Sex on the Sepik

Loosely based on the life of American anthropologist Margaret Mead during her New Guinea studies of tribes on the Sepik River in New Guinea, this book was a slow read.

Although it includes some parts of Mead’s life, only one other real life character makes an appearance - fictionalized “Gregory Bateson” who whose name is that old Mead’s real-life second husband, but who is her lover in the book.

There is a third major character in the book - a seedy Australian who is the fictional husband. The blending of two men into one is confusing, but eventually I suspended belief and just went with it.

The novel draws on the views held by skeptics, that Mead imagined and depicted various tribal rituals according to her love life at the time. rather than by objective observation.

There are a couple of weird episodes that don’t ring true in Euphoria. One is that Mead (Nell in the novel) collaborates with her husband to form a grid depicting cultural norms by geographic regions. This supposed grid is used in WW2 by the allied and also by the Nazis. During the collaboration the lover (her husband in real life) muses that if they had known that WW2 was about to break out in Europe, maybe the war could have been averted. All a bit too much to take seriously.

The other was the description of the threesome’s trip to Sydney pre WW2. I was born in Australia post WW2 and King’s description is way off - a Sydney of the 1970s.

Yes it’s a piece of fiction, but in order to go with fiction based on historical events, the knowledgeable reader needs to be able to believe while reading.

I did enjoy Simon Vance reading in an Australian accent - the lover is an Aussie. Not a bad job, Mr Vance!

The book cover many, too many areas I think. Some of them are -
-anthropology
- transvestitism as a ritual to humiliate men
- lost love
- male chauvinism
- hints of domestic violence
- colonialism
- sociology
- threesomes
- gender
- linguistics
- romance
- grie
- New Guinea (now Papúa New Guinea)
and more. ( )

Amazing book. Anthropologist in the Solomon Islands. A love story. ( )

Totally engrossing. More than 5 stars. ( )

Euphoria is the first book I have read by this author, and it was a pleasant surprise. I'm not big on anthropology—and although I found that part of the book fascinating, the storytelling won me over. Nell Stone is a complicated woman. She is caring, organized, a dedicated researcher, and a free spirit. Her husband, Schuyler Fenwick, is the exact opposite. He's conniving, ambitious, and violent. Their friend and fellow anthropologist, Andrew Bankson, who would have been more, wound up only an observer of their short, intense relationship. Their collective story was captivating and profoundly engaging. It took me a while to get the hang of this author's writing style. Her chapters are untitled, and she dives right into the narrative in the first person without identifying the character she's talking about. Of course, you catch on soon, but sometimes it takes a few pages. Frank, to the point and heartfelt, this book was a fabulous read. ( )

euphoria.”

. "I have borrowed from the lives and experiences of these three people, but have told a different story."

This quote from the acknowledgment section of the novel is the best way to read this book, understanding that this is not the story of Margaret Mead, and the two men that she knew during that time, one her husband and one her future husband.
It is instead an alternative story told, based on some of the experiences found in the journals of Margaret Mead. That being said it was a well told story which included the fascinating lives led by these early anthropologists and the growing attraction shared by two of them. The story is told by Andrew Bankson who is reflecting back on his time where he met the famous Nell Stone and her husband Fen. When Bankson meets them he is desperately lonely, having just failed a suicide attempt. "I felt my loneliness bulge out of me like a goiter, and I wasn’t sure how to hide it from them." He describes Nell,"Her smile bloomed naturally but the rest of her face was sallow and her eyes seemed coated over by pain. She had a small face and large smoke-colored eyes like a cuscus, the small marsupial Kiona children kept as pets." It is her mind he falls for. At t his point she is already the famous American who wrote a scandalous book about the sexual habits of Samoan teenage girls. Bankson manages to convince them to explore another local tribe where he can be their neighbor if he travels by a small motor boat he owns. As Nell plunges headfirst into this new culture of the Tam people, her husband more enjoys living like the natives. "Fen didn’t want to study the natives; he wanted to be a native. His attraction to anthropology was not to puzzle out the story of humanity. It was not ontological. It was to live without shoes and eat from his hands and fart in public." As Fen goes off in search of a tribal flute which may gain him fame, he leaves Bankson alone with his wife. Conflict ensues...
Highly recommend both this book and her newer novel Writers and Lovers.

Lines:
Fen had his back to her but she could see the expression on his face just from the way he was standing with his back arched and his heels slightly lifted. He would be compensating for his wrinkled clothing and his odd profession with a hard masculine glare. He would allow himself a small smile only if he himself had made the joke.

The Mumbanyo believed it took many times to make a whole baby.

Anthropology at that time was in transition, moving from the study of men dead and gone to the study of living people, and slowly letting go of the rigid belief that the natural and inevitable culmination of every society is the Western model.

We’re always, in everything we do in this world, she said, limited by subjectivity. But our perspective can have an enormous wingspan, if we give it the freedom to unfurl.

Cutting off fingers was a ritual of mourning a close relative. ( )