Saturday, May 18, 2019

Euphoria by Lily King

genre: adult historical fiction

Nell, Fen and Bankson: anthropologists studying the tribes living along the Sepic River in Papua New Guinea.  In a time when the scientific observation of non-Western peoples was truly beginning to explode on the larger public scene, these three people will be changed by the land, while at the same time their own goals and decisions will change it.

I don't really want to say much more than that, I found the journey here such an intriguing one.  So many ethical issues to grapple with, so much pain and love and curiosity.  Sometime, the IDEA of what we considered acceptable behavior then is quite upsetting, to see it through the eyes of these contemporaries, seeing what was acceptable and what wasn't in terms of how we treated people, their culture and creative work.  The foreshadowing felt a little heavy handed for me but I finished this book thinking deeper about appropriation and appreciation, about our need to possess both things and people and about what are the threads that tie all humans together.

Note for sensitive readers: there is some language and mildly graphic sexual situations

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