- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: WW Norton; Reprint edition (Dec 1 1996)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0393316009
- ISBN-13: 978-0393316001
- Product Dimensions: 21 x 14.1 x 1.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 272 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #433,925 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
In 1764, two Englishwomen set out to prove that swallows--contrary to the great Linnaeus's belief--do not hibernate underwater. But they must be patient and experiment in secret, such actions being inappropriate for the female of the species. In 1862, a hopeless naturalist heads off for yet another journey, though he can't seem to rid his conscience of the thousands of animals that have already died in his service. In 1971, a pregnant young woman, ill at ease with her socially superior husband and his stepchildren, hears of a Tierra del Fuegan taken hostage by the commander of the Beagle in 1835. This unwilling specimen was, we read, "captured, exiled, re-educated; then returned, abused by his family, finally re-accepted. Was he happy? Or was he saying that as a way to spite his captors? Darwin never knew."
Many of the characters who populate Andrea Barrett's National Book Award-winning collection, Ship Fever, feel similarly displaced in the world. They long to prove themselves in both science and love, but are often thwarted by gender, social position, or the prevailing order. In "The Behavior of the Hawkweeds," the wife of a genetics professor has learned that each narrative of discovery is matched by one, if not more, "in which science is not just unappreciated, but bent by loneliness and longing." Barrett's astonishing tales of ambition and isolation convey the meaning and feeling behind the patterns--scientific and emotional--but slip free of easy closure. The two women in "Rare Bird," like the swallows, depart England for more conducive climes, or so the brother of one believes. The reader is left to hope, and imagine. Much has been made of Andrea Barrett's interlacing of history, knowledge, and fact--and rightly so. But equal attention should be paid to the brilliant serenity and exactitude of her style. --Kerry Fried --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
The quantifiable truths of science intersect with the less easily measured precincts of the heart in these eight seductively stylish tales. In the graphic title novella, a self-doubting, idealistic Canadian doctor's faith in science is sorely tested in 1847 when he takes a hospital post at a quarantine station flooded with diseased, dying Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine. The story, which deftly exposes English and Canadian prejudice against the Irish, turns on the doctor's emotions, oscillating between a quarantined Irish woman and a wealthy Canadian lady, his onetime childhood playmate. In "The English Pupil," Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus, who brought order to the natural world with his system of nomenclature, battles the disorder of his own aging mind as he suffers from paralysis and memory loss at age 70. In "The Behavior of the Hawkweeds," a precious letter drafted by Austrian monk Gregor Mendel, who discovered the laws of heredity, reverberates throughout the narrator's marriage to her husband, an upstate New York geneticist. Barrett (The Forms of Water) uses science as a prism to illuminate, in often unsettling ways, the effects of ambition, intuition and chance on private and professional lives.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
For thirty years, until he retired, my husband stood each fall in front of his sophomore genetics class and passed out copies of Gregor Mendel's famous paper on the hybridization of edible peas. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
For thirty years, until he retired, my husband stood each fall in front of his sophomore genetics class and passed out copies of Gregor Mendel's famous paper on the hybridization of edible peas. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Riveting, Imaginative Tales About Science and Medicine,
By
This review is from: Ship Fever (Paperback)
Andrea Barrett's "Ship Fever" is among the finest short story collections I've come across. She writes beautiful, elegant tales which are spendid descriptions of the human dimensions of science and medicine. Here she portrays such noted figures of science as botanist Linnaeus and naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace as poignant, sympathetic figures. Brilliantly, she shows science as a meaningful human endeavor, that is as riveting for the humanity of its participants as well as its noted discoveries. Undoubtedly, the most elegantly written tale is the title story, which describes Canada's response to the Irish Famine of the 1840's as successive waves of diseased, poverty stricken Irish emigrants arrived. Without a doubt, Andrea Barrett is one of our finest writers in the English language, blessed with much intelligence and graceful, poetic prose.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Literature for the love of science,
By A Customer
This review is from: Ship Fever (Paperback)
It seems to me that the style of these short stories are indicative of the approach that natural scientists take to their work. It is patient and reflective. It doesn't force its subject into action. It observes the truth. I personally never had the patience to be a scientist, but I understand and respect the scientific mind. I read this book a little at a time (which I think is the proper way to read short stories). Even the tragic stories, such as the title story Ship Fever, left me with a sense that I had shared the characters experience in an oddly detached way. I can only compare it to reading an ancestor's personal diary, feeling that by being related to the person I somehow was affected by it all. So my recommendation is that if you enjoy science as well as literature and you take the time to absorb the stories rather than cram them, you will enjoy this collection.
5.0 out of 5 stars
splendid read,
By
This review is from: Ship Fever And Other Stories (Hardcover)
Andrea Barret has to be a genius. The eight stories are laced together with fascinating science and solid historical fact but each takes off in entirely different directions in her fabulous imagination. She is a gifted storyteller, there is plenty of suspense to keep the reader turning the page. Yet, there is the learning and wisom that only a true genius, a born writer, can impart. I flipped through the book with a group of friends and read aloud the opening sentence to a few of the stories. The stories are captivating from the first line.
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