Fieldwork: A Novel

"Fieldwork," by Mischa Berlinski, is a fascinating literary hybrid--part mystery novel, part fictionalized memoir, and part well-research (but completely fictionalized) cultural anthropology. The writing is outstanding--easy and unadorned with lyrical touches that appear out of nowhere to delight and beguile. There is also a surprising amount of subtle humor that pops up unexpectedly throughout. The characters are spot-on perfect--so utterly authentic that it's almost impossible to believe the author when he admits in the end notes that: "None of this stuff happened to anyone."I found this book absorbing, unique, and fascinating in just about every respect. What interested me most, was not the plot so much as it was the chance to immerse myself in a multitude of exotic new worlds--worlds that I would never have experienced on my own. In this book, readers are invited inside many diverse worlds, in particular: the culture of evangelical Christian missionaries working with the hill tribes of Northern Thailand, the culture of worldwide present-day expatriates in Thailand, the culture of 1980s UC Berkeley Graduate School of Anthropology students, the culture of the fictional Thailand hill tribe of the Dyalos, and a number of other minor cultural experiences both historical and contemporary along the way.For me, the entire reading experience was like one entertaining intellectual armchair adventure ride!Briefly, the book tells the story of a female UC Berkeley-trained anthropologist, who murdered an evangelical Christian missionary around 1990 in the wilds of Northern Thailand. Before the murder, the anthropologist had been studying and living with a single Dyalo hill tribe for 15 years. The man she murdered spoke Dyalo like a native. He loved the Dyalo as if they were his own family because he was raised alongside them in China near the Thai border. As an infant and small child, his missionary parents raised him in an American-style home built with enormous difficulty in an isolated valley populated primarily by Dyalo tribesmen. The family had to flee to Thailand from their "Eden Valley" home in the 1950s when China expelled all foreigners. The missionary family moved to Northern Thailand. Eventually the anthropologist and the missionary crossed paths, and the murder took place. The anthropologist was tried and convicted for her crime. She served 15 years of a 50-year sentence in a Thai prison before taking her own life. An American expatriate freelance journalist living in present-day Thailand investigates the whole story and relates his findings to us. In a twist that may make some purists cringe, the author names his fictional narrator after himself. Thus, the novel takes on the quality of a memoir, albeit, a totally fictional one.Obviously, this is a book about clashing cultural values. To the author's great credit, he treats both sides with enormous humanity and understanding.Little by little over the course of this detailed novel, we learn about the precise circumstances surrounding the murder. In the end, all the physical pieces come together. But knowing the exact circumstances of the murder, however satisfying they are to know, is not what this book is all about. Once readers finishes this book, they will start pondering all the diverse global political, economic, social, psychological, religious, and ecological issues that the work stirs up. Somewhere in the middle of all those issues, each reader will come to terms with the underlying motivations behind the murder. So the plot is just the enticing thread that leads us toward and into a lot of major contemporary social issues.You have to love reading all three parts of this chimera--the novel, the memoir, and the pseudo-nonfiction cultural anthropology--or this book will fail to please you. At first, it wasn't easy getting used to reading this hybrid. For me, it was a wholly different type of reading experience, and I actually needed to adjust my normal reading pattern in order get into the swing of things, and start enjoying the experience. Perhaps I'm not like other readers, but I tend to read novels, memoirs, and nonfiction works in different ways. I started out reading this book as if it were a novel, and that was wrong for me. I ended up reading this book as if I were reading nonfiction and that seemed to work better. If your reading tastes are broad and happily encompass novels, memoirs, and nonfiction works of cultural anthropology, then you'll probably love this book as much as I did. If you don't enjoy one of those three types of reading, or if you want the book to be only one type and not all three, then you'll probably have difficulty getting into and through this work...or, if you do, you'll probably find significant fault with the work as a whole. My advice: expect a hybrid, read it as a hybrid, and you will probably not be disappointed.I can easily see why this unique novel caught the attention of nationwide book critics and was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award. I will certainly recommend it to many (but not all), of my book-loving friends. I look forward to more books by this talented new author. Personally, I hope he sticks to this unique hybrid format, but if he branches out into new territory next time, I'll happily tag along. He's certainly made it to my "must-read" list.

The most striking aspect of this début novel by Mischa Berlinski - the author, not the narrator - is how deftly he seduces you into conflating the two whilst reading the work. Surely, you say, this simply can't be mere fiction; it must, with all these paragraph-length footnotes, these all-too-real characters, be fictionalised non-fiction. No mere fabulist would go to the trouble, fill in all this backstory detail, these minutiae simply pretending to do, er, fieldwork on people who simply don't exist. Would he? It turns out that he would. Perhaps I do mean the narrator, not the author. It's ultimately this narrative voice which the author has created and its seeming authenticity that seduces us.Wherein the seduction lies is difficult to relate in a review. Several reviewers have pointed to various aspects of the work that enthrall and hold the reader's interest: the clash of the missionary ethos and the scientific ethos, the overlapping of belief systems, the sympathetic and again, detailed backstories of all the characters. All of these aspects are almost overwhelmingly rich and strange yet even more exciting to the reader, because of the suspense.But wait. What suspense? This novel isn't a murder mystery in the normal sense in which the term is employed. We are told who killed whom at the outset here. So what are all these readers, yours truly included, experiencing when they call this somewhat cagey book a page-turner? Prospective reader, we are experiencing the suspense of WHY. Why did Martiya van der Leun kill missionary David Walker? What was in him, in her that ultimately caused her to murder him in the mysterious reaches of Northern Thailand where the little-known Dyalo tribe abide?In other words, the suspense ultimately lies in the mystery of personality. We hunger to know more about these characters, and our narrator/author is nothing but obliging. We learn gradually of their personal histories, the history of their parents, the history of their friends and extended families until we almost seem to be on such familiar terms with both of them that we feel we could almost see things through their eyes, the very experience for which Martiya has been earnestly searching amongst the Dyalo.But, despite how much fieldwork one does, despite knowing the history of another person, his or her belief system, his or her personality quirks, do we ever know another person? Do we even know ourselves and why we do certain things?There's a very telling and eerie passage that caught my attention at the end of Martiya's grad school chum, Karen's, visit to her in Dan Loi when an impenetrable mist descends upon the village:"Martiya told Karen that she liked the mist: it reminded her of rainy season, cozy mornings with her book, and of rice planting. But Karen thought that the mist transformed Dan Loi into just about the spookiest place she had ever seen, the way the villagers wandered out of the mist, then back into it. In the end, she was glad to get out of there."Are we really any more, in the end, much more than ghosts to each other who appear and then disappear out of the mists? As Proust puts it, "It is always thus, impelled by a state of mind which is destined not to last, that we make our irrevocable decisions." So, Martiya van der Leun murdered David Walker for reasons that only, of necessity, partially explain things. The animistic Dyalo would attribute it to spirits. The Walker family would contend that God had chosen to call one of his faithful home. We, who, after reading the book, know the train of events immediately preceding the murder, could offer up a more rational account of things, perhaps.But who was the "real" David, the "real" Martiya? How did they "really" see things before the murder and the assumed suicide? We could understandably be forgiven, one hopes, by whatever spirits or gods there be, if we still feel, after turning the last (agreed, not up to par with the rest of the book) pages, that they are souls that appeared out of a mist and disappeared back into it, leaving us none the wiser....still in suspense.

This novel started out great and really held my interest but then he got way too into the background of the missionaries and it became a snoozer for me. I stuck with it, found myself skimming a bit and then it picked back up and ended great. So the middle part was weak for me but still worth the read. He is a good writer for sure and I would recommend it as long as you don't need to be thrilled beginning to end.

I know of no other work that takes this book's approach to the subject of spirits in the belief systems of the hill dwellers of northern Thailand. By abstracting aspects of the interpretations made by real anthropologists and missionaries of one hill groups' spiritual world, the author creates another tribe and another world that relates nature, food, culture and spirits in one integrated whole. The fictional story carries the approach throughout, gently introducing the reader to this foreign worldview through the eyes of (American) missionaries. This provides a viewpoint that is anchored in Western understanding, especially that interpreted through the Bible. It also shows the impact on those missionaries that results from living within or alongside this other spiritual world across three generations and thus provides a sensible link to the deeper impact that it has on the secular anthropologist who is central to the storyline. I am familiar with the area in which the story is set, with missionaries including some named in the acknowledgements section and with the agriculture and beliefs of various 'ethnic' groups of the hills. However, my detailed experience is from the 1970s, a couple of decades before the scenes of the book, which makes me less familiar with the marked change that tourism has since caused. Therefore, I cannot comment on those aspects that rely on road access, trekking and related factors. Nevertheless, I consider this to be a remarkable novel that is indeed novel - a welcome work that will reward an educated reader. Prof Emeritus Lindsay Falvey

What a brilliant read. It is wonderful to see fiction that admits its debt to the anthropological memoir, a genre of literature that would not exist but for human curiosity. Although this is overtly a work of fiction all its nuances felt right and the story, well the story infected me just as well as any flu bug that I can recall. Highly recommended. Read it on a sofa while shutting off the real world as much as is possible. And take joy from it where you can...I know I found plenty.

I picked up this book because it was about Thailand and the hill tribes. I had wandered as far as Chiang Mai and had always inspired to go beyond the city to the mountains to visit the tribes. I love books which relate two (or three) unseemingly disjointed subjects and concocted them into a juicy, suspense story. What has Anthropology got to do with Christian missionaries? The answer is : A lot! The chapters are segmented into both point of views of the anthropologist and the family of missionaries, without losing sight of leading the readers towards a credible conclusion, every findings is a step closer to why the anthropologist did what she did. Sad, tragic, insightful, hilarious ... all rolled into one. This book is brilliant. If you are tired of trashy, time wasters novels in the market, try reading "fieldwork", the short title may not conjure much imagination, but you will come out both more informed (a book with wealth of research information) and gratified (suspense novel with mystery and family saga). Thumbs up, can't wait to read what Mischa has to write in the future.

I really enjoyed this author's second novel and figured that, as a retired anthropologist, I would prefer this first novel. I was wrong. He is a very good writer but my expectations were too high. I probably expected more details about actual field work. Read it but check it out of the library.

‘A Note on the Sources’ at the end of Mischa Berlinski’s novel Fieldwork tells the reader that it’s fiction – ‘none of this happened.’ This is surprising because the book has the feel of authentic journalism. The authorial voice is strong – almost overpowering as it (the narrator – a journalist - actually called MISCHA BERLINSKI) tells us about meeting a guy known as Rabbit who has been to visit a forty-year-old anthropologist called MARTIYA VAN DER LEUN in a Thailand gaol where she is serving a life sentence for shooting dead a missionary called DAVID WALKER. Shortly afterwards, Mischa hears that she has committed suicide, is convinced that there is a great story here, so decides to find out everything he can.Mischa’s sources for finding out are, to say the least, numerous. They consist of a procession of people who were close/close-ish to Martiya throughout the various stages of her life. A list of people so conveniently long – and so conveniently eager to spill the beans on Martiya and David Walker that although I’ve used the word authentic, that feel of authenticity is more to do with the apparent real-life situation of the narrator journalist and his schoolteacher wife than in the way the testimonies are delivered to the reader. This for me – others may see it completely differently – is the first major problem with this novel. There’s practically no ‘immediate scene’ in this book, the backstory, and all the action is second hand – ie reported to the narrator. So, why didn’t Berlinski capitalise on this and actually present the testimonies in the form of letters or exact transcripts of telephone calls? Instead, he’s tried to weave them into seamless prose, which for me – others may disagree – doesn’t work.The second problem for me – and this is only my opinion – is that I couldn’t understand why the author spends so much time telling us about the history of the Walker family. David’s parents yes, but his grandparents? I appreciate that it might help to make the point about the missionary zeal of the victim’s family, but surely, this could be done in a page or two, why such an extensive family history ‘information drop’, on grandparents Raymond and Laura Walker? In the Acknowledgements at the very end of the book, Berlinski thanks his editor Lorin Stein who evidently insisted (quite rightly Berlinski admits) on him cutting out whole chapters. In my view, that process could have been even more stringent, leaving space for more on David himself, and more on the mysticism of the Dyalo – the preliterate Thai people which Martiya ends up spending nearly half her life living with. This would have told a better story. But please, don’t misunderstand me, it’s not that I don’t think this book is a good read, or not a clever book. If you happen to agree with me and wonder why you’re being told the history of the Walker family, and find it a bit of a puzzling digression, please stick with it because easily the best part of this book is its final third.And this is where this book really scores! For me, it’s an exploration of two vital concepts; i) the nature of the science of anthropology and where it stands in the world, and ii) an examination of what can happen when a person leaves their mother culture and goes to live in a totally different environment with incomparable values. You can end up belonging to neither, unable to reconcile a limbo between a preliterate culture and western academic world. And in Martiya’s case there is a third element which she is unable to come to terms with, the Christian missionary zeal.Lastly, a small but important point. Don’t let the cover design of this book put you off. My paperback edition shows a pair of bare feet – possibly nestling a hammock, some exotic green fronds, an open book, and a pair of spectacles. How visually contrived and 'pedestrian' can you get! It’s quite clearly one of these faceless, characterless library photographs that publishers have, whose only merit is that they have no copyright issues!