Servants of the Map: Amazon.de: Andrea Barrett: Englische Bücher

Amazon.com

No one limns the opposing pull of inner and outer worlds more eloquently than Andrea Barrett. Her naturalists, explorers, scientists, and healers are driven to work and above all to know; they categorize, theorize, and collect the phenomena of the natural world with an urgency that feels like physical need. But they are motivated equally by desire and loneliness, and the theme of domestic life runs like a countermelody through each of the six lovely, deeply memorable stories in Servants of the Map. The narrator of the title story, a cartographer in the Grand Trigonometrical Survey of India, is a timid, home- and family-loving man, but the Himalayas strike him with the force of a revelation. The heroine of the lyrical "Theories of Rain" is a creature of strong feelings and appetites, driven to ask questions about the world around her in the same spirit as she longs for a neighbor and mourns the brother separated from her in childhood. Her scientific curiosity is scarcely different from her desire: "Through that channel of longing, the world enters me."

Fans of Barrett's earlier books (the sublime Ship Fever and Voyage of the Narwhal) will delight in tracing the stories and characters that wind in and out of these three books, producing the sense of something lovely, ongoing, and whole. In the final story, Elizabeth finds consolation in her work caring for tubercular patients--"as if, in the order and precarious harmony of this house and those it shelters she might, for all that gets lost in this life, at last have found a cure." The same might be said of science, and of Barrett's art. --Mary Park -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verf�gbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

From Booklist

MacArthur fellow Barrett writes with great empathy about naturalists, scientists, explorers, and healers, the heroes of her National Book Award-winning story collection, Ship Fever (1996), her magnificent novel, The Voyage of the Narwhal (1998), and now this equally spellbinding set of stories, which are knit unobtrusively to each other and her earlier books. In these complex yet ravishing tales of scientific pursuits stoked by loneliness and desire, Barrett ponders the spiritual toll associated with exile from home and loved ones, and conflicts between the passion for learning and the demands of love and family life. In the brilliantly subtle title story, Max, a shy English surveyor with a passion for botany, toughs it out in the dangerous and glorious Himalayas as part of the remarkable Grand Trigonometrical Survey of India, bitterly missing his wife and children even as he realizes that this is the life for him. In the gently poetic "Theories of Rain," a bright yet isolated young woman longs for sensual love and knowledge of the universe, while in two beautifully rendered stories set in the present, a molecular biologist named Rose finds that her work proves more reliable than human connections. Barrett's characters are deep and self-possessed, and their stories, so intelligently and delectably told, both romanticize and validate the quest for understanding life that drives scientists and artists alike. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verf�gbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

Alle Produktbeschreibungen

Kundenrezensionen

Es gibt noch keine Kundenrezensionen auf Amazon.de

5 Sterne

4 Sterne

3 Sterne

2 Sterne

1 Sterne

Kundenrezension verfassen

Die hilfreichsten Kundenrezensionen auf Amazon.com ^(beta)

Amazon.com: 13 Rezensionen

19 von 19 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich

A Work of Astonishing Fiction 3. Februar 2002

Von Walter R. Mead - Ver�ffentlicht auf Amazon.com

Format:Gebundene Ausgabe

Andrea Barrett has done it again. This collection of short stories has all the characteristics that placed Ship Fever and Voyage of the Narwhale among the most accomplished fictions of our time. The lucid and lovely prose, the ruthless honesty, the shocking psychological insight, compassion and deep research of the earlier works is here, but Ms Barrett continues to grow as a writer. These new stories are her most assured, most daring and most wonderfully realized yet. I have followed Ms Barrett's fiction from Lucid Stars, her first novel, to Servants of the Map with growing admiration and wonder. She is a major talent and this is a lovely book.

17 von 18 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich

Wonderous 31. M�rz 2002

Von Robert Busko - Ver�ffentlicht auf Amazon.com

I discovered Andrea Barrett when I read Voyage of the Narwhal, an epic story of courage, devotion, and the struggle with the northern latitudes that captured so many imaginations during the 19th century. I enjoyed that book tremendously. I wasn't disappointed in this collection of short stories.
Andrea Barrett has a great ability when it comes to developing characters. From Max Vigne, a hard working member of a mapping expedition in the area of Northern India in the title story, Servant of the Map" to his wife Clara that makes a major appearance in the final story "The Cure", all her characters are real. Almost real enough, it seems, to reach out and touch.
Each story stands on its own. But the way Ms Barrett weaves the stories together if fabulous. The final story, by the way, is connected to her book, Voyage of the Narwhal. Ned Kynd, an inn keeper in the "The Cure" played a major role in the novel.
I think readers appreciate these connections with past reads. It shows that the author respects the intelligence of the reader and isn't afraid to say that perhaps that story wasn't quite finished.
Finally, Barrett is a wonderful story teller. One can read along in any of these stories and almost take for granted what one is reading. Then all of a sudden a major twist in the story, or some new development with the character, or a connection with something you've read before.
Read this book.

12 von 12 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich

Mapping the contours of the heart 2. M�rz 2002

Von "michaeleve" - Ver�ffentlicht auf Amazon.com

This is a brilliantly written collection of stories that seamlessly meshes fact with fiction, science with love and faith, and the pursuit of exploration and discovery with the satisfaction of the simpler life. There are so many interesting insights into the emotions of her created characters that we wonder if there is any parallel with the lives of real adventurers.

The opening title story of SERVANTS OF THE MAP starts us off well. The Great Trigonometrical Survey of India begun in the mid 19th century was a grand exercise of mapping the sub-continent. The map contours of interest were the peaks and valleys of the "still to be named" mountains of northern India. We meet Max Vignes, a draughtsman who when not sketching the details of what would later be the Himalayas, was looking down and passionately observing plants, leaves, and lichen. Max is obsessed with botany and the real mapping done by Barrett is of the contours of Max's heart. We see him torn between his love for his wife Clare and his two daughters and his all consuming scientific enthrallment with plants.

This is just the first story and yet Barrett's technique of interweaving the real and the imagined, and her theme of scientific enquiry juxtaposed against the demands of the human heart, are both already fully developed and flowering. She goes on to explore this some more with "Two Rivers" where academically inclined Samuel seeks to disprove all non-theological explanations for fossils. We are transported to the world of emerging Darwinism and Barrett uses Samuel to investigate the inner difficulty of reconciling oneself to change and adapting to a new world-view. It's an issue that has as much resonance today as it did in Samuel's world of 100 years ago.

Other stories where this inner geography is explored are "Theories of Rain" and "The Forest" and some of the colorful characters are Aunt's Daphne and Jane, Bianca Marburg, and Nora Kynd who appears in the last story "The Cure". Max, Clare and their daughter Elizabeth also make a return. In a fitting summation to the book Clare shows her ambivalence to Max's return. It's a perfect illustration of the truth that with the human heart there will always be undiscovered territory. "I do love him," she says. "Or I did - how can I know what I feel anymore..."

This is my first book by Barrett but I've already begun what I can only hope is an equally enjoyable journey with another one.

› Gehen Sie zu Amazon.com, um alle 13 Rezensionen zu sehen

Waren diese Rezensionen hilfreich? Wir wollen von Ihnen h�ren.

Servants of the Map [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Weitere Ausgaben

Produktinformation

Mehr �ber den Autor

Produktbeschreibungen

Amazon.com

From Booklist

Tags

Kundenrezensionen

Kunden diskutieren

Neue Diskussion starten

Lieblingslisten

�hnliche Artikel finden

Anhand des Sachgebietes nach �hnlichen Produkten suchen:

Ihr Kommentar