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Ship Fever: Stories
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).
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).
258 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 17, 1996
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About the author
Andrea Barrett
42 books333 followersAndrea Barrett is the author of The Air We Breathe, Servants of the Map (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), The Voyage of the Narwhal, Ship Fever (winner of the National Book Award), and other books. She teaches at Williams College and lives in northwestern Massachusetts.
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Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 490 reviews
March 26, 2023
As soon as I’d start one of Barrett’s stories, no matter my state of mind, I’d fall into it and forget everything else. At times the immediacy and layering felt like reading Chekhov or Alice Munro.
I felt the title story personally. Though conditions wouldn’t have been as dire for my ancestors, the route of one of the novella’s emigrants—Ireland to Canada to Detroit—was the same for my maternal grandfather and his family. (My grandfather, who was a teen at the time of his emigration, was born fifty years or so after the novella’s time period. He and his family continued on to New Orleans from Detroit.)
Concerning the response to epidemics and poverty, the novella reveals we’ve learned some things since the 1840s, but we haven't learned nearly enough. One of the characters, a doctor based on a real person, says something that could describe today—that what was happening with the blight and the famine and the ships and the quarantine and the so-called limited supplies and the triaging of patients had nothing to do with medicine and everything to do with politics.
I don’t believe I’ve read a more beautifully written death scene than the one in this story, plus it encapsulates a favorite theme of mine, one found in almost all of these stories, with a fictional protagonist representing all of those who are unheralded or unknown. It’s an emphatic reminder that behind every single one of these many deaths is a person with a life that counts.
I felt the title story personally. Though conditions wouldn’t have been as dire for my ancestors, the route of one of the novella’s emigrants—Ireland to Canada to Detroit—was the same for my maternal grandfather and his family. (My grandfather, who was a teen at the time of his emigration, was born fifty years or so after the novella’s time period. He and his family continued on to New Orleans from Detroit.)
Concerning the response to epidemics and poverty, the novella reveals we’ve learned some things since the 1840s, but we haven't learned nearly enough. One of the characters, a doctor based on a real person, says something that could describe today—that what was happening with the blight and the famine and the ships and the quarantine and the so-called limited supplies and the triaging of patients had nothing to do with medicine and everything to do with politics.
I don’t believe I’ve read a more beautifully written death scene than the one in this story, plus it encapsulates a favorite theme of mine, one found in almost all of these stories, with a fictional protagonist representing all of those who are unheralded or unknown. It’s an emphatic reminder that behind every single one of these many deaths is a person with a life that counts.
July 17, 2020
Thank you Joanna for really pushing and pushing for me to read this - you see I do not like short stories! Joanna didn't give up on me b/c she knew what I like in books and she knew this book just could not be missed, despite that it was short stories. If you like short stories, you would probably give it 5 stars. The last story Ship Fever was longer and that clinched it for me.
Science and history come alive in the fictional story Barrett weaves around the true facts! Here one sees the advantage of fiction over non-fiction. You get into the heads of the scientists and of the people living through tremendous times of suffering which history tends to be composed of. Ship Fever is about the Irish immigrants emigrating to Canada during the potato famine. The US had practically cut off its borders. These immigrants were starving and sick - here it wasn't plague but typhus! A glorius mixture of love and coldness, greed and caring and nonchalance - all emotions are there to be experienced and felt. You almost feel you are one of the main characters b/c the author has made them so real. You are in their heads.
Other stories were fabulous too - although too short! OK, I am Swedish so it is perhaps not strange that I loved the story entitled The English Pupil. It is about Carl Linnaeus, when he is very old and confused. It takes place in Uppsala and Hammarby and I have walked there millions of times. The Botanical Gardens. The reader is right there. Again you are not looking from the outside at what is occurring but from the inside, from Linnaeus' head and also from the others who so well knew him.
Barrett is extremely good at presenting how women see an issue. Intelligent women living at a time when they were not suppose to be interested in anything other than helping their husbands, food and servants and the house. Some had other interests and yes they let themselves follow these interests. You cannot help but laugh and be happy for them - see the story Rare Birds. The stories occurr during the 1700s and 1800s.
I have to choose what book to read next by this author. Her ability to make science and history come alive is magnificent. This is achieved through her outstanding ability to get the reader inside the characters' heads. It is this latter ability that will help me choose which book to read.
Science and history come alive in the fictional story Barrett weaves around the true facts! Here one sees the advantage of fiction over non-fiction. You get into the heads of the scientists and of the people living through tremendous times of suffering which history tends to be composed of. Ship Fever is about the Irish immigrants emigrating to Canada during the potato famine. The US had practically cut off its borders. These immigrants were starving and sick - here it wasn't plague but typhus! A glorius mixture of love and coldness, greed and caring and nonchalance - all emotions are there to be experienced and felt. You almost feel you are one of the main characters b/c the author has made them so real. You are in their heads.
Other stories were fabulous too - although too short! OK, I am Swedish so it is perhaps not strange that I loved the story entitled The English Pupil. It is about Carl Linnaeus, when he is very old and confused. It takes place in Uppsala and Hammarby and I have walked there millions of times. The Botanical Gardens. The reader is right there. Again you are not looking from the outside at what is occurring but from the inside, from Linnaeus' head and also from the others who so well knew him.
Barrett is extremely good at presenting how women see an issue. Intelligent women living at a time when they were not suppose to be interested in anything other than helping their husbands, food and servants and the house. Some had other interests and yes they let themselves follow these interests. You cannot help but laugh and be happy for them - see the story Rare Birds. The stories occurr during the 1700s and 1800s.
I have to choose what book to read next by this author. Her ability to make science and history come alive is magnificent. This is achieved through her outstanding ability to get the reader inside the characters' heads. It is this latter ability that will help me choose which book to read.
January 24, 2020
Three of my fellow physicians have fallen sick; also two Catholic priests and the same Anglican clergymen who chided me early on. At least six of the attendants are also sick. The remainder so fear contagion that we have caught them standing outside the tents or in the open doorways of the sheds, hurling the patients’ bread rations at their beds rather than approach them. Gray bread flying through the gray air.
From Ship Fever, a story about a doctor’s struggles amidst the typhoid outbreak brought to Quebec in 1847 by “coffin” ships carrying diseased Irish immigrants who were fleeing the potato famine.
Andrea Barrett’s Ship Fever won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1996. This work of historical fiction is a collection of seven short stories and the novella “Ship Fever”. In each of her stories, Barrett writes about history and scientific discovery using fiction. It is rare that I come across a book that contain these three elements and are drawn with a deft and masterful touch. Here are some very short reviews without giving away any crucial plot twists.
1. The Behavior of the Hawkweeds - a story about a 20th century woman who is unsatisfied with her marriage. Her husband is a professor of botany at a local American college. The woman’s grandfather, now passed away, was an amateur botanist who worked with Gregor Mendel, the famous scientist, some sixty years earlier. She keeps key details of her grandfather’s revelations about Mendel from her husband. We are not sure what is real or which stories her grandfather fabricated.
2. The English Pupil - Linnaeus, an 18th Swedish botanist who named thousands of species, is nearing the end of his life and is stuck in a snowstorm. He struggles to verbalize and in in his mind he is reminiscing about his past loyal pupils. Not much of a story per se but Barrett’s writing evokes some beautiful imagery as the sleigh moves across the frozen landscape in Sweden.
3. The Littoral Zone - an odd but powerful love story about Jonathan and Ruby, both scientists, who fall in love on a two week field trip. They leave their spouses for each other and each of have teenage children. The metaphor in the title refers to the ecological zone where life blossoms between the deep water and the safety of the shore.
4. Rare Bird - another 18th century story, this one set in the English countryside. A woman, obviously unsatisfied with her life, find love with another woman and walks out of her present life completely.
5. Soroche - a well off woman travels to Chile in 1971. She is pregant and comes down with altitude sickness, “The Soroche”. She falls for Dr. Sepulveda, who likes to regale her with stories about Charles Darwin trekking through Tierra del Fuego. A story of loss, she does not completely trust her situation in life.
6. Birds with No Feet - The third 19th century story. Young apprentice Alec who is discovering many bird and flora species in the Amazon and even in Borneo feels conflicted and taken advantage of by Alfred Wallace, a more esteemed biologist. Alec finds solace in an evolutionary explanation for his situation.
7. The Marburg Sisters - Rose and Bianca are identical twins, daughers of vineyard owners in New England. There mother dies in an accident. Rose becomes a lab biologist while Bianca travels the world, becomes addicted and has bouts with mental illness. They reconnect but their mother’s death still has a profound affect on them.
8. Ship Fever - the crown jewel of the collection. We follow an initially reluctant doctor, Lauchlin Grant, who works to treat the typhoid victims. The doctor begins to fall in love with a patient, Nora, who he nurses back to health. The sickest of the victims, and the dead, on the coffin ships are removed at Grosse Ile where the doctor works. The immigrants’ families who did not succumb to the disease are sent elsewhere in Canada. Nora is desperate to find her little brothers. We see the prejudice in the other characters back in town. It stems from the danger of contracting typhus. Although fictionalized, this is easily the best story that I’ve read on the topic of Irish immigration during the 1840’s. Two of my great-great grandparents came to the U.S. from Ireland during this period. I’ve often wondered what they experienced on that trip. At the height of the epidemic, despite only taking two weeks to cross the Atlantic, an average of 10% of passengers died in the two weeks! As a result of the Grosse Ile epidemic, physicians pushed for improvements including bathrooms and medical facilities on board passenger ships. Governments were slow to act however. Eight years later Congress finally passed the Carriage of Passengers Act in the United States which improved conditions but the epidemic was long over by then.
Five Stars. Marvelous reads. Actually a collection for my six star shelf.
From Ship Fever, a story about a doctor’s struggles amidst the typhoid outbreak brought to Quebec in 1847 by “coffin” ships carrying diseased Irish immigrants who were fleeing the potato famine.
Andrea Barrett’s Ship Fever won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1996. This work of historical fiction is a collection of seven short stories and the novella “Ship Fever”. In each of her stories, Barrett writes about history and scientific discovery using fiction. It is rare that I come across a book that contain these three elements and are drawn with a deft and masterful touch. Here are some very short reviews without giving away any crucial plot twists.
1. The Behavior of the Hawkweeds - a story about a 20th century woman who is unsatisfied with her marriage. Her husband is a professor of botany at a local American college. The woman’s grandfather, now passed away, was an amateur botanist who worked with Gregor Mendel, the famous scientist, some sixty years earlier. She keeps key details of her grandfather’s revelations about Mendel from her husband. We are not sure what is real or which stories her grandfather fabricated.
2. The English Pupil - Linnaeus, an 18th Swedish botanist who named thousands of species, is nearing the end of his life and is stuck in a snowstorm. He struggles to verbalize and in in his mind he is reminiscing about his past loyal pupils. Not much of a story per se but Barrett’s writing evokes some beautiful imagery as the sleigh moves across the frozen landscape in Sweden.
3. The Littoral Zone - an odd but powerful love story about Jonathan and Ruby, both scientists, who fall in love on a two week field trip. They leave their spouses for each other and each of have teenage children. The metaphor in the title refers to the ecological zone where life blossoms between the deep water and the safety of the shore.
4. Rare Bird - another 18th century story, this one set in the English countryside. A woman, obviously unsatisfied with her life, find love with another woman and walks out of her present life completely.
5. Soroche - a well off woman travels to Chile in 1971. She is pregant and comes down with altitude sickness, “The Soroche”. She falls for Dr. Sepulveda, who likes to regale her with stories about Charles Darwin trekking through Tierra del Fuego. A story of loss, she does not completely trust her situation in life.
6. Birds with No Feet - The third 19th century story. Young apprentice Alec who is discovering many bird and flora species in the Amazon and even in Borneo feels conflicted and taken advantage of by Alfred Wallace, a more esteemed biologist. Alec finds solace in an evolutionary explanation for his situation.
7. The Marburg Sisters - Rose and Bianca are identical twins, daughers of vineyard owners in New England. There mother dies in an accident. Rose becomes a lab biologist while Bianca travels the world, becomes addicted and has bouts with mental illness. They reconnect but their mother’s death still has a profound affect on them.
8. Ship Fever - the crown jewel of the collection. We follow an initially reluctant doctor, Lauchlin Grant, who works to treat the typhoid victims. The doctor begins to fall in love with a patient, Nora, who he nurses back to health. The sickest of the victims, and the dead, on the coffin ships are removed at Grosse Ile where the doctor works. The immigrants’ families who did not succumb to the disease are sent elsewhere in Canada. Nora is desperate to find her little brothers. We see the prejudice in the other characters back in town. It stems from the danger of contracting typhus. Although fictionalized, this is easily the best story that I’ve read on the topic of Irish immigration during the 1840’s. Two of my great-great grandparents came to the U.S. from Ireland during this period. I’ve often wondered what they experienced on that trip. At the height of the epidemic, despite only taking two weeks to cross the Atlantic, an average of 10% of passengers died in the two weeks! As a result of the Grosse Ile epidemic, physicians pushed for improvements including bathrooms and medical facilities on board passenger ships. Governments were slow to act however. Eight years later Congress finally passed the Carriage of Passengers Act in the United States which improved conditions but the epidemic was long over by then.
Five Stars. Marvelous reads. Actually a collection for my six star shelf.
March 20, 2019
yüz kitap'tan muhteşem bir kitap daha. bilimin edebiyatla buluşmasının bu kadar güzel öykülerle sonuçlanacağını tahmin edemezdim. özellikle ilk öyküler ünlü bilim insanlarıyla ilgili ama bilimden öte, edebiyatın dokunduğu yer tabii ki incelikler, insani duygular, yalnızlıklar...
son öykü hatta novella denebilir ise korkunç bir humma salgınını anlatıyor. irlanda'daki kıtlık nedeniyle kanada'ya göçmek zorunda kalanların yaşadıkları 150 yılda bir arpa boyu yol gidemediğimizin kanıtı. ha gemilerde ölüp aşağı atılanlar, ha lastik botlarla ege denizi'nde boğulanlar... göçmenlerin getirildiği grosse adası'nda yaşanan korkunç olaylar, yardıma gelen doktor, hemşire, rahip, rahibelerin birçoğunun da ölmesi ve bilime hizmet aşkıyla yanan doktor grant'ın trajedisi mutlaka okunmalı.
tıbbın, bilimin nasıl emekleye emekleye bu hale geldiğini görünce aşı karşıtlarına daha da bilendim. şuursuzluğun dibi yok.
son öykü hatta novella denebilir ise korkunç bir humma salgınını anlatıyor. irlanda'daki kıtlık nedeniyle kanada'ya göçmek zorunda kalanların yaşadıkları 150 yılda bir arpa boyu yol gidemediğimizin kanıtı. ha gemilerde ölüp aşağı atılanlar, ha lastik botlarla ege denizi'nde boğulanlar... göçmenlerin getirildiği grosse adası'nda yaşanan korkunç olaylar, yardıma gelen doktor, hemşire, rahip, rahibelerin birçoğunun da ölmesi ve bilime hizmet aşkıyla yanan doktor grant'ın trajedisi mutlaka okunmalı.
tıbbın, bilimin nasıl emekleye emekleye bu hale geldiğini görünce aşı karşıtlarına daha da bilendim. şuursuzluğun dibi yok.
July 18, 2024
The wonder of science and dysfunctional relationships are important in this unusual collection of short stories. Many of the stories are set in the 19th Century, and others combine historical and contemporary times. It was difficult being a scientific explorer, or being at the forefront of scientific discoveries at a time when there were not sophisticated tools of analysis to prove a theory.
The title novella was my favorite. Set in 1847, ships of starving Irish immigrants escaping the potato famine reached Canadian soil. A young idealistic Canadian doctor at a makeshift quarantine hospital tries his best to help the immigrants infected with typhus. The filthy crowded conditions on the ships, and the weakness due to the famine, set up perfect conditions for the typhus to spread. There was amazing courage shown by everyone from the doctors to the gravediggers. A love for a childhood friend haunts this story.
"The Behavior of the Hawkweeds" is set in contemporary times with a backstory involving a letter written by the geneticist Gregor Mendel. "Rare Bird" features an intelligent woman (who inherited her father's aptitude for science) refuse to be dominated by her brother (who inherited her father's home and money). "Birds With No Feet" is about a young explorer who collects specimens in Latin America, a story with a Darwinian flavor.
While I had my favorites, every one of the eight stories was interesting in its own way. I would especially recommend this collection to readers who have an interest in science or the natural world. The book won the 1996 National Book Award for fiction. 4.5 stars, rounded up.
The title novella was my favorite. Set in 1847, ships of starving Irish immigrants escaping the potato famine reached Canadian soil. A young idealistic Canadian doctor at a makeshift quarantine hospital tries his best to help the immigrants infected with typhus. The filthy crowded conditions on the ships, and the weakness due to the famine, set up perfect conditions for the typhus to spread. There was amazing courage shown by everyone from the doctors to the gravediggers. A love for a childhood friend haunts this story.
"The Behavior of the Hawkweeds" is set in contemporary times with a backstory involving a letter written by the geneticist Gregor Mendel. "Rare Bird" features an intelligent woman (who inherited her father's aptitude for science) refuse to be dominated by her brother (who inherited her father's home and money). "Birds With No Feet" is about a young explorer who collects specimens in Latin America, a story with a Darwinian flavor.
While I had my favorites, every one of the eight stories was interesting in its own way. I would especially recommend this collection to readers who have an interest in science or the natural world. The book won the 1996 National Book Award for fiction. 4.5 stars, rounded up.
September 23, 2021
[4+] These wonderful short stories, set mostly in the past, explore science and human nature. I liked all of them - especially the title novella which left me reeling.
Read
March 7, 2020I think really highly of the short stories in here, but it's the novella (the final section) that's fantastic, and that ties everything together thematically. I can absolutely see why this won the National Book Award.
January 6, 2025
Severek okuduğum öykü kitaplarından oldu Tabiata Giden Bütün Yollar. Yazar bilimsel keşifleri tarihi kurguyla başarılı şekilde harmanlamış. Andrea Barrett biyoloji eğitimi almış ama yaratıcı yazarlık dersleri veriyormuş. Metinlerdeki doğa bilimlerine hakimiyet kalem sahibinin bilgisini gösteriyor zaten.
Her hikaye bilimsel alanda erken araştırmanın sınırlarını, zaferlerini, bazen geride kalanları, feda edilenleri inceleyerek 19. yüzyıl bilim dünyasında yolculuğa çıkarıyor bizi. Bulaşıcı hastalıkların gizemlerinden paleontolojinin gelişmesine kadar geniş bir alanda bilinmeyenin karşısında mücadele eden öncü bilim insanlarının ve meraklılarının zihinlerine büyüleyici bir bakış sunulmuş.
Sadece Marburg Kız Kardeşler isimli hikaye hoşuma gitmedi. Diğerlerine göre benim için zayıf kaldı. Bilim tarihi sevenlere öneririm kitabı. Arsız Yeşillik okunacağına bu kitabın değeri bilinse daha iyi olur bence.
Çevirmen Figen Bingül'ün, editör Betül Kadıoğlu'nun, düzeltiyi yapan Onur Öztürk'ün, tasarım için Yelena Bryksenkova'nın ve Mehmet Ulusel'in emeklerine sağlık.
Her hikaye bilimsel alanda erken araştırmanın sınırlarını, zaferlerini, bazen geride kalanları, feda edilenleri inceleyerek 19. yüzyıl bilim dünyasında yolculuğa çıkarıyor bizi. Bulaşıcı hastalıkların gizemlerinden paleontolojinin gelişmesine kadar geniş bir alanda bilinmeyenin karşısında mücadele eden öncü bilim insanlarının ve meraklılarının zihinlerine büyüleyici bir bakış sunulmuş.
Sadece Marburg Kız Kardeşler isimli hikaye hoşuma gitmedi. Diğerlerine göre benim için zayıf kaldı. Bilim tarihi sevenlere öneririm kitabı. Arsız Yeşillik okunacağına bu kitabın değeri bilinse daha iyi olur bence.
Çevirmen Figen Bingül'ün, editör Betül Kadıoğlu'nun, düzeltiyi yapan Onur Öztürk'ün, tasarım için Yelena Bryksenkova'nın ve Mehmet Ulusel'in emeklerine sağlık.
June 22, 2016
Beautifully written short stories.
Effortlessly Andrea Barrett ties together natural science and fiction, the Old World and the New World, historical fictional accounts and actual events as well as failures and successes.
She connects science and poetry in a way that shows a world at once small and personal as well as foreign and mysterious. There's the second-generation immigrant who guards her grandfather's story about Mendel like a treasure, or the 19th century specimen collector who comes to the sobering realization that he is missing the scientific success and results to justify killing hundreds of exotic, beautiful creatures. In the 18th century a woman tries to expose the myth that swallows hibernate and withdraw for the winter under water. And in the 1970s a widow likens her own alienation from her late husband's family to a story from Darwin's travel to Tierra del Fuego where the HMS Beagle's commander took hostage of three Fuegians.
Andrea Barrett easily pieces together places, characters and times to create fascinating stories. She takes something we know and shows us a different side to it, in her own most original and intelligent way.
Effortlessly Andrea Barrett ties together natural science and fiction, the Old World and the New World, historical fictional accounts and actual events as well as failures and successes.
She connects science and poetry in a way that shows a world at once small and personal as well as foreign and mysterious. There's the second-generation immigrant who guards her grandfather's story about Mendel like a treasure, or the 19th century specimen collector who comes to the sobering realization that he is missing the scientific success and results to justify killing hundreds of exotic, beautiful creatures. In the 18th century a woman tries to expose the myth that swallows hibernate and withdraw for the winter under water. And in the 1970s a widow likens her own alienation from her late husband's family to a story from Darwin's travel to Tierra del Fuego where the HMS Beagle's commander took hostage of three Fuegians.
Andrea Barrett easily pieces together places, characters and times to create fascinating stories. She takes something we know and shows us a different side to it, in her own most original and intelligent way.
abandoned
July 19, 2023Read the first two stories, which did absolutely nothing for me. It’s a shame, there aren’t a lot of historical fiction short story collections out there. This book illustrates a potential pitfall in that area that I had not considered: by the time you stuff all your research into so few pages, there’s no room left for the characters.
June 27, 2014
I put this on my "to read" list after reading The Air We Breathe as some of the same characters are in both books. This is a book of short stories. The title story takes place in 1847 and is based on a real event. The potato famine in Ireland has forced many of its starving citizens to emigrate to the U.S. and Canada. Many of the immigrants are suffering from "ship fever" or typhus, and a hospital is set up for them on Grosse Isle in Canada. But the number of people afflicted with the disease is staggering and medical personnel are stretched to their limits. Families are separated as the well are permitted to enter Canada, while the sick must remain behind.
It is apparent that Andrea Barrett has a science background. Many of these stories are based on different branches of science and although you don't need to have a scientific background to understand them, an appreciation of science helps you to enjoy them. In one story, an old man tells of his friendship with Gregor Mendel. In another Carl Linneaus ruminates on students he has taught in the past. Alfred Wallace befriends a young collector of zoological specimens in another of the stories.
I enjoyed these and it's easy to see why this won the National Book Award when it was published.
It is apparent that Andrea Barrett has a science background. Many of these stories are based on different branches of science and although you don't need to have a scientific background to understand them, an appreciation of science helps you to enjoy them. In one story, an old man tells of his friendship with Gregor Mendel. In another Carl Linneaus ruminates on students he has taught in the past. Alfred Wallace befriends a young collector of zoological specimens in another of the stories.
I enjoyed these and it's easy to see why this won the National Book Award when it was published.
July 18, 2014
Science has never particularly intrigued me and I certainly never saw the romance of the subject. That changed when I began reading Andrea Barrett who weaves fictional stories with natural history. A fellow Rochesterian at one time, Barrett and my husband Carmen were in a critique group together and he related with pleasure her comments about his memoir--then in its early stages.
Reading reviews of her latest work, "Archangel," the above memory took hold. I read several stories from the new book and promptly went to the library and gathered up her others including "Ship Fever," The National Book Award Winner.I read the first fascinating piece involving Mendel and hawkweeds and then went to the title novella.
The story of Irish immigrant ships and the cholera that took so many lives blew me away, in part because Carmen's Fitzgerald forebears were among those who fled to this country about the same time. A family history is now being written by Dennis Fitzgerald, one of 50 Irish first cousins.
How I wished I'd asked my husband what Barrett was working on way back then and how I wished he'd read this particular story of hers: Horrifying, devastating, beautifully done. Needless to say this reader will make her way through the rest of Barrett's work with great interest.
Reading reviews of her latest work, "Archangel," the above memory took hold. I read several stories from the new book and promptly went to the library and gathered up her others including "Ship Fever," The National Book Award Winner.I read the first fascinating piece involving Mendel and hawkweeds and then went to the title novella.
The story of Irish immigrant ships and the cholera that took so many lives blew me away, in part because Carmen's Fitzgerald forebears were among those who fled to this country about the same time. A family history is now being written by Dennis Fitzgerald, one of 50 Irish first cousins.
How I wished I'd asked my husband what Barrett was working on way back then and how I wished he'd read this particular story of hers: Horrifying, devastating, beautifully done. Needless to say this reader will make her way through the rest of Barrett's work with great interest.
July 12, 2020
The common thread through all of these stories is science, hard science often involving what were at one point in time true scientific mysteries or an individual who played a significant role in a scientific discovery or endeavor. The title story, which was closer to a novella, describes the efforts by Canadians to quarantine and provide medical attention to Irish emigrants arriving on coffin ships in an effort to escape the Irish potato famine. The conditions described on the ships are horrific, while the efforts to provide medical care, while often failing, were heroic. Although each story in the book is based on a scientific challenge or pursuit, there is always a human element that is just as engaging and the two together make each story unique.
January 3, 2024
Andrea Barrett'ın ustalıkla yazdığı öykülerini çok severek okudum. Kitap, 7 kısa öyküden (Şahinotlarının davranışı, İngiliz öğrenci, Litoral bölge, Ender kuş, Yükseklik hastalığı, Ayaksız kuşlar, Marburg kız kardeşleri) ve novella sayılabilecek uzunca bir öyküden (Gemi humması) oluşuyor.
Ender Kuş, Viktorya döneminde kadınlara dayatılan ahlak kuralları karşısında kendilerine yer açmaya çalışan iki bilim kadınının keşfine odaklanıyor. Gemi Humması, 1845 İrlanda Patates Kıtlığı nedeniyle Kanada'ya göçmek zorunda kalan ve Grosse Adası’nda karantinaya alınan göçmenlerin yaşadıklarını, karşılıksız aşkla başa çıkmaya çalışan genç bir doktorun salgınla mücadelesini konu alıyor. En çok etkilendiğim iki öykü oldu.
Doğa bilimi, tarihi kurgu ve insan ilişkilerinin edebiyatla buluşması karşısında büyülendim. Biyoloji, tıp ve botanik hakkında verilen detaylar merak uyandırıyor. Açgözlülük, kayıtsızlık, hoşnutsuzluk, sıkışmışlık, pişmanlık, hayal kırıklığı, ne ararsanız bu kitapta var. Kısacık öykülerde bu kadar çok duyguyu verebilmek muazzam bir şey.
Ender Kuş, Viktorya döneminde kadınlara dayatılan ahlak kuralları karşısında kendilerine yer açmaya çalışan iki bilim kadınının keşfine odaklanıyor. Gemi Humması, 1845 İrlanda Patates Kıtlığı nedeniyle Kanada'ya göçmek zorunda kalan ve Grosse Adası’nda karantinaya alınan göçmenlerin yaşadıklarını, karşılıksız aşkla başa çıkmaya çalışan genç bir doktorun salgınla mücadelesini konu alıyor. En çok etkilendiğim iki öykü oldu.
Doğa bilimi, tarihi kurgu ve insan ilişkilerinin edebiyatla buluşması karşısında büyülendim. Biyoloji, tıp ve botanik hakkında verilen detaylar merak uyandırıyor. Açgözlülük, kayıtsızlık, hoşnutsuzluk, sıkışmışlık, pişmanlık, hayal kırıklığı, ne ararsanız bu kitapta var. Kısacık öykülerde bu kadar çok duyguyu verebilmek muazzam bir şey.
May 22, 2018
¡Me gustó mucho! Dejé pasar varios días entre cada historia porque todas me daban ganas de leer más sobre la vida de los científicos de los que habla, y con dos de los cuentos sentí mucha envidia pero también me inspiraron a leer y escribir más, porque son el tipo de cosas que me gustaría escribir algún día. Un par me dieron un poco igual, pero el resto es increíble, en especial la historia más larga y que da nombre a la colección: La fiebre negra (Ship Fever). La mitad del libro lo leí en español en esta edición de Nórdica y la otra mitad en inglés, creo que la traducción es muy buena.
December 13, 2018
Intelligent and compelling stories. Some left me feeling empty. I’m glad I read it, though.
December 10, 2020
What a great short story read. Andrea Barrett won the National Book Award for this book of 7 short stories and a novella and boy can I see why. I'd been meaning to read "Ship Fever" since reading Barrett's novel "The Voyage of the Narwhal" and being introduced to a short story of hers in a class I took. That said it still took me a year to get to this. Now I wonder why I waited so long. It was 5 star almost all the way. The stories were great, many woven around actual historical figures well know in the science and nature world, i.e. Linnaeus and Alfred Russel Wallace. I enjoyed learning so much along the way and found the stories long on character and history if short on plot. And Barrett does a great job of writing the natural environment. Having read her in novel form I knew how wonderful atmospheric her writing is. I was in awe that she could repeat this as well in a shorter format. It think the only slight disappointment for me was the novella that gives the book its name. It told such an interesting story of a real event, the typhus epidemic on ships bring the Irish fleeing the potato famine, and their hardships on arrival. It was an amazing immigration story but felt too much story for this format. It needed more pages, more information, I wanted to know more about these characters.
All in all it was a wonderful collection and I would recommend it to nature readers without reservation.
All in all it was a wonderful collection and I would recommend it to nature readers without reservation.
November 13, 2019
Solid collection of short stories, most featuring a connection to the natural or biological sciences and a familial or other close relationship.
March 13, 2024
An appreciation and understanding of science didn’t come as easily to me as did the humanities. So, I stayed away from it in school and subsequently in what I have chosen as my career. But those times I did have to cram in some science and had to understand the basics to do the cramming for exams, I remember being awed by the logic of it all. However, I still never really understood how people could be fascinated and engrossed by science enough to give us all these wonderful inventions and discoveries that we use in our day-to-day life. This book changed that thinking. Romanticizing science in literary fiction was not something I thought was even done. I am glad I stumbled upon this book; it was an excellent read. I savored it slowly and enjoyed the way every single story was written.
Four stars only because I really could not form a connection with any of the characters, especially in the novella, which I was really looking forward to read.
Four stars only because I really could not form a connection with any of the characters, especially in the novella, which I was really looking forward to read.
July 30, 2024
3.5 stars
It's hard to rate a collection of short stories. Most of these I would give 3 stars to, but the longest story (the title story) gets a 4 star rating from me. I liked learning some history as well.
It's hard to rate a collection of short stories. Most of these I would give 3 stars to, but the longest story (the title story) gets a 4 star rating from me. I liked learning some history as well.
June 18, 2007
Once I got started, I found it hard to put down this collection of short stories. I especially liked Barrett's weaving together of actual/factual scientific situations with fictionalized stories. My personal favorite in the collection is "The Marburg Sisters." This story doesn't combine reality and fiction in the same way as the others. In fact there was something about the story that put me in mind of "Divisidero." Perhaps it is my recent reading of the novel that made this feel almost like an extension or perhaps precursor would be more accurate. My only criticism of Barrett, which prevents me from giving the collection a higher rating, is that I consistently disliked the way she chose to end her stories. The endings seemed more like a collapse than an ending. There is much to learn here.
July 5, 2008
The writing is lovely, nearly perfect. The construction of the individual vignettes are solid as can be. She has a wonderful sense of narrative and dialog. However.
I wanted so much for the vignettes to be connected by something more than the myriad ways in which good people fail as scientists. The themes seemed to be inappropriate love, gender discrimination, hubris, lack of inspiration, demanding families, etc, ad nauseam. For me, it was immensely depressing. She may have meant to humanize scientists, but being one myself, I already know about that. A catalog of human frailty, no matter how well rendered, is not what I'd hoped for.
Also, reminded me of Kingsolver in the depth of interest in human character and gender difference.
I wanted so much for the vignettes to be connected by something more than the myriad ways in which good people fail as scientists. The themes seemed to be inappropriate love, gender discrimination, hubris, lack of inspiration, demanding families, etc, ad nauseam. For me, it was immensely depressing. She may have meant to humanize scientists, but being one myself, I already know about that. A catalog of human frailty, no matter how well rendered, is not what I'd hoped for.
Also, reminded me of Kingsolver in the depth of interest in human character and gender difference.
February 19, 2009
Barrett's fascination with science and scientists--the real and imagined, the great and obscure--is the common link in this book of exceptional stories. Fresh insights into Linneaus, Mendel, and Darwin will haunt the reader as deeply as the struggles of Barrett's fictional Laughlin Grant and Nora Kynd in the title novella--in which doctors, patients, and social crusaders battle ignorance and prejudice along with the "black fever" brought by Irish immigrants to 1840's Canada.
February 10, 2020
The novela that gives this collection its name is especially compelling—I read it while the Corona virus was making news and was amazed at how so much of our public health issues are still the same. I liked the way the author integrated women in to the history of science. The stories come from the eighteenth, nineteenth and 20th centuries. Lots of emphasis on the costs of science and the toll it took on the men and women that worked to extend knowledge.
May 18, 2007
Particularly liked the story "Rare Bird," about a woman trying to educate herself as a naturalist while struggling against the social rules imposed on Victorian women. The title story is about a young doctor who goes to work at Canada's quarantine island where thousands upon thousands emigrants fleeing the Irish Potato Famine arrived bringing a typhus epidemic with them. Grim and inspiring.
May 17, 2012
Barrett is an extremely original writer. These stories & the novella, set mostly in earlier times, deal with the intersection of women and science. The characters come vibrantly alive in their longing for a life larger than what society allows them. Lovely images. Brilliant structure. I teach this collection quite often in my Creative Writing classes.
September 17, 2017
The best tribute I can give is that I loved this book and I generally dislike short stories. It has the quality that I love best in art, of evoking that old-fashioned term, if not concept, of our "humanity." Which is everything, really.
December 5, 2020
A great combination of historical fiction combined with science.
January 16, 2023
These short stories were stunning! Most of them were set in the 19th century, and all had something to do with science. They were delightful, well-written and despite being short stories, I really found it easy to get immersed into them. Highly recommend.
June 20, 2023
3.5*
I really liked "The Behavior of the Hawkweeds" and "Ship Fever", but I was not as impressed by the other stories.
I really liked "The Behavior of the Hawkweeds" and "Ship Fever", but I was not as impressed by the other stories.
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