BOOKS THAT ASK QUESTIONS

image from emusic.com

I discovered another great author recently, thanks to the internets and my book-loving facebook friends.  Ever read anything by Ann Patchett?  If not, why on earth not?  She writes my very favorite kind of books -- novels that grab hold of you right from the start, pulling you in and carrying you along with their gripping story line, but which also educate you and make you think.  Novels like The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, which question your beliefs, your ethics, and everything you have been taught.  I finished this one, State of Wonder, over a week ago, and it's still got me thinking, asking, wondering.

First of all, it has me questioning my own courage.  Sure, I went off to live in some exotic places as a newlywed, but they were places where others had always gone before me, paving and easing the way.  Could I have been one of those people?  The ones who went first, and had to figure out how to communicate and bargain with the indigenous people, get the supplies they needed, train workers to carve out a space in the jungle and fill it with our kind of structures and facilities, teach them our way of doing things.  No, probably not.  Did we even have the right to do any of this?  For fuel?  For medicine?  For water?  For diamonds?

What if I were to wake up and find myself stranded in a jungle village somewhere?  Could I ever let go of all my western notions, let go of my deep-seated fear of things that sting, bite, gnaw and strangle?  Could I ever adapt to their way of doing things, go native, so to speak, or would I just go stark raving mad?

In this story a botanist has stumbled upon an Amazonian tribe whose women continue giving birth their entire lives.  Now a pharmaceutical company has set up a research lab in their village, with the intention of developing a drug that will allow women in first world countries, for a hefty price, to silence their ever-ticking biological clocks.  But what if that price is more than monetary?  More than they ever imagined?  Should we be fooling with Mother Nature in this way?  Do pharmaceutical companies have the right to cater to the wealthy few, while ignoring less lucrative drugs that could cure millions of penniless people?  So many questions!  So much to ponder.