Euphoria

Loosely based on anthropologists like Meade who studied, trained, traveled, and recorded lifestyles and relationships of many communities from tribes to villages. The shifts in narratives proved to impede some of effectiveness. It proved to upset flow of story.

Great story

I had never thought much about anthropology prior to reading this book. Enjoyed hearing of the tribes and the studies of their cultures.The dynamics of the three characters were well done and developed well.Enjoyed it!

A look inside a few months of ancient and 1930s lives entwined. Professional jealousy, infatuation, mud, primitive living conditions, and even murder

This is my second Lily King novel (which I'm reading for book club) and while I definitely liked it, I didn't love it as much as her newest novel Writers and Lovers, which I read earlier this year and loved. Of course, this one was beautifully written, with breathtaking, evocative prose that flowed seamlessly, which is a writing style I've come to expect from Lily King. With that said though, this was actually a bit of a tedious read for me, especially the first half of it, mostly because I found it difficult to engage with the subject matter (which I'll get into later).The story revolves around three talented anthropologists — Nell Stone, Schuyler Fenwick (Fen), and Andrew Bankson — who spend much of their time living among the tribes of the South Pacific (along the Sepik River in New Guinea) in order to research them. Nell has already established a name for herself in the field, having written a book that was well-received and made her famous. Her husband Fen is intelligent but has an aggressive personality, which gets further aggravated as he feels more and more overshadowed by his wife's success and by her magnetic personality. Bankson is a fellow anthropologist studying the Kiona tribe along the River, and after being rescued from the brink of suicide by the couple, he becomes drawn to them. Over the course of the few months they spend together, their collective brilliance helps them produce their best work (which only becomes apparent later), but at the same time, they develop an intimate yet fiery relationship that ends up spiraling out of control and ultimately threatens to consume them.As I mentioned earlier, it was hard for me to get into the story at first, mostly because I had no interest whatsoever in anthropology (or any of the sciences for that matter). With Lily King's writing here so incredibly atmospheric, plus the research was so well-done, there were many detailed descriptions that honestly ended up going a bit over my head. To this point, I guess it also didn't really help that much of the story was the "slow burn" type where the focus was more on character than plot (though actually these are usually the types of stories I love). So in a sense, I technically only truly engaged with the story a little after the halfway mark when things started actually happening. Having said that, I couldn't put the book down after that and pretty much read through to the end in one sitting.Lily King states in her Author's Note that this story was inspired by Margaret Mead and a moment described in a 1984 biography the famous anthropologist, but the story itself is a completely different one and does not in any way mirror Mead's real life experiences. Even so, after I finished reading this book, I was fascinated enough with the story that I couldn't help doing further research of my own and looking up some information about Mead so I could better understand the inspiration behind the scenes. For me, this is the beauty of historical fiction, especially the well-written kind, where the story impacts me in such a way that I feel compelled to do follow up reading and/or research on my own.Overall, I definitely enjoyed this one, as I found the writing enthralling and though a word of warning that there are some graphic, explicit descriptions in here that might be a turn off for some. For me personally, I love the way Lily King writes and so the overall experience was well worth the effort, despite a few uncomfortable scenes here and there. King actually has a new short story collection out this month, which I can't wait to get my hands on (it's been pre-ordered and should arrive at the end of this month). I also intend to continue exploring her backlist, which will take some time, but I know will be well worth the effort.