To read Barrett's stories, get cozy with the idea of scientific drama in the mid-1800s! It's pretty exciting. Imagine all the friendships and conflicts, the treacheries and discoveries, the disappointment and the elation. How when Gregor Mendel back in 1856 in his monastery started studying inherited traits of pea plants, Charles Darwin was working on
On the Origin of Species, which he published in 1859
. How Alec, the fictional protagonist of "Birds with No Feet," was working for Alfred Russel Wallace, who is best known for coming up with the theory of evolution through natural selection,
which prompted Charles Darwin to publish his ideas first. And of course, how darling, confused Max Vigne in 1863 is following the 1847 footsteps of Joseph Dalton Hooker (who affectionately dedicated his book to Darwin), and dealing with distance and lines of separation between him and his wife. The competitions of scientific men and women, the egos and ambitions and personal lives and tragedies, are all part of Andrea Barrett's medium. What I admire most is the complicated way she shows me the relevance of these stories. I may not be traveling in India or trying to find significance in the inherited traits of peas, but I am constantly navigating personal relationships, devoting hours and hours to personal obsessions, and worrying about the meaning of my work. Barrett is double-whip grafting our lives onto the stock of the past.
I really enjoyed Andrea Barrett’s stories. They were interesting and it was easy to keep reading and keep myself into the stories. In the introduction, it was said Barrett does extensive research for her stories and it showed. It definitely felt like she knew her stuff and that I could trust the information she was giving me. That said, it didn’t sound like I was reading a factual textbook or anything like that either. The stories are still fiction and the way she blends factual people and their accomplishments, such as Mendel and his work with genetics, with fictional people like Richard and his wife was really good. “The Behavior of the Hawkweeds” wasn’t just about Mendel and how he fascinates Richard and Nadia. I felt it was about how their shared interest brought them together, but it wasn’t enough to hold them together in the long run. It was about their relationship.
ReplyDelete“Birds With No Feet” also focused on relationships and, like Catherine said, personal obsession and whether or not Alec’s work really matters with people like Wallace in the field with him. Wallace is a scientist and that’s what motivates him to explore and collect specimens. Alec simply wants to adventure and discover new things and new creatures, though at first he’s motivated by money. It isn’t really about the science to him so much as the experience. He doesn’t even really care that Wallace is being treated as more important than him because of his discoveries. For the most part, he’s content with adventuring; though he’s been sick along the way and creatures he’s felt an attachment to die. Still, he keeps at it.
In “Servants of the Map” Barrett is also writing about relationships, this time the relationship between a man and his wife after they have been separated for a long period of time, during which they can’t really communicate with each other. This separation takes its toll on Max and he finds himself growing more and more despondent, even as he travels with his group and sees the wonder (and danger) of the mountains surrounding him.
In all three of these stories, Barrett blends fact with fiction in such a way that it’s difficult to separate the two. I feel like Tati really did climb over that wall and really was friends with Mendel. Overall, I very much enjoyed reading each of these stories.
While reading all three of these stories, I couldn’t help but see the correlation between striving for greatness and being jealous of others striving along side of you. Whether it’s the relationship between husband and wife, or teacher and student, it seems that Andrea Barrett touches on the difficulties of being devoted to ones work and ones personal life. We also see in each story the struggle to carry on a relationship, whether it be friendship, or marriage, we see the trouble that comes to be dedicated to ones work.
ReplyDeleteIn “Behavior of the Hawkweeds”, we see the characters of Antonia and Richard are brought together through their pasts and their interests. I felt like Antonia although her history with plants and her grandfather meant a lot to her, it seemed to drive a barrier between her and Richard. She wanted him to love her, he seemed to live through her and want to take her stories and childhood and make them his own. I felt like Antonia regretted the letters she shared with Richard, as she grew older with him. I also believe that Richard was jealous of the way Antonia grew up. In “Birds with no Feet”, we are introduced to another scientist who is hopeful yet struggling to discover and publish himself. Alec starts out hopeful and looks to Wallace as someone to befriend, yet by the end of the story we see that Alec feels he has wasted time and as missed on opportunities. Like Antonia and Richard, I think Alec is jealous of Wallace’s discoveries and achievements.
While reading “Servants of the Map” I found myself again seeing the correlation of Matt trying to follow his dreams, but at the same time struggle to devote himself to Clara. I really liked how the narration changed throughout the story going from letters, to third person. As much as each of these stories provide lines and lines of hard work and achievements from each character, I like how Barrett shows failure as well and the hardship that comes with working hard.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t the biggest fan of Andrea Barrett. It took a lot for me to focus on all three of her stories. I read through The Behavior of Hawkweeds. I thought it was extremely detailed and at first I thought it would be something that I would enjoy. However, as I read through more of the story, I found it less and less interesting. I didn’t see how the scene with Tati and Mr. Leiniger fit within the story… in fact, I didn’t understand how a lot of the story worked. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but for me, this story was too wordy. In fact, this was my problem with all of the stories. After I read The Behavior of Hawkweeds, it went all downhill from there. Barrett just didn’t connect with me like any of the other readings we’ve read so far. Birds with No Feet had the same impact on me; I just couldn’t get through it. I felt as though it had been written to make me fumble over the words. On top of that, Servants of the Map had me disliking Max, the main character. The stories seemed to drag on, and while I can appreciate detail, I don’t necessarily like stories that lead me on for too long. I get bored quickly. I’m sorry if it seems like I’m lashing out at Andrea Barrett, it would just appear that her style of writing does not suit me.
ReplyDeleteRecently, I have discovered the excellence of period pieces. For the longest time they scared the shit out of me, because they just seemed so damn irrelevant to me as a reader in the twenty first century. That is not to say that I don’t find history interesting. It can be quite fascinating, but that is often times the more sordid bits of history that appeal to me. So, the nineteenth century? Yeah, it used to bore the shit out of me. I’m not going to say that Andrea Barrett changed my perspective or anything like that, because my perspective has been evolving over the last year or so. However, her short stories are delicious bits of things that I normally despise: science and the middle of the nineteenth century. Although The Behavior of the Hawkweeds does not take place in the nineteenth century, it still has a foot in this time period. We find that connection through Tati with Gregor Mendel. It is not an adventure story, like Birds with No Feet and Servants of the Map. However, it is, in my opinion, the best of the three stories. (To be fair, comparing the three is like comparing perfect apples to slightly less perfect apples. Moreover, I felt a somewhat strong connection to The Behavior of the Hawkweeds, because I am personally familiar with the Union College/ Schenectady area. It was sort of fun picturing the specifics of the quad in front of the campus library, for instance, as well as the street the narrator and Richard lived on before moving onto campus.) It is interesting to learn of Mendel’s failure with the hawkweeds. Sure, I knew some basic things about Mendel as the father of genetics, but I don’t think I ever learned about his abject “failure” with hawkweeds. It is just too much fun the way Barrett draws parallels between the characters in this piece with real life figures, such as Mendel and Nageli. And then in the end, it seems like Barrett is pointing to Richard as one or the other of these gentlemen. In all three of these stories, Barrett shares her own fascination with science in order to familiarize her reader with certain scientific figures and practices, as well as creating a truly enthralling bit of fiction. Frankly, I was amazed how much I enjoyed these three stories. Admittedly, I starting reading these stories later in the week than I would’ve liked and so I was hurried. And yet, I found myself slowing down and enjoying the prose. Really, really excellent stuff. I am going to have to read more of Ms. Barrett down the road.
ReplyDeleteSomething that I noticed about Andrea Barrett was that she used a lot of detail. So much in fact that it really helped the reader (me) understand, but at the same time it did bog down the story with less than important fact interesting, but non-essential Her first story “The Behavior of the Hawkweeds,” was my favorite, simply put because it had so much interesting facts that I could understand and were explained. The story was also very well written and perhaps because you could tell it was a real person describing something. Just the whole story and the tone and voice showed such volume.
ReplyDeleteRobert was my least favorite character, but the character that sympathized with the most. He wanted to make his wife love him and also gain knowledge, and be the next Mendel. I felt so badly for him when he saw his wife attempt to cheat on him and also tell this other gentlemen about something that would have helped him and maybe even know his wife better.
In “Birds with No Feet,” I began to see kind of a parallel between this story and “The Behavior of the Hawkweed,” the characterizers with in it Alec and Wallace have the same dynamic as Robert and Antonia. I saw the same kind of struggle that Robert faced kind of with Sebastian as Alec faced with Wallace. Alec feel jealous of Wallace’s accomplishments just like Robert is jealous of his wife telling Sebastian her secret and not him.
The main character Matt of “Servants of the Map” really annoyed me. He didn’t seem to be able to give much attention to Clara at all and although the parallel was shown again it was less of an engaging story because of the dialog even if I enjoyed the letters.
P.S my email got hacked so I changed my first name to sometihng strange will be normal after this post. Jacob Dolan-Bath
I am not a huge fan of science especially biology, so I found Andrea Barrett’s pieces hard for me to enjoy. This did not mean I didn’t appreciate her writing. Her story telling is great! In each story, Barrett takes the reader on a journey from the Himalayas to the Amazon to the United States. Each country is unique and is explained in such detail that the reader can envision it. She also did a great job of showing how much she knew about biology through the name-dropping of plants, explanations of theory, and her knowledge of the life of a scientist. I was very nervous I wouldn’t understand her pieces because of my lack of science knowledge, but was pleasantly surprised when I didn’t have a problem. I think this is because of her great tying of themes in each of these short stories.
ReplyDeleteAll three protagonists were on quests searching to understand their lives. They all used science to try and mend their feelings of confusion and failure. In “The Behavior of the Hawkweeds,” Antonia is trying to understand what happened to her as a child and what her life means. Through Mendel’s struggles, she sees how she is also struggling to have a place. In “Birds with No Feet,” Alec feels like a failure after his first trip to bring back new species from the Amazon. All of his work gets burned up. On his second trip, he begins to discover that he doesn’t just kill these animals for science. Alec gains feelings for these creatures and how his work gives them a purpose, until they are burned down or neglected. Alec uses these trips to learn about himself and what he wants out of being a scientist. In “Servants of the Map,” Max begins to figure out what will give his life meaning. He attempts to understand his new self, found through loneliness on the trip, and how his relationship with his family has changed. Max seems to transition from a “Servant of the Map” to a “Servant of Botany.” Max has trouble pinning down how he has changed over the course of the trip and how that has changed what he wants to do in life. All three stories are led by questioning narrators and that is easy to understand why. There is a lot of doubling in each of the stories to confuse the narrators. Antonia sees her grandfather and his opposite Mr.Leiniger. Alec meets his double Mr. Wallace, who slowly became two different people, one a failure, the other a success. Alec has his feels for Clara, but then new feelings for Dima. He also struggles between the doubling of home life verses adventure in the great outdoors. All three stories tie together really well and are easy to read one after the other.
When I read in Frederick Reiken’s introduction that Andrea Barrett “build[s] fictional worlds” into actual places and events, I knew I would be in for an interesting read. But I also found as I was reading that I was not necessarily understanding all of the biological or botanical concepts going on in the stories, but instead I was focusing on the characters surrounding the studies. The main characters in each story are “bent by loneliness and longing,” much like the Mendel story that Richard’s wife tells her husband in “The Behavior of the Hawkweeds” (127). Richard is so immersed in this study of Mendel, while his wife is so not, that I also felt this same lack of interest while reading. It is only when Sebastian arrives that she spruces up, saying, “It was nice to have some company around (135). Well we all know how that turned out. But Barrett creates this sense of sympathy for her characters, since they are all in contrast with another character that is following his or her dream.
ReplyDeleteMax from “Servants of the Map” is very similar to Richard. He is pushing full steam ahead with his explorations, and even more so since he is away from his home and family. His wife Clara might as well be living on another planet, inching farther and farther away from him each day as he loses himself to the map. Barrett allows us to reflect on our own actions by having Max do the same—he realizes that he has changed. Barrett writes, “Beyond his work, beyond the mapping and recording, he is seeing; and this—it is terrifying—is becoming more important to him than anything” (167). It is something we can all relate to, looking deep into whatever it is that we enjoy most in life and knowing that something else has to be sacrificed in its place.
Alec from “Birds with No Feet” is slightly different than Richard and Max. I found it so interesting that the “orphan” that he adopts until it dies was something that he truly valued, all the while killing off that same species of the orangutan. Alec’s character is all about being the first—“I was the first to bring these back” (147) he says, talking about the birds’ feet. “I was the one… who first solved the problem of keeping the birds alive” (148). It’s really neat how Barrett creates these characters that are so fascinated by exploration, travel, or new findings (or maybe all three), and places them in the midst of theories and research that many of us probably are not familiar with. But what I find the most impressive is how she makes the characters relatable, even if they are in the most unfamiliar of situations.
I wasn't sure what I expected when I started reading Andrea Barrett's stories. I have never read fiction that incorporates so much scientific fact into its plot. The characters of her stories have a very scientific kind of mindset. I think that is why I found it hard to read them and connect with them as characters. However, as I went back and read the stories again, I was able to find things that I greatly appreciated in Barrett's writing, but again, it was very hard to connect with.
ReplyDeleteIn “The Behavior of the Hawkweeds,” I sympathized greatly with Richard, even though he was my least favorite character. He wanted to badly to be the next Mendel, and so badly wanted his wife to love him, that you can't not help but feel bad for him.
In “The Bird with no Feet,” we have Alec, who feels like his life is just a bunch of wasted opportunities. This was the story I had the hardest time reading, because I felt like it was a rehash of “Hawkweeds.” Because I felt that the characters of Richard and Alec were so similar, I did not feel any kind of drive to continue to read the story because it just felt so similar.
I really disliked the character of Max in “Servants of the Map.” However, I did appreciate the fact that he was trying to follow his dreams and still be devoted to Clara. This story seemed to drag on more than the other stories, and while I appreciated the detail that Barrett put into her work, it became to much to read at a certain point.
I have to say that I am rather indifferent to Andrea Barrett’s pieces. I found it interesting that she managed to combine two schools of thought, two subjects that we normally believe to be so separate. The idea of including science in her stories, and not as a way to preach or teach to the reader, but as a way to move the story along was brilliant. However, I found it working best in The Behavior of the Hawkweeds. The science story wasn’t the main focus there, only happened to be a method to explain certain characters’ behavior and relationships. A relationship with Mendel explains why the grandfather enjoyed working at the nursery, as he must have enjoyed viewing Mendel’s work as a kid. It then sets up how Antonia and Richard’s relationship comes to be. Mendel’s work on genetics might also be what inspired Richard to go into that field of study, as he did have hexadactyly, a genetic defect. He even worried about it passing on to his children. The science doesn’t play a huge role in terms of the overall plot, just a method to connect certain points and ideas.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the writing, I wasn’t completely blown away by Barrett’s style. There were certain aspects I wasn’t very fond of, but I did appreciate other methods she used in the different pieces. In The Behavior of the Hawkweeds I wasn’t very fond of how she explained a lot of details and backstory. Some of the explanation moved into scenes, but I did not like it much as a transition. In Servants of the Map, while I wasn’t fond of the story itself, I found it interesting how Barrett used letters within the story to almost mislead Clara, and emphasize certain points of the story by not including them within the letters. I can’t say I enjoyed reading the letters much, as they dragged on at times, but I appreciated their use.
I think what draws people into these stories is not only the amount of detail and scientific knowledge that Andrea Barrett includes within, but also the atmosphere of her stories. Everyone, in one way or another, finds some part of historical fiction exciting and intriguing. Think about it; at least one of the top Oscar-nominated films every year is historical fiction. There must be something about it that makes people want to delve into it, no matter what period. Once Barrett starts incorporating Mendel’s experiments in her first story, “The Behavior of the Hawkweeds”, elements of mystery and scientific conspiracy begin to make a pattern throughout the story. By adding this fictional tension into a tale of discovery she organizes a much more adventurous sort of story. Plus, she returns to her childhood so many times that it becomes more than simply exposition or a flashback. It becomes its own subplot, and she only ever finishes it close to when the main story ends. She establishes how closely related all three plots are early enough on, and so we look for the resolution in all of them constantly.
ReplyDeleteThe other factor that seems consistent in all three stories is that the protagonist is always looking for something, some kind of answer to a difficulty in their life. In “The Behavior of the Hawkweeds”, Antonia struggles with knowing the truth about her father, replaying the stories about Mendel, and reconsidering her feelings towards Richard. With “Birds with No Feet” it tells of Alec and his finding his place in the scientific community while battling it out with his rival in the same region. And in “Servants of the Map” it is Max trying to figure out for years what the hell he is doing out in the glaciers and how he takes to his changes in personality and emotions. All the characters utilize the journeys they find themselves on to help solve any internal issues.
In Andrea Barrett’s stories, I noticed her take chances that I would never have the courage to attempt myself. For example, the integration of historical facts and theories into the narrative surrounding her fictional characters and situations was surprisingly smooth. When being informed on the theories of well-known historical figures such as Gregor Mendel, it didn’t feel like I was being dragged out of the story for a history lesson, as can occur in works that require the reader to have certain real-world knowledge. Instead, the information is presented in a way that flows just as well as information regarding the settings and characters. “The Behavior of Hawkweeds” is an excellent example of how to pull this off, as these “history lessons” are merged into details more specifically relevant to the story of the central character. Mendel is introduced in the initial classroom scene alongside initial hints about the central character’s relationship with her husband, and further details on Mendel’s studies come with the stories about Tati. This brings me to a second point: Barrett has more guts than I do. She’s not afraid to have her characters interact with famous figures such as Mendel, Wallace, and Hooker, and these inclusions don’t come off as a gimmick. Wallace especially comes alive as not a reference to a historical figure, but as another character in the story, another element that is hard to pull off naturally, but that Barrett does well.
ReplyDeleteMaking these elements appear as something natural in the piece allows the reader to focus on the story itself. “The Behavior of Hawkweeds” isn’t about the scientific discoveries as much as it’s about acknowledging the emotional sides of the stories behind the discoveries. “Birds with No Feet” isn’t about collecting specimens as much as it’s about Alec trying to find purpose in his work and life. “Servants of the Map” likewise wasn’t about the perilous task of mapping as much as it was about Max trying to come to terms with his situation and distance from his wife. Although I was impressed with Barrett’s ability to integrate historical facts and sciences into her stories without detracting from the scenes, I felt as though “Servants of the Map” could have accomplished this task in half as many pages. Maybe I’m missing something, but it seemed to drag on a bit for me (though in a meta sense, it does reflect how the arrival of the letters drags on). I thoroughly enjoyed the other two stories, however, and hope further discussion will help me gain more appreciation for the third.
When I read the introduction, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Following characters in a biological world sounded horribly boring. But it didn’t read like a history textbook or a research paper. I was surprised in “The Behavior of the Hawkweeds” how the connection with the scientists is treated as a thing that happened and it wasn’t a big deal, like it was just this thing in life. On pate 133, Richard finds himself holding a draft of Mendel’s letter. He reacts in the reasonable way, shocked to be holding a piece of history. But Antonia simply tells him to keep it, treating it as something regular. Her justification is so ordinary, I had to read it a couple of times in order to grasp it, to make sure I was reading it correctly. It’s an interesting perspective.
ReplyDelete“Birds with No Feet” also had a similar feel to it. I had not clue of Wallace’s actual contributions to science, thinking him just a scientist created for the story and only the story. Other than mailing something to Darwin, he just seemed so simple. Alec ends up working for him because he sent him a letter, an extremely ordinary letter. And even though he’s working for a scientist, I was more interested in how he reacted to his work and his frustrations with how he’s been spending his life then anything else.
“Servants of the Map” also had a similar reaction for me. I was intrigued by the letters and what Max left out. I wanted to see this relationship and how it became strained as Max’s writings slowed and he did not put as he was strained by his work and his inability to achieve the perfect balance. The scientific details were just little things, the reason why he was away and the reason why there was strain.
Barrett constructs her stories very well, putting such a vast amount of research into her story to solidify it, to make it more realistic, realistic to the point where it is not something I notice.