No one limns the opposing pull of inner and outer worlds more eloquently than Andrea Barrett. Her naturalists, explorers, scientists, and healers are driven to work and above all to know; they categorize, theorize, and collect the phenomena of the natural world with an urgency that feels like physical need. But they are motivated equally by desire and loneliness, and the theme of domestic life runs like a countermelody through each of the six lovely, deeply memorable stories in Servants of the Map. The narrator of the title story, a cartographer in the Grand Trigonometrical Survey of India, is a timid, home- and family-loving man, but the Himalayas strike him with the force of a revelation. The heroine of the lyrical "Theories of Rain" is a creature of strong feelings and appetites, driven to ask questions about the world around her in the same spirit as she longs for a neighbor and mourns the brother separated from her in childhood. Her scientific curiosity is scarcely different from her desire: "Through that channel of longing, the world enters me."

Fans of Barrett's earlier books (the sublime Ship Fever and Voyage of the Narwhal) will delight in tracing the stories and characters that wind in and out of these three books, producing the sense of something lovely, ongoing, and whole. In the final story, Elizabeth finds consolation in her work caring for tubercular patients--"as if, in the order and precarious harmony of this house and those it shelters she might, for all that gets lost in this life, at last have found a cure." The same might be said of science, and of Barrett's art. --Mary Park


From Publishers Weekly
Travelers, naturalists, nurses, botanists, surveyors a multitude of seekers and healers populate this luminous new collection of two novellas and four stories by National Book Award-winner Barrett (Ship Fever; The Voyage of the Narwhal). Tracking her wandering protagonists from the banks of the Schuylkill in Pennsylvania in 1810 to the Himalayas in the 1860s and on to New York's Finger Lakes in the late 20th century, Barrett elegantly portrays the transitory nature of life and love. Selected for Best American Short Stories (2001) and The O. Henry Awards (2001), the title novella follows young British surveyor Max Vigne on a long, arduous mapping expedition as he writes letters home to a cherished wife that become a chronicle of the distance that is growing between them. Partings and reunions of loved ones recur in these stories. In "Theories of Rain," a young orphan studying the mysteries of precipitation and passion yearns for the brother she was separated from as a child; in the novella "The Cure," a nurse at a village in the Adirondacks finds the brother she lost years ago and yet struggles to communicate with him. In the contemporary "The Forest," Barrett creates a lovely comedy of the inevitable gap of perspectives between an illustrious Polish scientist who has grown nostalgic with age and a young woman who yearns to break free of the past. The mark of Barrett's artistry is her ability to illuminate loneliness and isolation, but also to capture the improbably forged bonds between her disparate characters. Familiar figures appear and reappear in more than one story, and many readers will be able to make connections between these tales and Barrett's earlier works. Yet each is rich and independent and beautiful and should draw Barrett many new admirers. Author tour. (Feb. 1) Forecast: An elegant sepia-toned jacket and Barrett's rapidly growing reputation as one of the finest writers at work today will assure a substantial audience for this radiant collection. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
All six of the intricate and closely related tales in Barrett's latest collection depict intriguing moments of tension between scientific endeavor and human nature, dating from the early 19th century to the present. In the mesmerizing title story (selected for both Best American Short Stories 2001 and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards 2001), young Max Vigne seeks the adventure of a lifetime as part of an 1863 expedition to map the Himalayas but instead finds personal anguish and unexpected self-knowledge. "The Cure," set in 1905, finds Max's daughter Elizabeth reflecting on the strange paths that led her to becoming a healer in the Adirondack wilderness. "The Mysteries of Ubiquitin" portrays an up-and-coming female biochemist distracted by a chance to live out her childhood dream of romance. This book more than matches Barrett's earlier story collection, Ship Fever, which won the National Book Award. Highly recommended for most fiction collections.- Starr E. Smith, Fairfax Cty. P.L., VA Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
MacArthur fellow Barrett writes with great empathy about naturalists, scientists, explorers, and healers, the heroes of her National Book Award-winning story collection, Ship Fever (1996), her magnificent novel, The Voyage of the Narwhal (1998), and now this equally spellbinding set of stories, which are knit unobtrusively to each other and her earlier books. In these complex yet ravishing tales of scientific pursuits stoked by loneliness and desire, Barrett ponders the spiritual toll associated with exile from home and loved ones, and conflicts between the passion for learning and the demands of love and family life. In the brilliantly subtle title story, Max, a shy English surveyor with a passion for botany, toughs it out in the dangerous and glorious Himalayas as part of the remarkable Grand Trigonometrical Survey of India, bitterly missing his wife and children even as he realizes that this is the life for him. In the gently poetic "Theories of Rain," a bright yet isolated young woman longs for sensual love and knowledge of the universe, while in two beautifully rendered stories set in the present, a molecular biologist named Rose finds that her work proves more reliable than human connections. Barrett's characters are deep and self-possessed, and their stories, so intelligently and delectably told, both romanticize and validate the quest for understanding life that drives scientists and artists alike. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


New York Times Book Review, Barry Unsworth
[O]ne more example of the originality and wit Barrett demonstrates throughout a most distinguished collection of stories.


Booklist
Spellbinding....Complex yet ravishing tales of scientific pursuits stoked by loneliness and desire.


Lisa Shea, O) magazine
Gemlike stories that sparkle with intelligence and fire.


Kirkus Reviews starred review
Gorgeous, illuminating, entrancing fiction.


Publishers Weekly starred review
Luminous....Each [story] is rich and independent and beautiful and should draw Barrett many new admirers.


Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
A wonderful clarity and ease, the serene authority of a writer working at the very height of her powers.


Book Description
Ranging across two centuries, and from the western Himalaya to an Adirondack village, these wonderfully imagined stories and novellas travel the territories of yearning and awakening, of loss and unexpected discovery. A mapper of the highest mountain peaks realizes his true obsession. A young woman afire with scientific curiosity must come to terms with a romantic fantasy. Brothers and sisters, torn apart at an early age, are beset by dreams of reunion. Throughout, Barrett's most characteristic theme—the happenings in that borderland between science and desire—unfolds in the diverse lives of unforgettable human beings. Although each richly layered tale stands independently, readers of Ship Fever (National Book Award winner) and Barrett's extraordinary novel The Voyage of the Narwhal, will discover subtle links both among these new stories and to characters in the earlier works. The title story of this volume was selected for Best American Short Stories 2001 and for Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards 2001.


Language Notes
Text: English (translation)


About the Author
Andrea Barrett lives in Rochester, New York. Barrett has been a fellow at the Center for Writers and Scholars at the New York Public Library. In 2001, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Ranging across two centuries, and from the western Himalaya to an Adirondack village, these wonderfully imagined stories and novellas travel the territories of yearning and awakening, of loss and unexpected discovery. A mapper of the highest mountain peaks realizes his true obsession. A young woman afire with scientific curiosity must come to terms with a romantic fantasy. Brothers and sisters, torn apart at an early age, are beset by dreams of reunion. Throughout, Barrett's most characteristic theme—the happenings in that borderland between science and desire—unfolds in the diverse lives of unforgettable human beings.

Although each richly layered tale stands independently, readers of Ship Fever (National Book Award winner) and Barrett's extraordinary novel The Voyage of the Narwhal, will discover subtle links both among these new stories and to characters in the earlier works.

The title story of this volume was selected for Best American Short Stories 2001 and for Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards 2001.

Author Biography: Andrea Barrett lives in Rochester, New York. Barrett has been a fellow at the Center for Writers and Scholars at the New York Public Library. In 2001, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.

FROM THE CRITICS

Lisa Shea - O magazine

Gemlike stories that sparkle with intelligence and fire.

Michiko Kakutani - New York Times

A wonderful clarity and ease,the serene authority of a writer working at the very height of her powers.

New York Times Book Review