60 pages • 2 hours read
State of Wonder
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Chapter 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Chapter 1 Summary
The novel begins at the Vogel Medical Research Campus in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with the news of Dr. Anders Eckman’s death. This news is delivered in the form of a cryptic Aerogram sent by Dr. Annick Swenson, the Vogel Corporations’ lead scientist on a research mission in the Amazon Rainforest of Brazil. Eckman’s colleagues, including fellow pharmacologist and former lab partner, Dr. Marina Singh, and her boss and covert lover, Vogel CEO Jim Fox, struggle to make sense of the ambiguous phrasing of Dr. Swenson’s letter and the mysterious circumstances of Anders’s death. The letter simply states that he died of a fever and was given a proper Christian burial.
Adding to the mystery and intrigue, Anders was originally sent to the Amazon not only to discover the secret location of Dr. Swenson’s research station, but to gather intelligence about the progress of her fertility drug, and to encourage Dr. Swenson to hasten that progress. Dr. Swenson, a world class scientist, whose Amazonian research and development station is funded by the Vogel Corporation, has for some time, cut off all direct contact with the company, refusing to disclose the location of her rainforest station, and the development of a drug that would potentially extend the reproductive age of women well past the traditional limits imposed by age and menopause.
Still troubled by the news of Anders’ death, Marina accompanies Mr. Fox to Anders’ suburban home, where they personally deliver the news of Anders’ death to his wife, Karen.
Karen, a mother of three, is overwhelmed, not only by the news of her husband’s death, but by the mysterious circumstances surrounding it. Initially in a state of shock and disbelief, she implores them to get Anders “out of there” and to bring him home. She collapses on the floor in grief, and after contacting Karen’s family and a neighbor to collect her children, Marina and Mr. Fox leave the Eckman home shaken by the encounter.
Later, at a restaurant in St. Paul, Mr. Fox expresses his remorse for having sent Anders to the Amazon. From all accounts, Anders was a sheltered, unworldly and easy-going Minnesotan, ill-equipped for the harsh climate and hazards of the Amazonian rainforest. Fox reveals to Marina that the corporate board originally wanted her to go, but Mr. Fox overruled them against his own judgment, not wanting to send his lover on a potentially dangerous mission. Marina was not only better equipped for the journey, but she also knows Dr. Swenson personally, having studied under her during her medical training at Johns Hopkins.
Motivated by his guilt, Mr. Fox attempts to persuade Marina to go to the Amazon to track down Dr. Swenson and discover the progress of her research, and to unravel the mysterious circumstances surrounding Dr. Eckman’s death. Marina is initially reluctant to go. Her memories of her time as Dr. Swenson’s student at Johns Hopkins are mostly unpleasant, and the idea of a dangerous trip to the heart of the deadly and remote Amazon terrifies her.
To further pique Marina’s curiosity, Mr. Fox discloses more details about Dr. Swenson’s research, which involves the Lakashi, an Amazon tribe where women are able to reproduce well into advanced age. This trip would allow her to participate in the development of a groundbreaking fertility drug.
While Marina initially refuses to take the trip, the pressure on her increases when she received a call from a distraught Karen Eckman in the middle of the night. Karen, desperate to find out what happened to her husband but unwilling to leave her three children behind, begs Marina to make the trip to Brazil in her stead. The chapter ends with the implication that Marina, persuaded by Karen’s heart-wrenching plea, will in fact undertake this harrowing journey to the Amazon.
Chapter 1 Analysis
The letter from Dr. Swenson announcing the death of Dr. Anders Eckman instantly raises several questions and conflicts that will drive the novel’s plot. The central question involves the mystery surrounding Anders’ death. The phrasing of the letter only raises further questions: “We chose to bury him here in a manner in keeping with his Christian traditions” is particularly strange, given the fact that Anders was agnostic. His burial seems to point to a larger cover-up of the truth. This notion is only exacerbated by Dr. Swenson’s habitual secrecy and the knowledge that she has refused to disclose the progress of her drug research or the location of her Amazon research station. Aside from its content, her letter comes across as disarmingly vague, abrupt and insensitive. After all, a colleague has died, and she only acknowledges this fact in the second paragraph of her letter, after first discussing the weather and providing a vague progress report. Her abrupt treatment of Anders’s death, and her seeming lack of empathy towards his family and friends, initially portrays Dr. Swenson as a cold, callous, and monomaniacal scientist, only concerned about her own mission.
While the truth of Anders Eckman’s death seems hidden, the news of his death exposes several important details about Marina Singh, the protagonist, and her boss and lover, Mr. Jim Fox.
Though Jim Fox expresses outward remorse about the death of Anders, sharing his guilt openly with Marina, there are some immediately troubling signs concerning his character. His decision to send Anders to Brazil had less to do with Anders being the right man for the job, and more to do with his selfish impulse to keep his lover, Marina, at home in Minnesota. Secondly, his decision to accompany Marina to visit Anders’ widow, Karen, and to disclose the news of her husband’s death, seems to be made more from obligation than from genuine human sympathy. Even though he had met her at company parties, “he could not remember her face” (7), and when it comes time to deliver the news to Karen Eckman, Mr. Fox turns his back and leaves it to Marina to disclose the terrible message.
We also learn that Mr. Fox is the first Vogel CEO not to have formal training and background as a research physician. He is a businessman with a management background and was promoted within the company for those skills. Chapter 1 reveals him to be a cool and calculated businessman, qualities that are evident even in his relationship with Marina. They have been romantically involved for some time, and yet Mr. Fox insists that they must keep this relationship secret. In addition, he not only makes her the messenger at the Eckman home, but then manipulates her feelings over Anders’ death, and her visible empathy for Karen’s suffering to convince her to undertake a dangerous fact-finding mission to Dr. Swenson’s research station in Brazil.
Marina was once an ambitious obstetrician at Johns Hopkins but has become a research pharmacologist; choosing the laboratory over live patient care, she is anything but a cool and calculated scientist. She is devastated by the loss of her friend and colleague, Anders, and is visibly shaken by the suffering of Ander’s widow, Karen. It is out of her empathy for Karen, her love for Mr. Fox, and her love and loyalty to Anders that she agrees to go to Brazil. She knows that in taking this trip she will be forced to take a medication, Lariam, that once triggered a recurring series of traumatic memories and nightmares, and she knows that any reunion with Dr. Swenson will also reignite awful memories from her time at Johns Hopkins days, but nonetheless, she agrees to go. Marina’s decision underscores her great courage, loyalty, and empathy.
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