Far Afield [Paperback]

Susanna Kaysen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 19, 1994

Jonathan Brand, a graduate student in anthropology, has decided to do his fieldwork in the remote Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic.  But, despite his Harvard training, he can barely understand, let alone "study," the culture he encounters.  From his struggles with the local cuisine to his affair with the Danish woman the locals want him to marry, Jonathan is both repelled by and drawn into the Faroese way of life. Wry and insightful, Far Afield reveals reveals Susanna Kaysen's gifts of imagination, satire, and compassion.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A compulsively readable novel of enormous charm by the author of Asa, As I Knew Him , this stakes out the Faroe Islands, an isolated, autonomous Danish territory in the North Atlantic that Harvard anthropology graduate student Jonathan Brand has "discovered" for his course fieldwork. The product of repressed academic parents and of a reductionist scholarly discipline that "made much of such simplicities as who traded beans or feathers with what cousin or whether dinner was cooked in one pot or two," Jonathan sets out to sniff, taste and touch his way to a doctoral thesis from the comfortable remove of an impartial observer. But resisting documentation and analysis, the land of midnight sun and winter "drear," and its deceptively impassive and unevolved denizens, insinuate themselves into the American's underemotive heart. Overeducated and as insular as any of his "primitive" subjects, Jonathan is a narrator who manages to be both hilarious and poignant in his bafflement and neurosis. We watch him empty an obstructed septic tank of wheelbarrowfuls of its repulsive contents; nibble tentatively at fish and meat prepared native-style--months old and rotten; negotiate the seduction of a woman whom he barely fathoms and whom everyone assumes will become his bride; clash with otherworldly shepherds, specters who apparently try to wrest sheep away from Jonathan's grip; and play reluctant host to another American anthropology grad student encroaching on his turf. As they flirt with NATO and the CIA, ritually kill whales and cats, enhance their natural moroseness with liquor acquired through payment of their taxes, and open their homes to Jonathan with abundant hospitality, the Faroese are nuanced keepers of a culture not wholly unlike our own.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Brilliant . . . a novel distinguished for [its] intelligence, psychological insight, and splendid writing." --The Atlantic

"Enthralling . . . at times supernaturally beautiful.  A gritty, intellectual, emotionally complex and astute account of an outsider succumbing to the hidden charms of a remote and peculiar island community." --Cleveland Plain Dealer

"Kaysen softly moves the story forward, chronicling personal change with deft touches of insight and with detail of island life so rich that it seems she had spent a year there herself." --Chicago Sun-Times

"Witty, intelligent. . . . An inspired novel about the human condition and the nature of civilization.  One of the best novels . . . in some time." --Boston Magazine

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (April 19, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679753761
• ISBN-13: 978-0679753766
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,123,131 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A ripening of a young ethnologist in a multicultural world., September 9, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Far Afield (Paperback)

Johnathan, a graduate anthropology student, undertakes a new life on the remote Faroes--a near arctic archipelago southeast of Iceland. In this culturally alien setting, he cuts his teeth on myriad folk encounters, from supernatural to prosaic. Besieged by interminable frustration, he slowly learns--at the pace of continental drift--to accept life as it comes. Johnathan's foibles strike universal chords, thus transporting us into his story. Plus, he's great to laugh at. Never satisfied, he worries himself silly.

Kaysen's lucid style telescoped me into Johnathan's vivid psychological world, and delighted me many times over with a smorgasbord of delicious surprises. I only give it a nine because I just finished; I need time to fully digest its substantial rewards before I could say that it's perfect. But, it may very well be

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful coming of age novel, September 8, 2004

By 

Nina (Nashville) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Far Afield (Paperback)

OK, so Jonathan is 25 and should already have come of age, but as the only child of 2 professors, he has led the privileged, sheltered Eastern private-school life. So to watch him progress from emotionally detached, hyper-self-critical, pizza-eating Bostonite to a better self (you read the novel - let's just say there is whale blubber instead of pizza) over the course of his year on the Faroe Islands is a joy. A wonderful setting, humor, a great cast of characters, superb writing and an unforgetable young man in a book that I wish had a sequel.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Northern Exposure, September 15, 2004

By 

Sarah Granger (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Far Afield (Paperback)

Jonathan sets forth from academia to apply his anthropological skills to the folks ways of the Faroe Islands. What ensues can best be described by the phrase "a duck out of water". Jonathan, who from the heights of his greater learning expects to note and judge "folk" behavior, survives his time in the field only because the good folks of the Islands take pity on him and take care of him - a fact to which he remains oblivious to the day he leaves. The writer approaches her subject with great wit and underlying compassion. When my book group read this book, it received a widely varied reaction. A year later, they still talk of this book and those who initially did not care for it find themselves more and more under it's spell. What is talked about a year later? The food (puffins and other delicacies). Fresh meat and sheep in the kitchen. The horrors of "stirring". A growing taste for Aqua Vit. The Danish girl. Definitely a book to read. You will never ever forget the Faroe Islands