It is a bit of a dance we three are in. But there is a better balance when B is here, too. Fen’s demanding, rigid, determined nature weighs heavily on one side of the scale and Bankson’s and my more pliant & adjustable natures on the other, equaling things out… Maybe it’s just we’re both a little in love with Andrew Bankson.
In 1930s New Guinea a young British anthropologist, Andrew Bankson, is on the brink of suicide. Frustrated with several unproductive years of field work studying the Kiona people, a tribe that unceremoniously throws twin newborns in a river out of superstitious ideals, he is overcome with loneliness and dissatisfaction – until he meets famous anthropologist Nell Stone and her husband Fen, a team stagnant in their own research. Although the desire to study the same region, lands, and people should turn them to rivals, the three larger than life egos are revitalized by each other’s company and enter a passionate love triangle filled with intellectual stimulation and dispute, sexual tension, friendship, and learning.
Lily King’s Euphoria is loosely based on the controversial and respected American culture anthropologist, Margaret Mead (Nell Stone), and her time researching along the Sepik River with husband Reo Fortune (Fen) and Gregory Bateson (Andrew Bankson). King tackles the expectation of factual information involved when writing a story about a prominent figure in history, with exceptional clarity. Like an anthropologist, King studies real events and people to understand the full scope and complexity in the story, and from this knowledge produces a confident and well-researched book. While Euphoria is inspired by real events and people, it is not a retelling or historical fiction. Instead, the novel takes creative liberties resulting in a wonderfully original piece that blurs genres between fiction and nonfiction.
When we first meet Nell she is half blind and weak with malaria, but still curious to take notes and ask questions about everything around her, at the disdain of her husband Fen. He prefers living as a member of the tribe, seldom taking notes and often with a plan of his own. The success of Nell’s previous fieldwork had overshadowed Fen’s career and their marriage. When the couple meet Andrew they take his company as a welcome break from each other, he acts as a buffer between the two and provides a fresh set of ears to bounce ideas off of, and after several years alone, Andrew gladly falls into this role in Nell and Fen’s relationship. Learning Nell Fen’s researching ideas and practices allows Andrew to find renewed interest in his own work and reach a point Nell describes as ‘euphoria’. She means it to be more than intense happiness, for Nell, euphoria is the feeling that comes specifically after months of confusion; meeting a new tribe, trying to assimilate to and learn their culture, documenting without your biases’. Euphoria comes with a sudden breakthrough and acceptance, granted to an anthropologist when they come to understand the subject in which they are studying.
When only one person is the expert on a particular people, do we learn more about the people or the anthropologist when we read the analysis?
Told through Bankson’s first person narrative and Nell’s fieldnotes, the story’s attention to detail adds a layer of authenticity despite King’s mostly liberal stance in making events in the book not correlate with Mead’s biography. King pulls us through the peaks and pits of Nell, Fen, and Andrew’s excursions and subsequent love triangle while providing technical content on their research, making for an immersive read on occurrences in anthropology during the early 1930s. And although the specifics of Mead’s life may not line up with this story, Euphoria will certainly make you wonder what really went on in her mind during this time of her life, and want to learn more about her.
*one of 10 books of summer
Drunk Off Rhetoric 