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| View Larger Image | Ship Fever
by Andrea Barrett
| | List Price: | $13.95 | | Price: | $11.16 | | You Save: | $2.79 (20%) |  | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours | | | | | Sales Rank: | 60950 | | Studio: | W. W. Norton & Company | | | Binding: | Paperback | | Number Of Pages: | 254 | | Publication Date: | December 31, 1969 | | Publisher: | W. W. Norton & Company |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Book Description
1996 National Book Award Winner for Fiction. The elegant short fictions gathered hereabout the love of science and the science of love are often set against the backdrop of the nineteenth century. Interweaving historical and fictional characters, they encompass both past and present as they negotiate the complex territory of ambition, failure, achievement, and shattered dreams. In "Ship Fever," the title novella, a young Canadian doctor finds himself at the center of one of history's most tragic epidemics. In "The English Pupil," Linnaeus, in old age, watches as the world he organized within his head slowly drifts beyond his reach. And in "The Littoral Zone," two marine biologists wonder whether their life-altering affair finally was worth it. In the tradition of Alice Munro and William Trevor, these exquisitely rendered fictions encompass whole lives in a brief space. As they move between interior and exterior journeys, "science is transformed from hard and known fact into malleable, strange and thrilling fictional material" (Boston Globe). |
Amazon.com
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 |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 43 reviews)
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Beautiful 
Ship Fever is a beautiful colelction of short stories and the titular novella covering the lives of famous scientists and their apostles. Mendel gets his due, as do Carol Linneaus and Darwin and Alfred Wallace. Each story here is a gem (with the exception of "The Marburg Sisters" which I didn't take to.) The novella Ship Fever is the heartbreaking story of a young physician with lofty goals for recognition caught in the middle of a typhus epidemic among Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine; this story and 'Rare Bird', of a young woman with scientific ambitions growing up in 18th century London, were two of the best things that I have read in ages. This collection is HIGHLY recommended.
August 04, 2008 | |
Science + Short Stories = Love!
Meeting one of the legends of science in a short story is such a pleasure. Some of the stories in this collection feature such encounters, while others tell the tales of unknown scientists and clinicians. They are beautiful fusions of art and science, stories about the human beings behind the practice. As a lover of both science and literature, I felt like these stories were written just for me. Hurray for science in fiction (very different from science fiction)!
June 29, 2008 | |
Ship Fever by Andrea Barrett
WOW. If you are used to reading material which has been "dumbed down" for the masses, you are in for a treat this time. There is no dumbing down in Barrett's writings. In fact, you'd best be on your intellectual toes. I've always liked books from which I can actually LEARN, and this collection of short stories certainly taught me well on considerable topics. Not always easy to swallow, because the author tells it like it is, it nevertheless provides interesting concepts and information that you may have never considered had you not picked up this book. Her descriptions of yellow fever and shiploads of immigrants from Ireland will make you hold a handkerchief to your nose! Excellent writing from a formidable author. Highly recommended.
February 08, 2008 | |
Good reading, for good nights
I recently picked up this book on the suggestion of a book-of-the-day calendar. When I went to pick it up at the library, I couldn't even remember why I thought it was so particularly intriguing. Short stories about science? Who wants to read about string theory and relativity? But being a shallow bibliophile, I found I liked the Audoboneque cover and brought it home. Several nights later, I pulled it out of my stack of bedside books (not to be confused with the sofa-side books, the bathroom books, the kichen books, the office books, or the car books) and found that I have never come across a more intelligent set of short stories in my life. I can say that the writing in this book is so good, it is nothing short of a small miracle.
In the first story a woman recounts her life with her gardener immigrant grandfather, who was a friend of Mendel's, telling how he died and the legacy of his friendship. In another, two competing 18th century naturalists try to survive the wilderness. Linneaus, in his decline, sees the ghosts of his assistants, who died young in the name of science. These are easily some of the best short stories I have ever read--and I'm including Englander's Unbearable Urges and just about everything I ever read in school, including Hardy.
So don't let the science theme put you off--it's a brilliantly done theme. Take this one with on a car trip to enhance your travels through nature, or put it on your bedside table for a nice read before bedtime. Either way, you'll enjoy them more than you thought. As for myself, I feel that Barrett is one of the single best writers alive--she has the simplicity of Pearl S. Buck, and the imaginative intelligence (there's that word again) of any of the world's best writers. Enjoy.
March 14, 2007 | |
Alice Munro-like biology, zoology and virology-themed stories 
The (almost 100-page long) title-story, which makes up one-third of the book, follows Dr. Lauchlin Grant as he leaves home, near that of a beloved married childhood friend, and travels to Grosse Isle to help with ship-fever-afflicted patients living there under quarantine. It is set in 1847, when thousands of impoverished Irish emigrants left their famine ravished country and traveled in crowded ships, often plagued with typhus, to immigrate to Canada. The other seven stories, of a more conventional length, have in common, biology, zoology and/or biochemistry. The Behavior of the Hawkweeds is peripherally about Mendel's peas; The English Pupil, an elderly, former zoology professor with memory problems, and Rare Bird (my favorite), the life of a science-minded woman stuck in a Jane Austen-like world-both are set in the 1700s and are marginally related; The Marburg sisters looks at twin biochemistry-majors; and Birds with No Feet follows a regrettably unsuccessful Darwin-like zoologist. I didn't care for either of the two set in more recent times: The Littoral Zone, an affair, and Soroche, a widow's handling of her husband's estate and thoughts about a long past encounter. Fans of the sciences will probably enjoy this collection of stories more than the average reader. Alice Munro consistently produces stories of similar caliber, although without the biology/zoology/virology connection. Fans of the story Ship Fever may especially like Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks, Mountains Upon Mountains by Tracy Kidder, and possibly Typhoid Mary by Judith Walzer Leavitt. Others may like The Double Helix by James D. Watson and possibly Life of Pi by Yann Martel.
December 29, 2006 | |
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