Louise Young (1) (1957–)

Most anthropologists write fiction disguised as ethnography; in Seducing the Spirits Louise Young has written an ethnography disguised as fiction. Some reviewers here on librarything describe this book as a romance because of the love relationship between the main character, Jenny Dunfree, and Ceferino, a Kuna man living on the island next to Jenny's field site, but I don't see it as a romance at all; the relationship takes a backseat to the higher purpose of imparting cultural information. It's not good fiction either. It's not even good ethnography.

The story is told in the first person present tense from Jenny's point of view. Maybe that's why Jenny does everything right. I know it's hard to describe your own experiences in the field without depicting yourself as always right. I don't hold this against Young -- it just makes for boring fiction. Though this story is fictional, it's based on the author's actual field experience working with Kuna in Panama. Here's the premise of the story: Jenny is an anthropology grad student who came to South America to work on one site but ended up having a brief affair with her field advisor who then got rid of her by packing her off to a new field site, an island used by a community of Kuna. Jenny arrives at the field site with no guidance -- don't worry, the advisor gets his comeuppance at the end of the book -- and the graduate student whom she's replacing flees the site as soon as she arrives. Poor Jenny: she wants to do the right thing, but no one's making that possible for her, not even the Kuna who tolerate having strangers on their island. Of course, that "reticence" is not their fault; only a couple of them know Spanish or English, so the burden of communication falls on Jenny. In fact, the burden of [i]a lot[/i] of things falls on Jenny in a very political-correctness-for-anthropologists way, like how to wear a Kuna skirt or how to cook the foods readily available on the island. It's the kind of political correctness that anthropologists often have to adopt with audiences who are pre-disposed to be disdainful of other cultures; it's the kind of political correctness that pushes anthropologists to the equally insulting extreme of depicting other people as "noble savages."

Jenny embodies that attitude. For example, the Kuna on the neighboring island expect that Jenny knows how to cook; when they discover otherwise, a Kuna woman sets out to teach Jenny. There follows truly irritating scenes of Jenny's obsequious "I'm sorry I'm so stupid" behavior with her instructor which has the opposite effect of what I think was intended: it makes Jenny seem patronizing toward her Kuna neighbors.

Good and pure soul that she is, Jenny does everything right despite not having been told what the "right" thing is. Even when she thinks she's doing something wrong, it turns out to be the right thing; thus she earns the Kunas' approval. She always says the right things, is appropriately humble (even self-deprecating), is generous and compassionate, is a keen scientist, has utmost respect for Kuna beliefs and ways of being, and never, ever holds the Kunas' differences from her against them. They're always right -- she's the stupid one. In other words, Jenny is everything a good anthropologist should be, not what we really are. As explained in the book jacket, the author Louise Young wanted to avoid the "armchair anthropologist" voice so typical of ethnographic/anthropology writing, but she ended up re-creating that air of detached observation anyway. That may have been a consequence of wanting to squeeze a lot of ethnographic detail into the 304 pages of this book.

As fiction, this story lacks a compelling central conflict to drive events and motivate Jenny's actions. The romance that "develops" between Jenny and Ceferino is only mildly understandable; it seems mostly like a ploy to justify certain plot turns and the revelation of more ethnographic details. However, there is one HUGE redeeming factor about this story, an element of realism so astute and so perceptive that it makes all other contrived elements come off as more natural: Jenny is depressed. Like many an anthropology grad student doing fieldwork, she doesn't even realize how depressed she is, and she attributes it to being angry because of her advisor's unfair treatment. In the course of the novel, Jenny comes to recognize some of her loneliness and depression and to embrace her differences from the others (white and Kuna alike); this confrontation represents some character development.

The part where Jenny is threatened by a wild spirit is fascinating. Actually, a lot of this novel is fascinating in a National Geographic way: it is ethnography for the (white, North American) masses. It's not good fiction, but it lacks the kind of meta-narrative/constructive insight that makes for good ethnographies.

I got a reviewer's copy of this book through librarything. The cover has a fold-out dust jacket of good quality with vivid colors. The inside pages are also strong, high-quality, very white paper. There was about one mistake for every two pages which good proofreading would have fixed easily. The editor's office didn't reply to my query about this, but I sincerely hope they addressed the issue.

At the very least I hope they changed the spelling of Columbia (like the university) to Colombia (like the country) -- c'mon, Louise, with all the grant applications you had to write to get out there for your fieldwork, don't tell me you never learned how to spell the name of the country! How politically incorrect and ethnocentric is that?

~bint… (mehr)

Jenny, a graduate student in ornithology, is working in the jungles of Panama observing the nesting habits of the harpy eagle. She is warned early on not to "piss off" the indigenous Kuna community, a caution that she takes seriously as she attempts to respect their culture while being mystified by their customs and their language. I found this book to be a fascinating glimpse into a world I know little or nothing about. The author herself has worked with the Kuna people which contributes greatly to the authenticity of the story. Weaving the scientific research of the eagles into the narrative adds an equally interesting dimension.… (mehr)

There are two pieces to this book. The first is a fairly interesting description of the Kuna people, living on islands near Columbia. The second is the story of Jenny, a research assistant attempting to study the eagles on one of their islands.

Jenny is our narrator, and we learn the culture through her. The culture itself is alien enough to be fascinating, but we don't learn enough of it. What we do have is chapter after chapter of Jenny feeling depressed and acting like a scared girl, and then being told that she is beautiful and powerful and the only white person the Kuna has ever liked.

Combine that with an assortment of cliches (e.g. the fat evil priest, several noble savages) and that's the whole book: one half travelogue, one half Mary Sue.… (mehr)