A Change in Altitude

This one grabbed me in a way others have not done for a while. I can't say why. Somehow I responded to Margaret's situation and her response to it.

Margaret and Patrick, new married couple, go to Africa. Specifically, to Kenya. Patrick has a chance to study equatorial medicine while Margaret simply wants to see Africa. She quits her photography job in the US to go, and eventually finds herself another one, as freelance photographer for a controversial newspaper in Kenya.

Before she finds this job, however, she and Patrick are living in a little house behind a big one, and the owners of the property invite them to go with them on a climb of Mount Kenya. Patrick is excited about the climb and Margaret, less enthusiastic, goes along. An show more incident happens on the climb that changes everything, that radiates outward and affects many people.

This is something Shreve does regularly, according to reviewers (I have only read a few other books of hers): create small events that cause cracks that become canyons. I love this because it is so often such small things that send us in different directions.

We follow Margaret as she copes with changes and tries to adjust, to get things back where they were. But is that possible? show less

I love Shreve's work. I love how at the end of every book she always leaves the reader slightly unsettled, as if there is more to the story. She refuses to wrap up the ending in a solid "Hollywood-happy" resolution.
Margaret and Patrick are newlyweds; only married for five months and yet I personally found their relationship flat and dispassionate. He, a doctor, travels around Kenya in exchange for research data on equatorial diseases. She, an out of work photographer, hopes to freelance around Nairobi and capture landscapes unfamiliar to her American eye. Together Patrick and Margaret join two other couples in an effort to climb Mount Kenya. Almost immediately, there is an imbalance to their chemistry. Margaret's feminist sensibilities show more were threatened when she couldn't earn her keep with a job and now she can't keep up with the mountaineering climb. The others continuously leave her behind. Her companions have a much easier go at it. She is further insulted when the men in the group display subtle attitudes of sexism towards her. Arthur repeatedly claims he will take care of her while Wilfred casually refers to the women in the group as "girls." Her climbing partners are snobbish; questioning the Masai tribe that has been around for centuries. All the while Margaret doesn't fit in and stays quiet. She has something to prove but does little to promote her capabilities. Oddly, it is only after tragedy strikes is she then able to find her voice. This tragedy will carry consequences long into the future; long after Margaret finds a photography job with a controversial newspaper; long after Patrick and Margaret have new troubles in their marriage.
I couldn't get a read on Margaret. It was weird, but I found her to be a bit unemotional. She was strangely calm when the couple's only car is stolen or when she is attacked by fire ants. [The fire ant scene made me itch for days.] show less

My body was sitting on the beach at Topsail Island, North Carolina but my mind was transported to the dusty streets of Nairobi before the seasonal rains while reading A Change of Altitude. It was not surprising to learn Anita Shreve once lived in Kenya. Only someone who lived there could capture the moral questions that come up when living in a country different from your own.

A Change of Altitude is about Margaret, a newlywed who lives with her husband, Patrick, in Kenya. He's a doctor doing research on tropical diseases. She's at a bit of a loss on how to spend her time since the move. Margaret was a reporter in Boston and now feels purposeless. Patrick and Margaret are invited to climb Mount Kenya with two other couples. An accident show more during the climb changes the course of their marriage.

This book can easily be a book club favorite if readers are brave enough to pick it up. The events make Margaret ask some hard questions about herself and her marriage. Although the average reader won't have lived in another country where the customs are different, many of the feelings and doubts expressed by Margaret have been felt by someone in a relationship. There are the normal marriage questions such as whether or not to have children, if children are in the future then when would be a good time to start trying and the harder questions such as which characteristics in my mate can be overlooked and which ones should I confront him/her about? It can make the reader ask those questions of themselves and some readers will find they aren't ready for those answers. show less

Anita Shreve returns to Africa (after 2001’s The Last Time They Met) to explore how a woman’s passivity and growing strength affect her young marriage.

Set in the late 1970s, Margaret, a 28-year-old Boston newspaper photographer, accompanies her physician-husband, Patrick, to Nairobi for his research in equatorial medicine. Soon thereafter and with little notice, Patrick announces he’s committed them both to climb Mt. Kenya with a group of friends. Although the climb requires technical mountaineering skills, Margaret complies without protest or negotiation. She scrambles to get ready and then we watch the group’s ascent and witness a terrible accident.

I loved the opening section, where Shreve evokes a real physicality of the show more climb. (It made me eager to re-read Michael Crichton's similarly evocative "Kilimanjaro," from his essay collection, Travels). Then the accident causes marital aftershocks and adjustments which are explored in an interesting but slower-going middle, and things grow dramatic again toward the end.

This novel feels especially true-to-Shreve; readers who’ve developed a consistent like or dislike for her works will feel similarly toward this one. show less

I think, reviewers, you have got it right. This is worth 3.5 stars. The book is promising as we travel with Patrick and Margaret to Kenya, But for it me, the book had potential and nothing more till the hike was underway, more than 1/3 of the way through the audiobook. I was interested in how Margaret felt during this expedition most of all - being left behind by her fellow hikers, looking for comfort where she could, and so forth. I liked that there was a kind of Conrad-esque sense of menace about the climb, but this was not sustained unfortunately. My impression of Margaret's personality was very much shaped by narrator Anna Stone's tonality: pleasant, somewhat innocent and feminine.

I am an Anita Shreve fan. I have read most of her books and was thrilled to get A Change in Altitude as my first Library Thing Early Reviewer selection. Unfortunately, I was disappointed in this book. It took me a while to get into - pretty much the entire Part I of three parts was slow going. Once I got into Part II, things started to pick up and hold promise. And then I fould myself nearing the end of Part III wondering how she was going to wrap it all up, thinking a very unexpected ending was in store. It was certainly unexpected. It felt incomplete and empty. I've been thinking about it alot since finishing the book last night, knowing I would be writing this review, and I guess "incomplete and empty" is probably how the book's show more character felt. So, maybe the author accomplished what she wanted to convey, but I was still disappointed. show less

Atmospheric Kenya.

I listened to the unabridged audiobook of this book, read by Laurence Bouvard, and I enjoyed it more than I had expected, given that it was primarily a book about hiking.
Although I was irritated by how little training the characters had done before attempting to climb Mount Kenya, I was interested in the whole expat experience of living in Kenya, particularly the interactions of the lesser characters; the staff and other Kenyan personalities.

Margaret and Patrick have not been married long, when he has the opportunity to travel to Kenya to study tropical medicine and work as a doctor at the same time. They happen upon Arthur and Diana, who have a house to let on their property, and Margaret and Patrick move in. Their show more new landlords are keen to climb Mount Kenya and Patrick persuades Margaret that it would be a good idea. With no fitness preparation at all, it comes as no surprise that Margaret is soon struggling. Events escalate in a rather unbelievable manner, resulting in a tragic accident for a character that I wasn't sorry to lose.
The rest of the novel is Margaret and Patrick's attempt to come to terms with this event.

Having written this, I ask myself why I gave the book four stars, but it was the peripheral characters and events that I most enjoyed; the housemaid who is attacked and the houseboy who helps Margaret get her stories for a paper that she writes for. The photographers she works with and the events she covers were far more fascinating than the central narrative. The feel for life in part of Africa was well written, and this was the book's strength. For me, the climb was just a distraction. show less