This isolation is felt deeply by our narrator, Bankson, who's fresh out of a suicide attempt when we first meet him. From previous accounts, we are led to believe that Bankson is an arrogant man, carving up a space in the Sepik River for himself, and him alone. But when we meet him, he's tortured, driven suicidal by his isolation and ghosts, and seizes the first chance he gets to have company nearby when a pair of anthropologists is looking for a new people for them to study.
At first, I was quite disturbed by how these anthropologists treat these tribes as scientific subjects to study. I'm afraid that I will encounter one of those "mighty-whitey" tropes that I loathe oh-so-much where white people lord their supposed cultural superiority to the savage, primitive tribes. But none of that happened here. It is clear that Nell and Bankson (no word on Fen, still fuming) cared about the tribes and community they studied, although Bankson is unsure how to approach them at first, because he was a proper British man of science whose training taught him that he must be aloof to his "subjects". Nell wasn't like that; she was a maverick American who freely interacted with the community, moving among the women and children, making personal relationship with them. Bankson at first was cautious of Nell's approach, because he was afraid that it would muddle up the power imbalance and samples, making it quite not "pure" but over the time he warmed to it - and her.
I like the characters. Nell, at first, seemed like the stereotypical extroverted American who shook up a British man's life, but her extroversion was the quiet of sorts. She was, indeed, the quiet sort, even though she was fierce and she would do anything to get what she wanted, she was always the quiet sorts, the proper wife, yielding to her husband but in a way move independently of him. Fen knew that she was better for him, and resented her for that. Bankson knew that too, and loved her for that. Bankson wasn't the typical socially clumsy, brooding British man, as he was eager and passionate about his work with the natives, but family discouragement and his own insecurities made him see failures in all aspects.
The romance of this book is my favorite kind of romance: one based on a meeting of the minds. Bankson and Nell doesn't get many interactions alone without Fen, but from the interactions we get, you can see that they are perfect for each other. They are not necessarily identical copies, but they complement the other well, sharing the same interests while remaining different enough for them to work. They found support in each other: Nell, someone that honestly appreciates her work; Bankson, someone that soothes his fear and gives him encouragement when all he could see was failure.
The prose was exquisite too, beautiful, poetic, but not too purple. I read this after I finished On the Road and the difference between them was astounding. Whereas I had to spend 2 hours slogging through the last 80 pages of Dean and Sal's incoherent, drug-fueled, misogynist ramblings, I scarfed through 241 pages of Euphoria in five hours, savoring it.
I gave this four-stars instead of five purely because I think the ending is very much upsetting for personal reasons. I wouldn't say anything further, but rest assured, it was enough to warrant a full-star downgrade. Otherwise, this novel is perfect as a palate-cleanser, as it is short enough but nevertheless still engages the mind.
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Book information:
Author: King, Lily
Edition: New York: Atlantic Monthly Press. 2014 (Hardcover).
ISBN: 978-0-8021-2255-1
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