Wine and Bread

                    Thoughts on Euphoria, by Lily King

I have about five blog posts that I have been wanting to write--most of them ultimately important but rather depressing, as I feel like it has been a depressing few weeks.  This one is a bit more positive, I hope.  

I had never read anything by Lily King before, and I am not particularly interested in her newest book, Writers and Lovers, but this is from her backlist, and I really liked it.  It is the story of anthropologists in New Guinea in the 1930s--heavily influenced by the life of Margaret Mead, although it is a slim, bittersweet story of love and loss. 

                                                Margaret Mead, 1939

                                                       

There are several aspects of the story that really struck me.  First, this is a study of the early days of anthropology.  Seeing a new social science evolve was interesting.  The three main characters have significantly different ideas about how to conduct field work and learn about cultures.  How Nell and Fen and Banskston handle interactions with their communities was fascinating.  Do you go native and just live and not take any notes (Fen), do you concentrate on kinship mapping and ways that anthropology mirrors the hard sciences (Bankston), or do you develop deep relationships within the community and document everything (Nell)?   Ultimately, one of these choices leads to disaster for the community and the anthropologists.

Nell and Fen establish a true home in the community--with books, the New Yorker, house help and a clear echo of western civilization.  Banskston, while loving Nell, comments repeatedly and sometwhat negatively on the creature comforts of their living space, while also being desperate for this feeling of home.  Wht impact does it have to bring western culture into the field like this?  Does it skew observations?

However, the most moving part of the story for me was the characters' energy and excitement of intellectual discovery.  This is a love story between a woman and two men, but, even more importantly, a love story about finding a relationship that feeds one's intellect and creativity.  The title describes the euphoria Nell feels when she finds the "key" to a new culture, the euphoria of new love, and the euphoria of intellectual passion.  

Nell brings up a poem by Amy Lowell, called "Decade" and says that there are loves that are like wine and loves that are like bread.  /She ends up saying that she finds both in Bankston.  I was lucky enough in my life to find somewone who gave me the euphoria of intellectual passion, a person who gave me coplete nourishment.  It is a rare gift.  I hope that for each of us.  

Decade, by Amy Lowell

When you came, you were like red wine and honey,

And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.

Now you are like morning bread,

Smooth and pleasant.

I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,

But I am completely nourished.