Archangel
Page 21
She leaned back into his chest. All she’d withheld from him and others, all the ways in which, desperately, she’d tried to guard some essential core when she ought to have opened herself—but if she’d done that and let the lives of her soldiers flow in, she would have been unable to work. So she’d been right, then? By denying them one thing, her deepest self, she’d been able to offer all her useful skills. Some, she supposed, would rather have had her feelings. She settled against his chest, she let her back and shoulders flow into him and she felt him pressing back.
The sled shot across the square, slowed when it hit a soggy patch, came to rest near a cart filled with broken branches, which was being investigated by two dogs. She rose, smiling, and brushed off her skirt. “That was nice,” she said, as they walked back toward the run. The empty toboggan, which Boyd was towing, bounced on the rims of their footprints. “I can’t believe I haven’t done that all winter.”
“You’ve been busy,” he said. “But I’m glad you enjoyed it. To me it feels almost like flying.”
They stepped through the crossed shadows thrown by the structure’s wooden frame, and then they stopped. With an oddly formal gesture, he handed her the rope. “My friend will be by for this. But I’d like to do one by myself, really fast. Would you wait a few minutes?”
Before she could object he picked up a small sled tucked behind the steps and then headed up. She waited below, enjoying the feel of the air on her face, watching as he climbed with the sled under one arm. At the top he stood and tested the rope stretched between the two ends of the steering yoke. For a second he paused, looking as if he were about to throw himself belly down on the sled, hands grasping the yoke—but then he did something with one foot and kicked the sled into motion with him standing up on it, holding on to the rope as if on to the bridle of a horse, leaning back against it, gathering speed. About halfway down the sled veered left and she could see it was going to bump into the lip of the run. It bumped and—did she see him, just then, let go the rope on purpose, raising his hands into the air? Did she see him look down and, like a diver, twist his hips and shoulders halfway round, so that he arched gracefully away from the icy tower and toward a clear spot on the ground? He would fall, she saw, not on his head or his spine but on his left side, the angle at which he had poised himself suggesting that his left ankle and knee would strike first; he would shatter that leg, perhaps also his hip; he might cripple himself; he might lose the leg. He probably wouldn’t die. He wasn’t trying to kill himself, he wanted what they all wanted—which was, she realized as she ran toward the spot where he’d strike the ground, what she too wanted more than anything else: he wanted to leave this place behind and go home, home, home.
Author’s Note and Acknowledgments
Most of the characters here are invented, but G.H. (Glenn H. Curtiss), Sir Oliver Lodge, the Professor (Louis Agassiz), and some of the geneticists mentioned are historical figures, and the fiction is rooted in factual events. On July 4, 1908, the June Bug flew in Hammondsport, New York, winning the Scientific American trophy. Sir Oliver Lodge’s objections to Einstein’s theory of general relativity continued long after the expeditions observing the May 29, 1919, eclipse. Louis Agassiz founded a summer school for natural history at Penikese Island in 1873; the quoted stanzas are from John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem “The Prayer of Agassiz” (1874). Among the passengers aboard the Athenia, the first British ship to be sunk by the Germans in World War II, were a number of participants from the Seventh International Congress of Genetics, held in Edinburgh. And the American North Russia Expeditionary Force (also known as the Polar Bear Expedition: the 339th Infantry, First Battalion of the 310th Engineers, 337th Field Hospital, and 337th Ambulance Company) fought in North Russia during the period mentioned here.
Portions of this book have appeared previously, in somewhat different form, in the following publications: “The Investigators” in A Public Space, “Archangel” in One Story, “The Island” in Salmagundi, and “The Ether of Space” and “The Particles” in Tin House. “The Particles” will also appear in The PEN / O. Henry Prize Stories 2013. My thanks to these publications and their editors. Thanks also to Jill Gilbreth and Jim Shepard, who generously offered helpful readings, and to my husband, Barry Goldstein, whose own work inspired “Archangel” and who helped me throughout.
Margot Livesey read many versions of all these pages; my deepest thanks, as always, for her patience and her brilliant suggestions. Finally, my beloved agent, Wendy Weil, encouraged me before her untimely death with steadfast brilliance and attention. I miss her more than I can say.
Praise for Archangel
A “Must-Read” Selection in O, The Oprah Magazine
A Kirkus Reviews Starred Best Book of 2013
A Booklist Editors’ Choice for 2013
A Top Shelf Recommendation in the San Francisco Chronicle
“[Barrett’s] stories . . . have an evocative, sepia-toned beauty to go with their psychological insight and subtle characterization. . . . [She] writes lovely, lambent prose, balanced and graceful, and the historical settings are established with an easy authority.”
—Michael Lindgren, Washington Post
“When you read her elegant, thought-provoking work, you travel back to a time of possibility and wonder that you never want to leave.”
—Connie Ogle, Miami Herald
“Does anyone write with a calmer authority than Andrea Barrett? . . . Archangel . . . ranks right up there with her National Book Award–winning Ship Fever.”
—Lloyd Sachs, Chicago Tribune
“Finely crafted.”
—Michael Upchurch, Seattle Times
“The best way to savor this author’s work is to read all of it, but Archangel is a fine starting point for those new to Barrett Country.”
—Susan Balee, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“At last! It’s finally here: the astonishing new collection from that genius-enchantress, Andrea Barrett. Who but Barrett can take on the inscrutable elegance of the cosmos and the messy complexity of the human heart in a single story? In her joy-to-read prose, with scientific precision and warm insight, Barrett translates the unknown into our world of reference. Her characters’ thirst for discovery is contagious, and every story in Archangel is suffused with the most miraculous horizon light.”
—Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove
“The award-winning author returns with another collection of stories distinguished by uncommon scope and depth. . . . Barrett’s stories rank with the best.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Dazzling opening. . . . [S]taggering finale. . . . Reveling in technical innovations and tectonic shifts in ideas and perceptions, Barrett dramatizes the impassioned conflicts engendered by the discoveries of Mendel, Darwin, and Einstein along with the toxic politics of science while celebrating the sharing of knowledge. Most movingly, she considers the subtle ways that, as one character expresses it, ‘science was influenced by feeling.’ Barrett’s consummate historical stories of family, ambition, science, and war are intellectually stimulating, lushly emotional, and altogether pleasurable.”
—Donna Seaman, Booklist, starred review
“Powerful. . . . [T]here is indeed a sense of expansion as one travels onward in Barrett’s world, and pleasure in watching it fill out.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Readers familiar with Barrett’s work will embrace this new volume; those who have yet to discover her intriguing style will find much to consider. A delight for informed readers of challenging literary fiction.”
—Susanne Wells, Library Journal
“[T]he work hums from start to finish. The prose wraps you up and transports you alongside the characters, marveling, as they do, at the world around them. The reader gets to learn alongside these paper people.”
—James Orbesen, BookSlut
“In Archangel, ideas matter; the life of
the mind matters. . . . [Scientists] will see science as they know it is actually practiced.”
—Rudy Baum, Chemical & Engineering News
ALSO BY ANDREA BARRETT
The Air We Breathe
Servants of the Map
The Voyage of the Narwhal
Ship Fever
The Forms of Water
The Middle Kingdom
Secret Harmonies
Lucid Stars
ARCHANGEL
Andrea Barrett
READING GROUP GUIDE
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Why do you think Barrett chose not to arrange the stories in chronological order? How would the book change if the stories were told chronologically?
2. In addition to the thread of characters that move in and out of the stories, what connects the distinct sections of the book? Is there more than one link?
3. All the stories are told from the third-person perspective. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this perspective? Do you think the stories could be told from a different point of view? Why or why not?
4. Timing is a recurring motif throughout the book. Explain how timing plays a role in each story.
5. In “The Ether of Space,” Sam encounters the tangled dependence of science and personal passions. He writes, “What I do know is that the questions we ask about the world and the experiments we design to answer them are connected to our feelings.” Explore Sam’s journey to arrive at this conclusion. Does this attitude resurface in other stories?
6. In the story “The Island,” Henrietta questions the notion of the chain of species and of one creature’s dependence on another: “If those fish had been created all at once, in the blink of an eye, what about the creatures they ate, or the creatures who ate them?” How does this question link to the book as a whole, both thematically and structurally?
7. Is Henrietta a strong character in “The Island”? What about her character is different in this story as compared to “The Investigators”? What may have caused this change?
8. In the story “The Particles,” the reader is introduced to now–thirty-four-year-old Sam, the same Sam the reader previously met when she was a child in “The Ether of Space.” Although the reader is already familiar with Sam’s upbringing from the earlier story, why do you think Barrett reintroduces Sam’s background as though the reader is learning the information for the first time? How does this technique affect the story?
9. Explain the role of politics in “The Particles.” Do other stories in the book address this topic?
10. Constantine Boyd’s character bookends the collection—opening the book as a child in “The Investigators” and closing the book at the age of twenty-two in “Archangel.” In what ways do you think Constantine’s experience in Hammondsport shaped his character? Explain with examples from the last story.
11. When Constantine arrives in Hammondsport in “The Investigators,” he initially introduces himself as Stan in an effort to sound more mature, and later he prefers to be called Constantine. In “Archangel,” the reader learns rumors of a Private Boyd, yet when we meet Constantine for the first time in this story, he introduces himself to Eudora as Stan, a name he claims to be called at home. Explore the transformation of Constantine’s name and how this change influences the book.
12. Were you surprised by the ending of “Archangel”? What about Constantine’s character may have led him to this decision?
13. Why do you think the book ends with the story “Archangel”? What do you think the title signifies?
Sign up for our newsletter and giveaways at bit.ly/wwnorton-reading-group-guides.
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by Andrea Barrett
All rights reserved
First published as a Norton paperback 2014
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact W. W. Norton Special Sales at specialsales@wwnorton.com or 800-233-4830
Book design by Chris Welch
Production manager: Devon Zahn
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Barrett, Andrea.
Archangel : fiction / by Andrea Barrett.—First edition
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-393-24000-9 (hardcover)
1. Science—Social aspects—History—19th century—Fiction. 2. Science—Social aspects—History—20th century—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3552.A7327A73 2013
813’.54—dc23
2013016958
ISBN 978-0-393-24050-4 (e-book)
ISBN 978-0-393-34877-4 pbk.
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110
www.wwnorton.com
W. W. Norton & Company Ltd.
Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT