 153 pages in, this is not only not her finest work, as some reviews claim, it is more problematic than it is literary. Despite Patchett’s ample storytelling ability, this story just might be a net negative. Even with a vindicating humanitarian plot twist I truly didn’t see coming.

If you want to experience the splendor that Patchett is capable of, textured beauty you can run your fingers through, read Bel Canto. And when you’ve finished that you might even read it a second time.