A review by marilynsaul
Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski

2.0

Ummm....what to say? As an Anthropologist, I quickly became immersed in Martiya's fieldwork with the Dyal, and many times found myself nodding "yes, I remember how that was", having lived with a Palestinian family for a month (certainly not nearly as long as Martiya's journey). If you LIKE ethnographic studies (albeit the Dyal are a fictitious group), you will probably enjoy much of this book. However, it came to be more of a treatise on missionaries (expelled from China during the revolution, moving to northern Burma and again being expelled after some 20 years, and finally settling in Thailand), and I concluded this book was not about Martiya's fieldwork so much as Mischa's fieldwork with the missionaries. The ending was most unsatisfactory, unless we are to believe that Martiya became a [nevermind - spoiler] - let's just say I think the author did a disservice to intelligent, independent women because he doesn't understand them (and perhaps has more of a "missionary" interpretation of women as being weak). I keep vacillating between two and three stars. I think I'll go back to two.