So glad I had a great book on hand to distract me from the amazing inefficiency of our elections these days. How is it that Colorado can finish counting ballots in 24 hours and nobody else can???

Anyway, if you like an adventure novel that consumes you from the very first page, try “Euphoria” by Lily King. This is the story of three tormented anthropologists who come together doing tribal fieldwork in the jungles of New Guinea in the 1930s. Although a work of fiction, Lily King acknowledges that she was inspired by the work of Margaret Mead, Reo Fortune and Gregory Bates.

I was one of those college kids who just couldn’t choose a major. That perhaps explains why I changed schools four times before I completed my B.A. One of my first majors in college, along with psychology, was anthropology. Why didn’t I pursue these interests? I didn’t think I would do well in a jungle doing fieldwork. I also hated the fact that I might work my whole life and still never know if my theories were correct. These are the same issues that haunt our three main characters. How do you approach isolated native societies and interpret their behavior? Are they better or worse than us? Who decides?

This novel includes mystery, adventure, and much discussion of life and purpose. But for me the best part was the study of the psychology of these characters and their indepth discussions of ethnography and ethnology.

The central aim of ethnology is to understand another way of life from the point of view of the person experiencing that way of life and as such, always implies a theory of culture. Ethnography takes a step away from the sort of research that describes subjects and behaviors and focuses on actors and actions.

I also enjoyed the various tools the author used to help the reader understand the deepest feelings and interactions between these three characters, using anthropological notes, letters and personal notes.

This was a book I didn’t want to end, and especially when I turned the TV back on at the end, and Pennsylvania and Nevada still couldn’t find a way to GET THEIR VOTES COUNTED!~

We can send a man to the moon but we sure can’t count votes in a timely manner… Please don’t give me the COVID excuse. Colorado has the same problems as everyone else.