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The Word for Woman is Wilderness
Erin is 19. She's never really left England, but she has watched Bear Grylls and wonders why it's always men who get to go on all the cool wilderness adventures. So Erin sets off on a voyage into the Alaskan wilderness, a one-woman challenge to the archetype of the rugged male explorer.
As Erin's journey takes her through the Arctic Circle, across the entire breadth of the American continent and finally to a lonely cabin in the wilds of Denali, she explores subjects as diverse as the moon landings, the Gaia hypothesis, loneliness, nuclear war, shamanism and the pill.
Filled with a sense of wonder for the natural world and a fierce love for preserving it, The Word for Woman is Wilderness is a funny, frank and tender account of a young woman in uncharted territory.
As Erin's journey takes her through the Arctic Circle, across the entire breadth of the American continent and finally to a lonely cabin in the wilds of Denali, she explores subjects as diverse as the moon landings, the Gaia hypothesis, loneliness, nuclear war, shamanism and the pill.
Filled with a sense of wonder for the natural world and a fierce love for preserving it, The Word for Woman is Wilderness is a funny, frank and tender account of a young woman in uncharted territory.
302 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2018
153 people are currently reading
5587 people want to read
About the author
Abi Andrews
6 books28 followersAbi Andrews is a writer from the Midlands, England. She studied Creative Writing at Goldsmiths college in London, and her work has been published in Five Dials, Caught by the River, The Clearing, The Dark Mountain Project, Tender and other journals, along with a pamphlet published with Goldsmiths Shorts. Her debut novel The Word for Woman Is Wilderness was originally published by Serpent’s Tail in February 2018 and Hoffmann und Campe in October 2018.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 247 reviews
January 13, 2018
Abi Andrews has written a remarkably ambitious and thought provoking meditation on what it is to be a woman with strong connections to the earth, the environment and the wilderness. She develops a philosophy through the young 19 year old Erin, a brave and courageous woman, who embarks on a thrilling and enthralling adventure through the Arctic wilderness and across the US. It begins with a reflection on why it is men who are explorers and adventurers, such as Bear Grylls. She watches a Chris McCandless documentary which provides the impetus for the far reaching decision to travel across the Arctic through a difficult road trip and eventually choosing to live in an isolated cabin in Alaska completely alone. She undertakes the mission of making her own video documentary and biography, filming interviews with people and the events that she encounters, including her personal impressions and emotional feelings on the whole process. This is an extraordinary challenge to the tenet that this is a man's world.
I loved Erin's exploration of a wide and diverse range of subject matter, crucial to the development of a universal feminist philosophy on the protection of the wondrous wilderness, connecting the threads of her thinking on being a woman with that of the need for environmental protection. She draws on Inuit approaches on life and death in her conclusions. This is a terrific story of adventure, original in its construction of a philosophical approach to the study of feminism, with a Erin who is implacable in her determination to protect the wilderness she is bewitched by and loves. A wonderfully brilliant and intelligent read that makes a change from my usual reading fare. Highly recommended! Many thanks to Serpent's Tail for an ARC.
I loved Erin's exploration of a wide and diverse range of subject matter, crucial to the development of a universal feminist philosophy on the protection of the wondrous wilderness, connecting the threads of her thinking on being a woman with that of the need for environmental protection. She draws on Inuit approaches on life and death in her conclusions. This is a terrific story of adventure, original in its construction of a philosophical approach to the study of feminism, with a Erin who is implacable in her determination to protect the wilderness she is bewitched by and loves. A wonderfully brilliant and intelligent read that makes a change from my usual reading fare. Highly recommended! Many thanks to Serpent's Tail for an ARC.
December 28, 2018
Full disclaimer - I asked the publisher (Two Dollar Radio) for an advanced copy of this book because it fit in so perfectly with my Canada-Alaska reading goals for 2018. It doesn't come out until March 2019 in the states but has been out in the UK in 2018.
This is a novel, but is written in such a creative non-fiction style that I had to keep reminding myself that the author's name is Abi and that this is a fictional account. There are charts, maps, packing lists, and photos that all lend an incredible realism to the narrative. The character of Erin is also a filmmaker so at times there are transcripts of interviews or soliloquies that add another layer to the story.
At the core is a philosophical novel, exploring the idea of wilderness through the experience of a young woman venturing from England to Iceland, Greenland, and finally ending up in Alaska not far from where Chris McCandless ventured out. (In fact, the book seemed to be so directly in response to Into the Wild that I stopped and read it before continuing.) The author and/or the narrator want to understand why the wilderness and its exploration seems to be something held to be masculine, and to prove it doesn't have to be. She confronts the ideas espoused by Jack London, Jack Kerouac, Thoreau, Ted Kaczynski (this one was a difficult surprise but makes a lot of sense in the end), etc. In some ways it claims wildness as unique to women, and there are some delicious statements about this near the end that I can't quote here since I have an uncorrected proof.
I was surprised that the author didn't include any female adventurers. It is true that many explorers are male, but not all. What about Margaret Murie, the fearless mother of the Alaskan frontier? Or women who are most at home in the wild, from Kira Salak to Annie Dillard to even Mary Oliver? It felt at times that these women and their writings might be a stronger defense to the idea of women being the wilderness than a 19 year old, but that might be my "old age" talking (I am 40.)
Still, I can tell from the author's acknowledgements (I always read them, don't you), and the way she titled chapters after items from Ursula K. Le Guin and female scientists, that she has these voices in her head, but narrowed down to the handful she did on purpose.
This was a great read right after I had read Travels in Alaska by John Muir, Kings of the Yukon by Adam Weymouth, and Into the Wild by Chris McCandless, because the solitary male (who isn't in fact by himself) "discovering" the wild is all sorts of problematic in any century, and it was an antidote to read this book afterwards. It is immersive, thought-provoking, and a unique reading experience to be sure.
This is a novel, but is written in such a creative non-fiction style that I had to keep reminding myself that the author's name is Abi and that this is a fictional account. There are charts, maps, packing lists, and photos that all lend an incredible realism to the narrative. The character of Erin is also a filmmaker so at times there are transcripts of interviews or soliloquies that add another layer to the story.
At the core is a philosophical novel, exploring the idea of wilderness through the experience of a young woman venturing from England to Iceland, Greenland, and finally ending up in Alaska not far from where Chris McCandless ventured out. (In fact, the book seemed to be so directly in response to Into the Wild that I stopped and read it before continuing.) The author and/or the narrator want to understand why the wilderness and its exploration seems to be something held to be masculine, and to prove it doesn't have to be. She confronts the ideas espoused by Jack London, Jack Kerouac, Thoreau, Ted Kaczynski (this one was a difficult surprise but makes a lot of sense in the end), etc. In some ways it claims wildness as unique to women, and there are some delicious statements about this near the end that I can't quote here since I have an uncorrected proof.
I was surprised that the author didn't include any female adventurers. It is true that many explorers are male, but not all. What about Margaret Murie, the fearless mother of the Alaskan frontier? Or women who are most at home in the wild, from Kira Salak to Annie Dillard to even Mary Oliver? It felt at times that these women and their writings might be a stronger defense to the idea of women being the wilderness than a 19 year old, but that might be my "old age" talking (I am 40.)
Still, I can tell from the author's acknowledgements (I always read them, don't you), and the way she titled chapters after items from Ursula K. Le Guin and female scientists, that she has these voices in her head, but narrowed down to the handful she did on purpose.
This was a great read right after I had read Travels in Alaska by John Muir, Kings of the Yukon by Adam Weymouth, and Into the Wild by Chris McCandless, because the solitary male (who isn't in fact by himself) "discovering" the wild is all sorts of problematic in any century, and it was an antidote to read this book afterwards. It is immersive, thought-provoking, and a unique reading experience to be sure.
April 20, 2022
Adventure stories aren’t usually my thing, but I was won over by Tara Masih’s review of Abi Andrews’s complex novel. The author incorporates a wide variety of influences into the narration of her 19-year-old protagonist. I would’ve used the word 'inspirations' instead of 'influences' in my prior sentence—and she is inspired by writers like Rachel Carson—but several of her influences are either ones she’s trying to find a space for herself within or pushing against: the accounts of so-called Mountain Men; Ted Kaczynski; the tragic but not inevitable fate of Chris McCandless; Thoreau; and maybe especially Jack London. Erin has a specal relationship with London’s works and the men she’s encountered who worship him (and who don’t believe she can be in that masculine space) interpret him much differently than she does. And these are just the tip of her influences.
Explicit in the novel is how difficult, if not impossible, it is for a wayfaring woman to travel, much less live, safely and thus freely in the lifestyles espoused by these male writers. The negotiations Erin makes along her journey, and by the novel’s end, are not as obvious as one might think.
If I have any criticism, it’s of some repetition, the writing of which could’ve been tightened. I struggled to connect to some of her varied and far-reaching ideas, but I never minded trying. It’s all fascinating, even as Erin mocks herself for a book that “refuses to end.” The first-person account is so intimate and detailed, I couldn’t help wondering numerous times if Andrews lived through at least some of the same adventures Erin had. She speaks with an authority that seems to come from experience.
Explicit in the novel is how difficult, if not impossible, it is for a wayfaring woman to travel, much less live, safely and thus freely in the lifestyles espoused by these male writers. The negotiations Erin makes along her journey, and by the novel’s end, are not as obvious as one might think.
If I have any criticism, it’s of some repetition, the writing of which could’ve been tightened. I struggled to connect to some of her varied and far-reaching ideas, but I never minded trying. It’s all fascinating, even as Erin mocks herself for a book that “refuses to end.” The first-person account is so intimate and detailed, I couldn’t help wondering numerous times if Andrews lived through at least some of the same adventures Erin had. She speaks with an authority that seems to come from experience.
February 1, 2018
“Cetaceans are women's allies in the war against patriarchy because patriarchy holds the cetaceans down with us. Orcas travel in matriarchal pods. The root of the word dolphin, delphus, means womb."Erin is a young woman with a calling. She has barely ventured beyond her home town, but she has watched Bear Grylls's survival programmes on TV. She wonders why it is that men, but never women, get to be intrepid adventurers, and decides to prove that it is possible for a lone female to voyage through the Arctic Circle, travel across the American continent, and survive in the Alaskan wilderness on basic rations.
She takes with her a video camera to record the journey, using it to interview people along the way, with the intention of creating a feminist documentary. But her evolving objectives regarding this film become an integral part of her odyssey – one that is sometimes fraught with danger and would certainly scare her parochial mum and dad witless should she choose to be completely open with them. She is, however, a strong-willed, resourceful character, and develops coping mechanisms such as chiding herself for growing overly attached to temporary travelling companions.
“I am doing this journey alone by and for myself and this tug is the over-socialisation expected of women which traps us, and is precisely what I am striking against.”As she travels, she ruminates on the solar system, nuclear weapons, Inuit culture, cetaceans, the pill, dreams, history, nothingness and a profusion of diverse subjects. She contemplates the works of writers, travellers, scientists and philosophers like Henry David Thoreau, Jack London and James Lovelock - looking to Rachel Carson for feminal inspiration – and puzzles over what impelled men like Chris McCandless to seek enlightenment through solitude and immersion in the natural world.
Erin may be a deep thinker, but she is also great company – her perceptive humour often at its funniest when she is at her lowest ebb. There are amusing sub-headings strewn throughout the narrative, with titles like: MANNED SPAcE FLIgHT IS THE TROPHY WIFE OF THE SuPER-PHALLUS, and I found myself chuckling at some of her throwaway remarks.
When eventually she reaches her isolated cabin in Denali, her experiences thereafter sometimes remind me of those recounted by Sara Maitland in her 2009 memoir, A Book Of Silence, in which the author spent long periods of time living alone in remote places. Like Erin, she was occasionally perplexed by unsettling, if not downright creepy mental images. There were times when she was unsure if she was awake or asleep, and if the things she saw were real or merely brought about by lack of human contact. So it proves for Erin.
So authentic is the protagonist's voice that in many ways The Word for Woman is Wilderness seems more non-fiction travelogue than novel. Moreover, if I hadn't been informed otherwise, I might have assumed Erin was American. Her first-person interior-monologue doesn't have a particularly British feel to it – in fact, it could be described as mid Atlantic - but I have no doubt this is a generational thing. These days young people use a globalized form of English, and Erin is a mere 19 years-old. The author herself is in her late twenties, while I'm in my early fifties, so our use of language will inevitably differ.
There is much to admire in Abi Andrews' debut novel. She has created an inspiring character in Erin, one you will think of long after reading the final page. This book appealed to me at first because I am fascinated by countries like Iceland and Greenland, and I was also intrigued by the description of a young woman challenging the archetype of the rugged male explorer. By the time it ended, an abundance of anomalous thoughts were coursing through my brain. I could ask for no more. (3.5 STARS)
Many thanks to Serpent's Tail for supplying an advance review copy of this title.
May 13, 2018
This is a very tricky one to write a review for as my overall experience was rather conflicting. This novel is part adventure, part travel writing, part philosophical musings, part coming-of-age and rediscovery, speckled with feminist ideals, the myth and beliefs of the Native Peoples of North America and vilifying of patriarchy and it's societal repercussions. That's a handful. And it works to the advantage and disadvantage of this novel. It's far too ambitious, with too many ideas, that none of the ideas felt fully realised.
Right at the start, its clear that Erin is a rather unconventional 19 year old millennial in some sense. Drawing on experiences of Bear Grylles, Chris McCandless, etc. Erin sets off on a journey into the Alaskan wilderness as a challenge to the 'rugged male archetype' for an experience as authentic and disconnected from the thrum of civilisation as she could possibly get. Opting out of air travel for environmental reasons, she journeys by ship, pausing for a few weeks in Iceland, Greenland, finally reaching North Eastern Canada, and traversing the entire breadth of Canada onto Alaska, by hitchhiking rides with strangers. Her purpose is to document this journey and hence the book includes descriptions of the landscape and it's people, conversational dialogue style writing, interviews, video transcripts, photographs, diagrams, and philosophical musings aplenty.
I thought the entire concept of a documentary not sitting too well within the frame of the story. Despite the meandering nature, and rare moments when the book dragged, I found the first half to be an engaging, informative and thought provoking read. I can't say that I completely agree with Abi Andrews views on feminism & patriarchy (which did seem a little too extreme at times), but the instances I wasn't in complete agreement, it was more of an 'agree to disagree' situation which didn't bother me much. The narrator's self consciousness and musings were both a pleasure and an annoyance as the novel proceeded. But will say, some of her most simple observations on feminism and nature were really moving, endearing and incredibly well written.
Her constant trajectories into philosophical musings, except for occasional gems, got more and more grating and distracting as I kept reading on. Once Erin reaches Alaska and settles into a lonely cabin for a self imposed solitary exile for 3 weeks with no human contact, the initial descriptions and her perceptions were stunning and acutely captured what it might be like. However, the last 80 pages which basically intends to summarise Erin's take on life, took a nose dive. The book gets profound and philosophical to a dizzying degree that I found both pretentious and tedious to get through. Obviously, this is a personal opinion and might not apply to other readers.
It is fiction, that doest read like fiction. It reads more like a documentary/ non fiction/ travel memoir and there are several facts interspersed throughout. And I'm sure Abi Andrews must have embarked on a trip of some nature, as I cannot imagine someone conjuring up entire experiences solely from imagination. I will appreciate it for it's uniqueness and what it tries to achieve, though my overall reaction was rather mixed.
Right at the start, its clear that Erin is a rather unconventional 19 year old millennial in some sense. Drawing on experiences of Bear Grylles, Chris McCandless, etc. Erin sets off on a journey into the Alaskan wilderness as a challenge to the 'rugged male archetype' for an experience as authentic and disconnected from the thrum of civilisation as she could possibly get. Opting out of air travel for environmental reasons, she journeys by ship, pausing for a few weeks in Iceland, Greenland, finally reaching North Eastern Canada, and traversing the entire breadth of Canada onto Alaska, by hitchhiking rides with strangers. Her purpose is to document this journey and hence the book includes descriptions of the landscape and it's people, conversational dialogue style writing, interviews, video transcripts, photographs, diagrams, and philosophical musings aplenty.
I thought the entire concept of a documentary not sitting too well within the frame of the story. Despite the meandering nature, and rare moments when the book dragged, I found the first half to be an engaging, informative and thought provoking read. I can't say that I completely agree with Abi Andrews views on feminism & patriarchy (which did seem a little too extreme at times), but the instances I wasn't in complete agreement, it was more of an 'agree to disagree' situation which didn't bother me much. The narrator's self consciousness and musings were both a pleasure and an annoyance as the novel proceeded. But will say, some of her most simple observations on feminism and nature were really moving, endearing and incredibly well written.
"Sat in a diner on my own, waiting for the coach to Ottawa. I am thinking about how the small autonomy of just being alone in public for a woman is also a right that needs to be claimed and kept on being claimed until it is a given. In order to do away with the anxiety that is shaping you from outside, like the deer in the glade that twitches its ears as it grazes, looking up and behind itself always in anticipation of predatory eyes. Women can't eat alone unless we claim it, can't go to a bar and sit alone, be solitude in social places, as though always the female body is a lonely body, an invitation."
Her constant trajectories into philosophical musings, except for occasional gems, got more and more grating and distracting as I kept reading on. Once Erin reaches Alaska and settles into a lonely cabin for a self imposed solitary exile for 3 weeks with no human contact, the initial descriptions and her perceptions were stunning and acutely captured what it might be like. However, the last 80 pages which basically intends to summarise Erin's take on life, took a nose dive. The book gets profound and philosophical to a dizzying degree that I found both pretentious and tedious to get through. Obviously, this is a personal opinion and might not apply to other readers.
It is fiction, that doest read like fiction. It reads more like a documentary/ non fiction/ travel memoir and there are several facts interspersed throughout. And I'm sure Abi Andrews must have embarked on a trip of some nature, as I cannot imagine someone conjuring up entire experiences solely from imagination. I will appreciate it for it's uniqueness and what it tries to achieve, though my overall reaction was rather mixed.
December 15, 2021
I can't do this review justice without quoting Andrews. Is this book for everyone? No. But I loved it. Note I have a background in philosophy and wanted to be a park ranger at one point, so this subject matter means a lot to me. And I have a background in hybrid works, so this kind of scrapbook structure appeals to me. It is fiction but reads like memoir and includes fragmented thoughts, scenes, encounters, film shots, pictures, diaries, scientific facts, and philosophical meanderings. All exploring women in wilderness and wilderness issues and climate change in general.
Could I have done without the film parts? Yes. Do I think the book should have ended sooner (like on p. 300?)? Yes. Could the odd pictures have been better? Yes. But I am still giving it a 5 because Andrews is one of the most intelligent, wise authors I've read in a long time. Her interpretations of male icons and their writings is breathtaking. And lest men fear this is a total bash on their sex, take the full journey and see where she lands.
Here are some of the flagged portions in my heavily flagged book:
"In the wild, men carve out their individual and authentic selves, as though women are not allowed individual and authentic selves. The story has the exact same plot, but 'a woman in the wilderness' means something totally inverted."
"Iceland is steeped in sagas and mysticism because the landscape is animated as if it is telling its own story. Glaciers walk, the ground moves and magma seeps, and geysers erupt like blowholes on the humped back of some giant. It is as though these are living parts acting out their own narratives. The Icelandic legends are shaped by the elements..."
"freedom...is alwaqs just ahead of you, a bright little light like an orb, but if you run hard enough at times and in places like this, you can catch up and you can float it in your hands."
"Our quilted landscape [UK] is fully exploited and the wild is relegated to special parks. Spaces set aside for preservation are museums, and their segregation makes it okay to debase anything outside of them."
"And it is because we can look so closely and see things inside things and look so far away and see things outside our solar system that we can realise the arbitrariness of our distinctions."
She's a wise old soul and a marvelous writer. This was a special, enlightening journey. My brain hurt at times trying to keep up with her, but that's a good thing, to stretch your thoughts out of the comfort zone of everyday musings.
Could I have done without the film parts? Yes. Do I think the book should have ended sooner (like on p. 300?)? Yes. Could the odd pictures have been better? Yes. But I am still giving it a 5 because Andrews is one of the most intelligent, wise authors I've read in a long time. Her interpretations of male icons and their writings is breathtaking. And lest men fear this is a total bash on their sex, take the full journey and see where she lands.
Here are some of the flagged portions in my heavily flagged book:
"In the wild, men carve out their individual and authentic selves, as though women are not allowed individual and authentic selves. The story has the exact same plot, but 'a woman in the wilderness' means something totally inverted."
"Iceland is steeped in sagas and mysticism because the landscape is animated as if it is telling its own story. Glaciers walk, the ground moves and magma seeps, and geysers erupt like blowholes on the humped back of some giant. It is as though these are living parts acting out their own narratives. The Icelandic legends are shaped by the elements..."
"freedom...is alwaqs just ahead of you, a bright little light like an orb, but if you run hard enough at times and in places like this, you can catch up and you can float it in your hands."
"Our quilted landscape [UK] is fully exploited and the wild is relegated to special parks. Spaces set aside for preservation are museums, and their segregation makes it okay to debase anything outside of them."
"And it is because we can look so closely and see things inside things and look so far away and see things outside our solar system that we can realise the arbitrariness of our distinctions."
She's a wise old soul and a marvelous writer. This was a special, enlightening journey. My brain hurt at times trying to keep up with her, but that's a good thing, to stretch your thoughts out of the comfort zone of everyday musings.
March 22, 2018
Dear Erin,
I spent so much time with you over the past week, either reading your (fictional) words or thinking about them throughout the day, criticising some of your standpoints and being fully convinced by others. I loved the way you set out on your great journey, somewhat independent and prepared, somewhat open to whatever comes your way. Moreover, I loved accompanying you through Iceland, Greenland and Canada to Alaska and see you grow along the way. I appreciated being taken along your interpretation of Thoreau’s, Rachel Carson’s and other writer’s works; as well as Eskimo and Athabaskan culture. Your synthesis of all these worldviews and convictions was inspiring to me, especially because you develop your own ideas through them.
I may not have agreed with everything that you wrote. Especially at the beginning I felt like some of your behaviour and thoughts regarding men fell a bit on the ‘overglorifying the female, shaming the male’ side that always leaves a bitter aftertaste in my mouth, because it does not agree with my view of feminism and what it should be about. BUT I got reconciled by the fact that later on you start questioning yourself and your way of thinking. I think this added another layer to the book, seeing that nobody starts out with having perfect opinions that are free of contradictions. Usually they only develop into more mature understandings, and seeing this growth made me appreciate your story even more.
I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with you, on your journey into the wilderness and to a deeper understanding of yourself and things around you. Your voice was eye-opening to me, made me curious about things, and fall in love with earth, science and literature all over again. Thank you for all of that. Farewell, dear Erin. (But I’m sure I’ll revisit you sometime from now, to let myself be ‘colonised’ by your thoughts again).
With love,
grass harp
I spent so much time with you over the past week, either reading your (fictional) words or thinking about them throughout the day, criticising some of your standpoints and being fully convinced by others. I loved the way you set out on your great journey, somewhat independent and prepared, somewhat open to whatever comes your way. Moreover, I loved accompanying you through Iceland, Greenland and Canada to Alaska and see you grow along the way. I appreciated being taken along your interpretation of Thoreau’s, Rachel Carson’s and other writer’s works; as well as Eskimo and Athabaskan culture. Your synthesis of all these worldviews and convictions was inspiring to me, especially because you develop your own ideas through them.
I may not have agreed with everything that you wrote. Especially at the beginning I felt like some of your behaviour and thoughts regarding men fell a bit on the ‘overglorifying the female, shaming the male’ side that always leaves a bitter aftertaste in my mouth, because it does not agree with my view of feminism and what it should be about. BUT I got reconciled by the fact that later on you start questioning yourself and your way of thinking. I think this added another layer to the book, seeing that nobody starts out with having perfect opinions that are free of contradictions. Usually they only develop into more mature understandings, and seeing this growth made me appreciate your story even more.
I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with you, on your journey into the wilderness and to a deeper understanding of yourself and things around you. Your voice was eye-opening to me, made me curious about things, and fall in love with earth, science and literature all over again. Thank you for all of that. Farewell, dear Erin. (But I’m sure I’ll revisit you sometime from now, to let myself be ‘colonised’ by your thoughts again).
With love,
grass harp
May 27, 2018
Sometimes profound, but more often than not profoundly irritating.
February 18, 2018
Sometimes it can be so difficult to separate my emotional response to a book compared to my critical response. I don't think I necessarily have to which is one of the great things about a book blog! But reading Abi Andrews' debut novel “The Word for Woman is Wilderness” I was even more aware of this dilemma because it's inspired by and about subjects I'm really interested in and sympathetic towards. It's narrated from the perspective of nineteen year old Erin who has a passionate interest in the writing of Thoreau and the life of Christopher McCandless whose tragic journey led to his accidental death in the Alaskan wilderness. This was chronicled in Jon Krakauer's nonfiction book “Into the Wild” and a film with the same name directed by Sean Penn. Erin observes how the famous instances of individuals pioneering into the wilderness to establish a distance from the society whose values they question have all been directed through a men's perspectives. Certainly the experience and perspective of a woman who sets out on such a journey would be very different. So (against her parents' wishes) she ventures out from her home in England to the Alaskan wilderness and chronicles her journey on video with the plan to edit it into a documentary. She states: “if running into the wild is so often a wounded retreat from societal constraints and oppressions, then shouldn’t anyone but straight white men be doing it more?” Erin charts the mental and physical struggles she faces on her way while also contemplating both the dynamic distinctions and commonalities between the journey of mankind vs womankind.
Read my full review of The Word for Woman is Wilderness by Abi Andrews on LonesomeReader
Read my full review of The Word for Woman is Wilderness by Abi Andrews on LonesomeReader
March 3, 2019
Part feminist adventure novel, part "non-fiction time capsule of all the important and scary things man has accomplished", The Word for Woman is Wilderness follows 19 year old Erin on her journey from England to Alaska when she decides, after watching a documentary on McCandless, to create a documentary of her own that can rival those previously told from the male perspective. Erin's experiences are intertwined with, and often overshadowed by, a relentless reflection and regurgitation of events and topics as wide and diverse as space travel, Native American culture, the writings of Thoreau and Jack London, and a strange obsession with the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.
TWFWiW felt about 100 pages too long. I much preferred the pages that were spent on Erin and her experiences as she hitchhiked and boated on the kindness of strangers, and her time spent in the cabin and wilderness in solitude, and was less a fan of the time that was spent on the rest, as I felt it disrupted the flow of the novel and continuously challenged my patience. Thankfully, the book is made up of short chapters, which made the movement to and from Erin and those painfully boring extrapolations bearable.
(one of my Most Anticipated Small Press Books of 2019: https://bit.ly/2SHKV5L)
TWFWiW felt about 100 pages too long. I much preferred the pages that were spent on Erin and her experiences as she hitchhiked and boated on the kindness of strangers, and her time spent in the cabin and wilderness in solitude, and was less a fan of the time that was spent on the rest, as I felt it disrupted the flow of the novel and continuously challenged my patience. Thankfully, the book is made up of short chapters, which made the movement to and from Erin and those painfully boring extrapolations bearable.
(one of my Most Anticipated Small Press Books of 2019: https://bit.ly/2SHKV5L)
December 26, 2022
I really struggled to get through this, it felt like the book was trying too hard. A girl spends her gap year proving girls can go on wilderness expeditions too. What follows is a lot of ramblings of her experiences and meanings of it all. I really didn’t enjoy it and found myself feeling frustrated with the naivety and that not that much was happening. Not for me but I think it’s a marmite book and some people will absolutely love it.
December 31, 2017
This is an adventure novel unlike any adventure novel you have read before (I think so, anyway: clearly, I haven’t read all of them, so I can’t be sure). There are two reasons for this. Firstly, the author, Abi Andrews, takes her female protagonist, Erin, into what has historically been a man’s world: exploring the wilderness. Secondly, the book’s mixture of fact and fiction is so well constructed that without the phrase "A Novel" in the title you could be forgiven for thinking you are reading a travel diary, albeit a very literary one. What we get when these two combine is a "feminist documentary on wilderness".
That first characteristic, a woman in a man’s world, is key. Without doubt this (at least, the first 80% of it) is a feminist book setting out to show the injustice and oppression of the patriarchy that has dominated society.
After watching a film about Chris McCandless, Erin makes a decision to take a road trip across Canada in order to stay on her own in a remote cabin in Alaska.
"I cried and promised myself I would start a savings account to fund a trip to Alaska, where I too could live in the wilderness in total solitude. Then I went through the film step by step and analysed how it would have been different if the guy had been a girl."
Because
"Even on those documentary channels that do programmes on whole families homesteading in the wilderness the woman is always Mountain Man’s wife, never, ever Mountain Woman, just an annexe of the Mountain Man along with his beard, pipe and gun."
She decides that she will use a video camera to capture events and interviews with people she meets and to create a documentary for which she has great plans on her return. The way the documentary and her feelings about it develop are fascinating elements of the story: the documentary serves as a way of filtering experiences to decide what or how things matter.
For a while, I was a bit worried that the premise of the book seemed to be “man has subjugated woman and man has subjugated nature, therefore women and nature should have an affinity”. I wasn’t sure about quotes like:
"Cetaceans are women’s allies in the war against patriarchy because patriarchy holds the cetaceans down with us. Orcas travel in matriarchal pods. The root of the word dolphin, delphus, means womb."
But, as the story and the philosophy develop, they become more and more compelling and coherent. I am not saying I am in 100% agreement and am converted to Erin’s views of women’s place in the world and the right way to live, but her thoughts are well put together and make for an engrossing, thought-provoking read.
The book is the story of her journey and the time she spends alone in Alaska. The journey to Alaska includes a number of incidents that confirm Erin’s view that it is a man’s world (mainly unwanted sexual attention).
Mixed in with the events, Erin takes time to record her thoughts about a wide variety of topics, all of which she connects together. So, we get a travel documentary filled with feminism, biography and then also thoughts about things such as the Voyager space missions, the lunar landings, time capsules, the Golden Records, Rachel Carson, the Unabomber, Jack Kerouac and many others. Gradually, all of these different topics converge and connect and the final 20% of the book becomes Erin’s philosophy for life which is largely based on the Inuit philosophy of metempsychosis:
"Metempsychosis. That is what the Ancient Greeks called the transmigration of souls, similar to what the Inuit believe in. E=mc2 is the famous equation by Einstein and what it means is that the amount of energy in a particle is equal to its mass times the speed of light squared, and what this means is that the Inuits are right again. It means that energy and mass or matter are interchangeable."
This combination of story and contemplation gives the book the feel of a documentary rather than a work of fiction (and clearly not everything in it is fiction). Andrews' writing is vivid and observant: I was left feeling that someone somewhere must have lived all of this given the detail as it’s hard to imagine someone thinking of all that without experiencing it.
"We walked inland through the mountains against the meltwater of the glacier as it found its way to the sea. It was urgent, dense and grey; panicked like a jar of paintbrush water knocked onto a meticulous landscape."
Alone in Alaska, Erin’s thoughts get more and more extravagant and include dream sequences. It is this that helps her pull it all together and leads us to the final sections of the book which focus more on philosophy and how to live life.
You don’t have to agree with everything Andrews gives Erin to say and think, but, even if you don’t, there is plenty of food for thought in what Erin discusses. The story is fairly straightforward, but is well written. The combination of story and contemplation makes this an absorbing book.
To be published by Serpent’s Tail, I received a free review copy from the publisher in exchange for my honest unedited feedback.
That first characteristic, a woman in a man’s world, is key. Without doubt this (at least, the first 80% of it) is a feminist book setting out to show the injustice and oppression of the patriarchy that has dominated society.
After watching a film about Chris McCandless, Erin makes a decision to take a road trip across Canada in order to stay on her own in a remote cabin in Alaska.
"I cried and promised myself I would start a savings account to fund a trip to Alaska, where I too could live in the wilderness in total solitude. Then I went through the film step by step and analysed how it would have been different if the guy had been a girl."
Because
"Even on those documentary channels that do programmes on whole families homesteading in the wilderness the woman is always Mountain Man’s wife, never, ever Mountain Woman, just an annexe of the Mountain Man along with his beard, pipe and gun."
She decides that she will use a video camera to capture events and interviews with people she meets and to create a documentary for which she has great plans on her return. The way the documentary and her feelings about it develop are fascinating elements of the story: the documentary serves as a way of filtering experiences to decide what or how things matter.
For a while, I was a bit worried that the premise of the book seemed to be “man has subjugated woman and man has subjugated nature, therefore women and nature should have an affinity”. I wasn’t sure about quotes like:
"Cetaceans are women’s allies in the war against patriarchy because patriarchy holds the cetaceans down with us. Orcas travel in matriarchal pods. The root of the word dolphin, delphus, means womb."
But, as the story and the philosophy develop, they become more and more compelling and coherent. I am not saying I am in 100% agreement and am converted to Erin’s views of women’s place in the world and the right way to live, but her thoughts are well put together and make for an engrossing, thought-provoking read.
The book is the story of her journey and the time she spends alone in Alaska. The journey to Alaska includes a number of incidents that confirm Erin’s view that it is a man’s world (mainly unwanted sexual attention).
Mixed in with the events, Erin takes time to record her thoughts about a wide variety of topics, all of which she connects together. So, we get a travel documentary filled with feminism, biography and then also thoughts about things such as the Voyager space missions, the lunar landings, time capsules, the Golden Records, Rachel Carson, the Unabomber, Jack Kerouac and many others. Gradually, all of these different topics converge and connect and the final 20% of the book becomes Erin’s philosophy for life which is largely based on the Inuit philosophy of metempsychosis:
"Metempsychosis. That is what the Ancient Greeks called the transmigration of souls, similar to what the Inuit believe in. E=mc2 is the famous equation by Einstein and what it means is that the amount of energy in a particle is equal to its mass times the speed of light squared, and what this means is that the Inuits are right again. It means that energy and mass or matter are interchangeable."
This combination of story and contemplation gives the book the feel of a documentary rather than a work of fiction (and clearly not everything in it is fiction). Andrews' writing is vivid and observant: I was left feeling that someone somewhere must have lived all of this given the detail as it’s hard to imagine someone thinking of all that without experiencing it.
"We walked inland through the mountains against the meltwater of the glacier as it found its way to the sea. It was urgent, dense and grey; panicked like a jar of paintbrush water knocked onto a meticulous landscape."
Alone in Alaska, Erin’s thoughts get more and more extravagant and include dream sequences. It is this that helps her pull it all together and leads us to the final sections of the book which focus more on philosophy and how to live life.
You don’t have to agree with everything Andrews gives Erin to say and think, but, even if you don’t, there is plenty of food for thought in what Erin discusses. The story is fairly straightforward, but is well written. The combination of story and contemplation makes this an absorbing book.
To be published by Serpent’s Tail, I received a free review copy from the publisher in exchange for my honest unedited feedback.
October 14, 2018
Give this book to that man in your life who won't shut up about Into The Wild.
April 2, 2018
I initially hesitated between four and five stars for this novel, as I wondered whether a major part of its appeal wasn’t that I found the narrator especially sympathetic and relatable. I too have often fantasised about retreat to a cabin in the wilderness with a pile of books to think big thoughts in peace and quiet. Then I wondered why the hell that wouldn’t be a legitimate reason for enjoying a book. ‘The Word for Woman is Wilderness’ is the tale of nineteen year old Erin, who wants to follow in the footsteps of Mountain Men and claim some share of wilderness wandering for women. She plans to make a documentary about her adventure and sections of it periodically enter the narrative. As her journey progresses, she comes to question the need for the documentary and the writings of previous Mountain Men. I found all this very involving and satisfying to read. I am very much an armchair traveller, so love it when fiction takes me somewhere beautiful and wild with such a thoughtful perspective. Erin reflects on questions of feminism, colonialism, and environmentalism, as well as the simple joy of climbing something to get a great view. I particularly appreciated this comment on free market economics:
There is also an excellent deadpan humour to the narrative, for example this aside on Bear Grylls:
At heart, this novel is a critical deconstruction of the hyper-masculine mythologies of wilderness survival and a refreshingly female adventure story.
The balance between the intellectual and visceral is well judged throughout. Needless chapter titles aside, I enjoyed everything about it.
Adam Smith saw the wilderness as if it were made of bricks of gold and timber, to be utilised to create wealth, and he saw the creation of wealth as a moral agenda and he reduced complexity to simple constituents as though the illusion of things could be stripped away to reveal their basic and authentic essences. But what he was doing was taking paper and cutting it to shape, saying “Look what shape I found when I trimmed the excess, a chair!”, when what he really did was to cut the paper to the shape of a chair.
There is also an excellent deadpan humour to the narrative, for example this aside on Bear Grylls:
I have seen Bear Grylls killing and gutting many large animals and it always seems to unnecessary and superfluous. I mean, Bear Grylls obviously eats bears, that is where he gets his name from, right? He eats bears because it is essential to his identity as a born survivor. If he did not eat bears he would not have a job.
At heart, this novel is a critical deconstruction of the hyper-masculine mythologies of wilderness survival and a refreshingly female adventure story.
This is what the Mountain Man was born from. A healthy white man’s ideal. What Ted Kaczynski does not acknowledge or maybe realise is that he is his own worst enemy; it is this rampant freedom to pursue which propagates the Machine. It is as though Ayn Rand wrote both their bibles.
The balance between the intellectual and visceral is well judged throughout. Needless chapter titles aside, I enjoyed everything about it.
January 30, 2020
This is a difficult one to review and I'm still not entirely sure how to classify this book. From the description, I expected a tale of self discovery and account of a woman's experiences in a wilderness area. Instead, I got a book that was a strange mix of genres that frankly did not work well for me. Part of it read like a textbook full of facts - or as interpreted by the author - which were often quite dry and interrupted the flow of the story (as it was). Other paragraphs were long winded musings about the role of women in society, and about environmental issue ranging from global warming to annihilation of all species on earth by nuclear war. There was A LOT of angst throughout. Had I read this at age 19, the same age as the protagonist in this story, I may have related a bit better to the existential crisis that made up the bulk of the story, but even though a lot of it was valid it grated in places.
Having said that, the author occasionally threw in some self-deprecating humour I found quite charming, and some of her musings prompted a lot of reflection on my part, which made this one a good book club choice. There will definitely be plenty of material up for discussion and I am sure that we will disagree on some points. My rating simply reflects enjoyment value, and I admit that at times the book felt like a chore to read (in bite sized little chunks, which is why it took me so long to finish it).
My favourite part of the story was the last quarter, where we finally got some of the wilderness experience I had been hoping for, and where the protagonist's musings - prompted by isolation - were more relatable for me. For all the time Erin claims and muses that women have as much right and capability to be adventurers as men, she does very little actual wilderness adventuring herself. I feel that the book would have held more appeal had it focused on the natural environment as a character in its own right rather than driving home some political viewpoints that felt very "preacherly" and pretentious at times. As such I feel that it missed the mark for me.
Having said that, the author occasionally threw in some self-deprecating humour I found quite charming, and some of her musings prompted a lot of reflection on my part, which made this one a good book club choice. There will definitely be plenty of material up for discussion and I am sure that we will disagree on some points. My rating simply reflects enjoyment value, and I admit that at times the book felt like a chore to read (in bite sized little chunks, which is why it took me so long to finish it).
My favourite part of the story was the last quarter, where we finally got some of the wilderness experience I had been hoping for, and where the protagonist's musings - prompted by isolation - were more relatable for me. For all the time Erin claims and muses that women have as much right and capability to be adventurers as men, she does very little actual wilderness adventuring herself. I feel that the book would have held more appeal had it focused on the natural environment as a character in its own right rather than driving home some political viewpoints that felt very "preacherly" and pretentious at times. As such I feel that it missed the mark for me.
Read
September 18, 2020This needed serious editing! A 19yr old girl goes backpacking to prove that girls can travel too....! Some of the feminists rants are quite funny, but most of it is patronising and annoying. Just because it’s the first time it’s occurred to you, doesn’t make it profound!! Maybe if I was a cocky 19yr old again I would appreciate it all more? But overall, it just made me groan. 🙄 DNF: 90 pages.
January 19, 2023
4.5*
(Disclaimer: this is not really a review... these are some random thoughts that I felt compelled to write down in order to refer to them when I want to remember details about this book)
...
Voyager 1 is a time capsule.
This is one of the contradictions of sending messages across long distances in the space-time continuum. It is the same the other way around as well: whatever our telescopes read about the surrounding Universe, these are only messages from the past. Whatever is happening in the now in the further reaches of the Universe will only become known to future generations of people on Earth (if ever) when these events will have long ended. This way the past can actually be the future. Oh well, the relativity of time.
…
Erin, the main character in this book, decides to take a journey on her own to prove to herself that the patriarchal ideas of the society we live in cannot hinder her from being an explorer of sorts just because she is a woman. As she feels out of tune with nature because of the modern way of leading our lives in the age of technological distractions and information overload, she intends to reach a place (the Alaskan wilderness) where she can have the right perspective about things while having the mental space to properly think about a few ideas.
Erin is 19 and she is passionate about conundrums related to space travel. She explores subjects as diverse as moon landings, deep time, the Gaia hypothesis, nuclear war, taxonomy, shamanism, metempsychosis, and colonialism. She reads Rachel Carson and Thoreau and has an interesting inner conversation about their ideas. She tackles environmental issues with the maturity of a 40-year-old (definitely not a 19-year-old as the author says she is), as well as many dilemmas related to the messages we leave for future generations in various time capsules and how these time capsules might be interpreted once the passage of time will have changed meanings and symbols.
She asks herself clever questions such as: if we destroy the planet and we get exterminated in the process and there is no one remaining to actually experience the loss (an observer), then is nothing really lost?
...
I would not have stumbled upon this book if I had not read Teresa's review about it (so thank you for posting your thoughts on it, Teresa!).
(Disclaimer: this is not really a review... these are some random thoughts that I felt compelled to write down in order to refer to them when I want to remember details about this book)
...
“When the Helios 2 probe launched in 1976 it was the fastest spacecraft ever built, its top speed reaching 157,000 miles per hour. Proxima Centauri is our nearest star and it is 24 trillion miles away. If Helios 2 were to head directly for Proxima Centauri at its top speed it would take 17,000 years to reach it; 17,000 years is a span equivalent to the one that separates modern-day humans from Cro Magnon cave painters. If Voyager 1 were to travel the same distance it would take it 74,000 years; 74,000 years ago early Palaeolithic people were almost killed off by a supervolcano that erupted in Indonesia and spread ash around the whole planet.”So, there is no way (yet) to communicate through deep space in real-time. How about through deep time?
“Because of the difficulty of relaying a message through both deep space and deep time, Larus thinks we also need to consider that aliens might have come to Earth billions of years ago and encoded a message into our DNA, in the genes that do not do a lot apart from sit around. He says that some decoders are looking for mathematical patterns because intelligent civilisations must understand pi and prime numbers and things as universal truths that transcend language.”But what if their symbols are not our symbols? And their systems of reference are nothing like ours? Meanings definitely change over time and sometimes it’s easy to get them wrong or plain impossible to decode them.
“Cultures see in the constellation of stars things that feature in their vernacular of images. Carl Sagan said that when the ancient Egyptians saw the Big Dipper they saw a horse carrying a man leaning back followed by a hippo with a crocodile on its back. What will people of the future see in the nuclear trefoil? It looks a little like a peace sign, or an X marking-the-spot.”
“Take something vague like the (Northern) Lights and make it into something very specific depending on your myths. We are all saying the same thing in different ways. But that is just it; a vernacular. Aliens who find our time capsules would not share any kind of vernacular with we who are under the anthropological umbrella of "Life on Earth", so Larus is wrong to be looking for pi in space. The Human Interference Task Force were wrong to try to find universal symbols.”…
“Voyager 1 is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977, as part of the Voyager program to study the outer Solar System and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere.”(Wikipedia)The 2 Voyager space probes carry gold-plated audio-video discs, in case intelligent life forms from other planets ever find the spacecraft. In addition to photos of Earth and its lifeforms, the disc contains scientific information, greetings from a few famous people (such as the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the President of the United States), a collection of works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and other musicians, as well as a medley of sounds of whales, a baby crying and waves breaking on the shore. Various indigenous music performances from around the world are also included, along with greetings in 55 languages.
Voyager 1 is a time capsule.
“A time capsule is a historic cache of goods or information, usually intended as a deliberate method of communication with future people and to help future archaeologists, anthropologists, or historians.”(Wikipedia once again)Not only has humanity tried (still tries) to communicate with future generations repeatedly (think of the Lascaux paintings), but we’ve also been trying to communicate with whatever life there might be outside Earth (Voyager 1 and 2). However, by the time these probes reach any destination that might get the audio-visual discs that each Voyager is carrying (that is if they have any way of actually reading what’s on them), we will be long gone and whatever is on them will probably be obsolete. Thus, they might not mean anything else than just a hard-to-decipher message from the past to the future and not a way of actually communicating in real-time.
This is one of the contradictions of sending messages across long distances in the space-time continuum. It is the same the other way around as well: whatever our telescopes read about the surrounding Universe, these are only messages from the past. Whatever is happening in the now in the further reaches of the Universe will only become known to future generations of people on Earth (if ever) when these events will have long ended. This way the past can actually be the future. Oh well, the relativity of time.
…
Erin, the main character in this book, decides to take a journey on her own to prove to herself that the patriarchal ideas of the society we live in cannot hinder her from being an explorer of sorts just because she is a woman. As she feels out of tune with nature because of the modern way of leading our lives in the age of technological distractions and information overload, she intends to reach a place (the Alaskan wilderness) where she can have the right perspective about things while having the mental space to properly think about a few ideas.
Erin is 19 and she is passionate about conundrums related to space travel. She explores subjects as diverse as moon landings, deep time, the Gaia hypothesis, nuclear war, taxonomy, shamanism, metempsychosis, and colonialism. She reads Rachel Carson and Thoreau and has an interesting inner conversation about their ideas. She tackles environmental issues with the maturity of a 40-year-old (definitely not a 19-year-old as the author says she is), as well as many dilemmas related to the messages we leave for future generations in various time capsules and how these time capsules might be interpreted once the passage of time will have changed meanings and symbols.
She asks herself clever questions such as: if we destroy the planet and we get exterminated in the process and there is no one remaining to actually experience the loss (an observer), then is nothing really lost?
“Nothing is lost with no one there to miss it.”Since each great extinction meant a re-interpretation of life on the planet, how are we to know we’re not making space for other species to thrive with this 6th extinction taking place now? Life seems to have a way of re-asserting itself, so our era might be just another stage in the natural course of life re-inventing itself on Earth. To put it another way, there would not be any mammals now and we might not be around if it hadn’t been for the disappearance of dinosaurs long ago. Why would the Anthropocene be any different?
...
I would not have stumbled upon this book if I had not read Teresa's review about it (so thank you for posting your thoughts on it, Teresa!).
September 16, 2023
Well fuck, now I have to write a review for this book. Tricky business. Here goes...
If you look at my reading updates for this book, you might expect a low rating. There were several things in this book I had some trouble with. These things were mostly related to the tone and incongruences with the intended (?) message of the book, but also related to the main character who is 19 years old and would love to single-handedly smash the patriarchy, has strong opinions and loves throwing her knowledge and her critical way of thinking around. That is all fine (one could say: smart choice of the writer to have a mc that is 19 years old; if the mc comes up with stuff that seems not 100% accurate/offensive in some way/not in line with character or story/*insert other incongruency here*, we can blame it on the youthful naivety of the mc), BUT. If this is the way you want to tell a story, with a 19-year old mc that pulls this shit off, at least what happens for me is that I, too, become critical, alert to things that might seem off in the bigger sense of the story. Holding on to those things as a bloodthirsty animal, ready to smash them in her face. (Wow, aggressive. Little shocked myself right now.) Even though I'm mostly on the same page as the mc! What?!
These could be small things, like facts she mentioned that seem to not be entirely correct. I did some fact-checking here and there, examples: there are four known options given to British prime ministers considering the Letters of last resort, one more than mentioned in the book, if I understand correctly the indigenous peoples of Alaska prefer to be referred to as Alaska Natives instead of some other word that is used repeatedly throughout the book, but hey: I'm not an Alaska Native either, what do I know? Also, I thought it was quite common knowledge that Thoreau didn't really spend his days all in solitude at Walden Pond living the wild life, that he was always very close to civilisation, on land owned by his friend Emerson and for example went home to let his mom do his laundry - why does our feminist mc not comment on that? And: where are her mentions of for example Anne LaBastille (to keep the relation to Thoreau) or Hallie Daggett or other "wild" women (I must say I also just found these badass women through googling, but if I can find it, so can the mc ánd the author), Nan Shepherd, or one of my personal current-day heroes: Miriam Lancewood. Besides getting somewhat annoyed by the condescending tone of the mc from time to time (and her quite aggressive form of being a feminist), I was seriously baffled by the mc's (lack of?) preparation for her wilderness adventure. Despite this being almost not present in the book, she magically managed. For example: when and how has she prepared her firewood for when it keeps on raining for days on end, how did she gain the skill to get a fire going without matches, while gaining this skill took people I know that have a lot of bushcraftskills a looooot of practice, same goes for her success in hunting and fishing. Didn't she say the wildest place she had ever been before was the place at home where she went to see the peregrines? Also, has she been dragging all the books she mentioned around the entire trip, also on the sled in Greenland? Seems very impractical, but okay; could be. And on top of that: after 5,5 weeks in a hut she concludes that she now has proved that she can live like this as well. Of course that is an amazing accomplishment, but kind of a hasty conclusion, isn't it? What about winter? Staying there throughout the seasons, providing food for herself for a year? And all the other things that would entail? I could go on. I realize this is not what the book is about and would make it unnecessarily lengthy, but I guess I would have liked some degree of credibility.
(Just one last sidenote (something more people have pointed out): what is with this Unabomber obsession?!)
Well. All these things are actually not where I want to go with my review, because unlike my not so positive tone so far: I very much loved reading this book and am incredibly happy that it exists in the world! (Still I couldn't let these things go unmentioned, because yeah, they are there.)
So, now on to the good things! I'm so much rooting for a young woman going on a big adventure in the wilderness like this, making a long low budget trip to get there, based on a strong personal goal, asking a lot of questions on the way, to just show it's possible for (young) women to do this, too. (And yes; such a privilege still to be able to do so.) The descriptions of so many situations were so spot on and recognizable; what it's like to be a young girl or woman in a (white) man's world, the kind of things you just accept and live with as a young girl or woman because you don't know better and some white man with not the purest of intentions has the power, the pain and sadness of nature being destroyed by men while inevitably being part of that destruction yourself as well, the role naming things and beings plays in (dis)connection to those things and beings, how this (might?) relate(s) to indigenous peoples, how gender does or does not play a role, etc. I certainly didn't always agree with the mc, she is a bit extreme, but all her philosophizing did bring up a lot of interesting thoughts and questions for me personally. Some of them I'd already dwelled on before reading this book (example: why do so many people from Western countries go far from home looking for "something", feel passionate about protecting nature in countries far away from home, but lack this passion for their own home country? Where are the people who stay to give voice to what happens to nature in our own country? Can we become indigenous to our own country, deeply rooted and connected in the land, with our own stories?), some of them were new. As a white woman looking for ways to reconnect myself and other people around me to our own nature it's fantastic that this book addresses so many questions, and brings up even more. Besides that, I learned and discovered lots of new things through this book, in part due to googling and fact-checking stuff.
I guess I got quite passionate about this book, seeing that I am so skeptical, started googling and fact-checking, noticed new questions pop-up. This is a good thing! This is what I hope a book does to me!
And now I haven't even said much yet about the actual story: I loved the idea behind it, loved reading it and travelling along with Erin, meeting the people she met, following her thoughts and insights as she went along, seeing the world and nature through her eyes. Loved the philosophizing and all the things "from home" that popped up. Those thoughts and encounters seemed genuine enough, very much like how I experienced my solo trips so far, highly appreciated that. The ending was
So. Four stars for this very ambitious book, even though I clearly found flaws in it. Note that I'm not the most experienced outdoorswoman, nor do I have the most general knowledge, nor a background in philosophy, nor have I thoroughly analyzed the books referred to in this book. So just to be clear: this is just my experience of the book from my limited and without doubt flawed, privileged white woman's point of view. And now: go read this book and draw your own conclusions.
- End of tricky review -
*off to read other reviews on this book from people with a different background than mine*
If you look at my reading updates for this book, you might expect a low rating. There were several things in this book I had some trouble with. These things were mostly related to the tone and incongruences with the intended (?) message of the book, but also related to the main character who is 19 years old and would love to single-handedly smash the patriarchy, has strong opinions and loves throwing her knowledge and her critical way of thinking around. That is all fine (one could say: smart choice of the writer to have a mc that is 19 years old; if the mc comes up with stuff that seems not 100% accurate/offensive in some way/not in line with character or story/*insert other incongruency here*, we can blame it on the youthful naivety of the mc), BUT. If this is the way you want to tell a story, with a 19-year old mc that pulls this shit off, at least what happens for me is that I, too, become critical, alert to things that might seem off in the bigger sense of the story. Holding on to those things as a bloodthirsty animal, ready to smash them in her face. (Wow, aggressive. Little shocked myself right now.) Even though I'm mostly on the same page as the mc! What?!
These could be small things, like facts she mentioned that seem to not be entirely correct. I did some fact-checking here and there, examples: there are four known options given to British prime ministers considering the Letters of last resort, one more than mentioned in the book, if I understand correctly the indigenous peoples of Alaska prefer to be referred to as Alaska Natives instead of some other word that is used repeatedly throughout the book, but hey: I'm not an Alaska Native either, what do I know? Also, I thought it was quite common knowledge that Thoreau didn't really spend his days all in solitude at Walden Pond living the wild life, that he was always very close to civilisation, on land owned by his friend Emerson and for example went home to let his mom do his laundry - why does our feminist mc not comment on that? And: where are her mentions of for example Anne LaBastille (to keep the relation to Thoreau) or Hallie Daggett or other "wild" women (I must say I also just found these badass women through googling, but if I can find it, so can the mc ánd the author), Nan Shepherd, or one of my personal current-day heroes: Miriam Lancewood. Besides getting somewhat annoyed by the condescending tone of the mc from time to time (and her quite aggressive form of being a feminist), I was seriously baffled by the mc's (lack of?) preparation for her wilderness adventure. Despite this being almost not present in the book, she magically managed. For example: when and how has she prepared her firewood for when it keeps on raining for days on end, how did she gain the skill to get a fire going without matches, while gaining this skill took people I know that have a lot of bushcraftskills a looooot of practice, same goes for her success in hunting and fishing. Didn't she say the wildest place she had ever been before was the place at home where she went to see the peregrines? Also, has she been dragging all the books she mentioned around the entire trip, also on the sled in Greenland? Seems very impractical, but okay; could be. And on top of that: after 5,5 weeks in a hut she concludes that she now has proved that she can live like this as well. Of course that is an amazing accomplishment, but kind of a hasty conclusion, isn't it? What about winter? Staying there throughout the seasons, providing food for herself for a year? And all the other things that would entail? I could go on. I realize this is not what the book is about and would make it unnecessarily lengthy, but I guess I would have liked some degree of credibility.
(Just one last sidenote (something more people have pointed out): what is with this Unabomber obsession?!)
Well. All these things are actually not where I want to go with my review, because unlike my not so positive tone so far: I very much loved reading this book and am incredibly happy that it exists in the world! (Still I couldn't let these things go unmentioned, because yeah, they are there.)
So, now on to the good things! I'm so much rooting for a young woman going on a big adventure in the wilderness like this, making a long low budget trip to get there, based on a strong personal goal, asking a lot of questions on the way, to just show it's possible for (young) women to do this, too. (And yes; such a privilege still to be able to do so.) The descriptions of so many situations were so spot on and recognizable; what it's like to be a young girl or woman in a (white) man's world, the kind of things you just accept and live with as a young girl or woman because you don't know better and some white man with not the purest of intentions has the power, the pain and sadness of nature being destroyed by men while inevitably being part of that destruction yourself as well, the role naming things and beings plays in (dis)connection to those things and beings, how this (might?) relate(s) to indigenous peoples, how gender does or does not play a role, etc. I certainly didn't always agree with the mc, she is a bit extreme, but all her philosophizing did bring up a lot of interesting thoughts and questions for me personally. Some of them I'd already dwelled on before reading this book (example: why do so many people from Western countries go far from home looking for "something", feel passionate about protecting nature in countries far away from home, but lack this passion for their own home country? Where are the people who stay to give voice to what happens to nature in our own country? Can we become indigenous to our own country, deeply rooted and connected in the land, with our own stories?), some of them were new. As a white woman looking for ways to reconnect myself and other people around me to our own nature it's fantastic that this book addresses so many questions, and brings up even more. Besides that, I learned and discovered lots of new things through this book, in part due to googling and fact-checking stuff.
I guess I got quite passionate about this book, seeing that I am so skeptical, started googling and fact-checking, noticed new questions pop-up. This is a good thing! This is what I hope a book does to me!
And now I haven't even said much yet about the actual story: I loved the idea behind it, loved reading it and travelling along with Erin, meeting the people she met, following her thoughts and insights as she went along, seeing the world and nature through her eyes. Loved the philosophizing and all the things "from home" that popped up. Those thoughts and encounters seemed genuine enough, very much like how I experienced my solo trips so far, highly appreciated that. The ending was
So. Four stars for this very ambitious book, even though I clearly found flaws in it. Note that I'm not the most experienced outdoorswoman, nor do I have the most general knowledge, nor a background in philosophy, nor have I thoroughly analyzed the books referred to in this book. So just to be clear: this is just my experience of the book from my limited and without doubt flawed, privileged white woman's point of view. And now: go read this book and draw your own conclusions.
- End of tricky review -
*off to read other reviews on this book from people with a different background than mine*
June 8, 2018
2,5/5
C'est le sentiment de déception qui règne après avoir refermé ce livre.
J'étais tombée par hasard sur ce roman dans une librairie indépendante de Bath en février dernier. J'avais ensuite participé à une interview et séance de dédicace de l'auteure dans cette même librairie. Ce qu'elle disait de son roman me plaisait énormément : prenez Into the wild mais transposez le à un personnage féminin. Comment cette quête d'aventures se passerait-elle pour elle ? Entre nature writing et roman féministe qui se moque de Bear Grills, mon intérêt avait été éveillé.
Et puis voilà, mes attentes n'ont pas été remplies. Le roman oscille entre beaucoup trop de choses et cela m'a perdue par moment. L'auteure s'est dispersée en abordant l'astronomie, la philosophie, le féminisme, l'écologie et le nature writing. Par moment cela ressemble plus à une thèse qu'à un journal de voyage. N'étant pas passionnée par l'astronomie par exemple, j'ai eu énormément de mal à aller au bout de certains chapitres sur ce sujet... Cependant ce qu'elle évoque tout au long du roman est intéressant (notamment les réflexions sur l'écologie, le féminisme et les conditions de vie des indiens d'Amérique, des Inuits ou des Esquimaux) mais au final cela tient plus de l'essai que du roman. Ce n'est pas ce que j'attendais ici.
C'est le sentiment de déception qui règne après avoir refermé ce livre.
J'étais tombée par hasard sur ce roman dans une librairie indépendante de Bath en février dernier. J'avais ensuite participé à une interview et séance de dédicace de l'auteure dans cette même librairie. Ce qu'elle disait de son roman me plaisait énormément : prenez Into the wild mais transposez le à un personnage féminin. Comment cette quête d'aventures se passerait-elle pour elle ? Entre nature writing et roman féministe qui se moque de Bear Grills, mon intérêt avait été éveillé.
Et puis voilà, mes attentes n'ont pas été remplies. Le roman oscille entre beaucoup trop de choses et cela m'a perdue par moment. L'auteure s'est dispersée en abordant l'astronomie, la philosophie, le féminisme, l'écologie et le nature writing. Par moment cela ressemble plus à une thèse qu'à un journal de voyage. N'étant pas passionnée par l'astronomie par exemple, j'ai eu énormément de mal à aller au bout de certains chapitres sur ce sujet... Cependant ce qu'elle évoque tout au long du roman est intéressant (notamment les réflexions sur l'écologie, le féminisme et les conditions de vie des indiens d'Amérique, des Inuits ou des Esquimaux) mais au final cela tient plus de l'essai que du roman. Ce n'est pas ce que j'attendais ici.
March 8, 2021
Algo parecido a un diario de viaje ficcional, en el que Erin se lanza desde un pueblo inglés hasta Alaska, la supuesta última tierra salvaje, para conocer eso de lo que todos aquellos Hombres de Montaña como Jack London y Thoreau hablaban: lo verdadero que esconde la naturaleza. Pero es una mujer, lo que la lleva a reflexionar constantemente sobre muchas cosas a lo largo del viaje. Rachel Carson, Thoreau, bombas nucleares, la carrera espacial, Darwin, Adam Smith, el capitalismo, las culturas indígenas como los Inuit, el lenguaje, por qué la gente escala montañas, cómo nos relacionamos con los animales y con el planeta.
“Si. Cómo dijo Sylvia Plath en su diario; ¿por qué las mujeres tienen que ser relegadas a ser custodios de las emociones, cuidadoras de niños, alimentadoras del alma, el cuerpo y el orgullo del hombre? Un deseo ardiente de mezclarse con los caminantes, los marineros y los soldados, los habitués de bares, eso tenia Sylvia Plath. Ser parte de esa escena, anónima, escuchando y tomando nota. No podemos porque somos mujeres, siempre en riesgo de de ser atacadas u violentadas. ¡Ah, poder dormir a campo traviesa! ¡Viajar al oeste! ¡Caminar libres de noche!”
Me pareció entretenido al principio, luego decayó un poco y hacia el tercio final no podía parar de leer y me encantó. Tiene tantas cosas que me gustan, aunque algo desconectadas, y quizás se torna algo repetitivo y poco pulido, pero si la intención era la de conformar algo así como un diario de viaje real, sin pretensiones literarias (una ficción de tantas, lo sé) supongo que está bien así. Si el texto se corregía demasiado podría perderse esa ilusión de realidad, que resulta efectiva solo por momentos, así que no estoy segura sobre su éxito absoluto. Sin embargo, pienso que libros así son el futuro. Feminista, indefinido, complejo, contradictorio, imperfecto.
“La relación que necesitamos con el mundo natural es femenina”.
“Si. Cómo dijo Sylvia Plath en su diario; ¿por qué las mujeres tienen que ser relegadas a ser custodios de las emociones, cuidadoras de niños, alimentadoras del alma, el cuerpo y el orgullo del hombre? Un deseo ardiente de mezclarse con los caminantes, los marineros y los soldados, los habitués de bares, eso tenia Sylvia Plath. Ser parte de esa escena, anónima, escuchando y tomando nota. No podemos porque somos mujeres, siempre en riesgo de de ser atacadas u violentadas. ¡Ah, poder dormir a campo traviesa! ¡Viajar al oeste! ¡Caminar libres de noche!”
Me pareció entretenido al principio, luego decayó un poco y hacia el tercio final no podía parar de leer y me encantó. Tiene tantas cosas que me gustan, aunque algo desconectadas, y quizás se torna algo repetitivo y poco pulido, pero si la intención era la de conformar algo así como un diario de viaje real, sin pretensiones literarias (una ficción de tantas, lo sé) supongo que está bien así. Si el texto se corregía demasiado podría perderse esa ilusión de realidad, que resulta efectiva solo por momentos, así que no estoy segura sobre su éxito absoluto. Sin embargo, pienso que libros así son el futuro. Feminista, indefinido, complejo, contradictorio, imperfecto.
“La relación que necesitamos con el mundo natural es femenina”.
June 14, 2025
It's a bit of an exaggeration to say I read this as I'm giving up 1/3 of the way in. The title was so intriguing to me and I was hoping for a tale of female tenacity in beautiful, perhaps challenging surroundings. In reality it's the rambling philosophical thoughts of a supposed 19 year old who I think would be insufferable if met in real life. I was forcing myself through the pages so I'm going to move on.
March 6, 2018
3.5 stars
The Word for Woman is Wilderness, the debut novel by Abi Andrews, introduces us to a teenage feminist explorer who ventures through the Arctic Circle, across the continent of America and on to Alaska, all in the name of woman.
19-year-old Erin leaves her home in England and embarks on a journey that challenges both herself and the male dominated world of exploration. Drawing on the experiences of Bear Grylls and Christopher McCandless, Erin writes her own feminist narrative on nature and the wilderness. In one of the most ambitious musings I have read in a long time, our protagonist tackles topics from space travel, climate change and physics to gender theory and ecological science. Her knowledge on literature and nature is vast, and her ponderings on feminist writing, technology and patriarchy prove quite interesting.
Erin is making a video documentary of her travels, logging her experiences on cargo and research ships across the Atlantic, her stints in Iceland and Greenland, her hitchhiking adventures across Canada and her eventual habitation of a cabin in Alaska’s Denali national park. There are some scenes that will amuse you and some that will worry you, particularly those that involve her hitchhiking at night (or maybe that’s the mother in me talking!). While I found Erin to be engaging, well read and witty, I felt that her intelligence and knowledge was often called into question by her use of teen-speak, swearing and, in parts, poor grammar and choice of vocabulary. Her opinions are often ageist, with Erin believing it is the adults in the world who are responsible for ruining anything good about it. At times like this, I found myself becoming irritated by her. I am a millennial myself (just about) but I found Erin’s arguments, musings and opinions to be particularly...well...millennial.
An all-encompassing, ambitious and impressive read, ultimately, with thought provoking discussions of feminism, gender, nature and the wilderness. Recommended to fans of women’s writing, feminist theory or nature writing, or anyone who would like a teenage, millennial revision of the work of Jack London.
The Word for Woman is Wilderness, the debut novel by Abi Andrews, introduces us to a teenage feminist explorer who ventures through the Arctic Circle, across the continent of America and on to Alaska, all in the name of woman.
19-year-old Erin leaves her home in England and embarks on a journey that challenges both herself and the male dominated world of exploration. Drawing on the experiences of Bear Grylls and Christopher McCandless, Erin writes her own feminist narrative on nature and the wilderness. In one of the most ambitious musings I have read in a long time, our protagonist tackles topics from space travel, climate change and physics to gender theory and ecological science. Her knowledge on literature and nature is vast, and her ponderings on feminist writing, technology and patriarchy prove quite interesting.
Erin is making a video documentary of her travels, logging her experiences on cargo and research ships across the Atlantic, her stints in Iceland and Greenland, her hitchhiking adventures across Canada and her eventual habitation of a cabin in Alaska’s Denali national park. There are some scenes that will amuse you and some that will worry you, particularly those that involve her hitchhiking at night (or maybe that’s the mother in me talking!). While I found Erin to be engaging, well read and witty, I felt that her intelligence and knowledge was often called into question by her use of teen-speak, swearing and, in parts, poor grammar and choice of vocabulary. Her opinions are often ageist, with Erin believing it is the adults in the world who are responsible for ruining anything good about it. At times like this, I found myself becoming irritated by her. I am a millennial myself (just about) but I found Erin’s arguments, musings and opinions to be particularly...well...millennial.
An all-encompassing, ambitious and impressive read, ultimately, with thought provoking discussions of feminism, gender, nature and the wilderness. Recommended to fans of women’s writing, feminist theory or nature writing, or anyone who would like a teenage, millennial revision of the work of Jack London.
February 4, 2019
Erin has been watching the likes of Bear Grylls having some wonderful adventures in some rugged and beautiful parts of the world for a few years now. Even though she is 19, she has hardly left the shores of England, but the call of the wild is too much to resist and why should all the men have the fun in the wild.
Her journey will take her from the comfortable life that she has known. Deciding not to fly and instead travel by sea and land, she heads off to Iceland, before heading across wild seas where she will see whales for the first time, across Greenland and then the vast continent of America before finding a cabin in the wilds of Denali, Alaska. Along the way she contemplates subjects as different as physics and mutually assured destruction as well as meeting some wonderful and the occasional slightly creepy person.
The isolation she has whilst living in her cabin means that she sometimes not sure what is real and what is her imagination, but she manages to survive and feed herself. The natural world flows all around her every day and occasionally spooks her, such as when she sees a bear's footprint near her cabin. It gives her time to contemplate the mostly male and occasional female writers who have sought the same isolation.
There are a lot of things that I liked about this debut; Erin has a strong voice and sense of purpose and is a teen who questions the male hierarchy and vested interests. It was refreshing to have this type of adventure told from the perspective of a modern day earth mother. I didn't think that the plot was that strong, but then this is a very focused journey to a particular place. Erin's character does come across as naïve and quite vulnerable given the place where she is staying. Another thing that I thought was really good was Andrews descriptions of the land and seascapes that Erin crosses on her journey to the cabin. They are quite something else, especially when you consider she wrote them after countless hours of watching videos and youtube videos of the places in the book. Looking forward to reading more of her work in the future.
Her journey will take her from the comfortable life that she has known. Deciding not to fly and instead travel by sea and land, she heads off to Iceland, before heading across wild seas where she will see whales for the first time, across Greenland and then the vast continent of America before finding a cabin in the wilds of Denali, Alaska. Along the way she contemplates subjects as different as physics and mutually assured destruction as well as meeting some wonderful and the occasional slightly creepy person.
The isolation she has whilst living in her cabin means that she sometimes not sure what is real and what is her imagination, but she manages to survive and feed herself. The natural world flows all around her every day and occasionally spooks her, such as when she sees a bear's footprint near her cabin. It gives her time to contemplate the mostly male and occasional female writers who have sought the same isolation.
There are a lot of things that I liked about this debut; Erin has a strong voice and sense of purpose and is a teen who questions the male hierarchy and vested interests. It was refreshing to have this type of adventure told from the perspective of a modern day earth mother. I didn't think that the plot was that strong, but then this is a very focused journey to a particular place. Erin's character does come across as naïve and quite vulnerable given the place where she is staying. Another thing that I thought was really good was Andrews descriptions of the land and seascapes that Erin crosses on her journey to the cabin. They are quite something else, especially when you consider she wrote them after countless hours of watching videos and youtube videos of the places in the book. Looking forward to reading more of her work in the future.
January 28, 2018
A big thank you to NetGalley and Serpents Tail for providing me with an e-arc of this novel, in return for an honest review.
In The Word for Woman is Wilderness, Abi Andrews succeeds in merging fictionalised travelogue and memoir with evocative nature writing and nuanced meditations on subjects as diverse as gender, imperialism and astro physics.
The Word for Woman is Wilderness follows the thoughts and adventures of Erin, a funny and insightful 19 year old woman who opts to undertake a solitary journey into the wilds of Alaska from her hometown in England. Having never travelled abroad, Erin is inspired to undertake this journey having watched a documentary about hiker and traveller Chris McCandless (whose story was adapted into the book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer) and considering how his journey may have differed if it had been undertaken by a woman. Meditating further on what she believes to be the societal archetype of 'solitary male explorer’, Erin’s goal is to directly challenge this archetype and prove that women are just as capable of completing a journey into the solitary wilderness.
The Word for Woman is Wilderness is an especially timely novel, as issues such as sexual harassment, gender identity and global warming occupy more and more of our colllective consciousness. It is a passionate, thoughtprovoking and at times poigniant novel of discovery; of unearthing and discovering our own personal identity, as well as the world we occupy and the myriad microcosms within nature.
I would highly recommend it, and look forward to reading more from Abi Andrews in the future.
The Word for Woman is Wilderness is due to be published on the 1st February 2018.
In The Word for Woman is Wilderness, Abi Andrews succeeds in merging fictionalised travelogue and memoir with evocative nature writing and nuanced meditations on subjects as diverse as gender, imperialism and astro physics.
The Word for Woman is Wilderness follows the thoughts and adventures of Erin, a funny and insightful 19 year old woman who opts to undertake a solitary journey into the wilds of Alaska from her hometown in England. Having never travelled abroad, Erin is inspired to undertake this journey having watched a documentary about hiker and traveller Chris McCandless (whose story was adapted into the book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer) and considering how his journey may have differed if it had been undertaken by a woman. Meditating further on what she believes to be the societal archetype of 'solitary male explorer’, Erin’s goal is to directly challenge this archetype and prove that women are just as capable of completing a journey into the solitary wilderness.
The Word for Woman is Wilderness is an especially timely novel, as issues such as sexual harassment, gender identity and global warming occupy more and more of our colllective consciousness. It is a passionate, thoughtprovoking and at times poigniant novel of discovery; of unearthing and discovering our own personal identity, as well as the world we occupy and the myriad microcosms within nature.
I would highly recommend it, and look forward to reading more from Abi Andrews in the future.
The Word for Woman is Wilderness is due to be published on the 1st February 2018.
March 18, 2018
I found this a hard read- quite slow going but I was determined to finish. It was a bit padded and textbook like for me- too many anecdotes and unnecessary facts to show off intellect for my liking.
January 21, 2022
“We are perpetual motion and change, but there is something that endures and it changes, but gradually enough that some of it endures. You would not be able to know yourself, at least only a little and only sometimes, without this enduring thing. It is maybe ‘I do really hope the light is always with you even if the light can’t be said to be unchanging but whatever your new light is I hope there is one and I will always hope it will be with you still’" (p. 300).
I already know that I will be thinking about this book and all of the insights it shares for a long long time
I already know that I will be thinking about this book and all of the insights it shares for a long long time
July 28, 2021
Cuando nos motivamos a viajar, pueden ser diferentes todas las circunstancias que nos invitan a ello. En este relato, en esta hermosa ficción, Erin emprende un viaje hacia la tundra de Alaska, motivada por la sensación de querer explorar un mundo desconocido para ella. Inspirada en su propia versión de la película Into the wild / Hacia lo salvaje; quiere emprender el mismo viaje de su protagonista (un hecho verídico) pero sabiendo que es completamente distinto porque ella es mujer. Así emprende desde Irlanda su camino hacia otro continente, para ir documentando y desarrollando un pensamiento que pasa por el feminismo, la ecología, socialismo, comunidades, la naturaleza salvaje y la capacidad de re encontrarnos con nosotras y nosotros mismos. Es un libro inquietante, que te va a atrapando y en cada reflexión se enquista en ti la duda de saber cuán libre te sientes y eres. Una lectura extraordinaria para pensar, asombrarse y vivenciar un viaje maravilloso a través de los ojos de Erin. Recomendada, como cualquiera de los libros de esta increíble editorial: Chai Editora.
(...) "𝘛𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘦 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳 𝘧𝘶𝘦𝘳𝘢 𝘥𝘦 𝘵𝘪, 𝘦𝘯 𝘦𝘭 𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘫𝘦. 𝘋𝘦 𝘰𝘵𝘳𝘰 𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘰, 𝘭𝘢 𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘢 𝘯𝘰 𝘱𝘶𝘦𝘥𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘳. 𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘰 𝘉𝘰𝘩𝘳 𝘥𝘪𝘫𝘰 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘰 𝘯𝘰 𝘦𝘴 𝘮á𝘴 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘶𝘯 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘤𝘰 𝘺 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘦𝘥𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘴 𝘥𝘦 𝘶𝘯 𝘰𝘣𝘫𝘦𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘵ó𝘮𝘪𝘤𝘰 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘰 𝘱𝘶𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘦𝘳 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘴 𝘦𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘪ó𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘯 𝘭𝘢 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘪ó𝘯 𝘥𝘦𝘭 𝘰𝘣𝘫𝘦𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘯 𝘦𝘭 𝘰𝘣𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘢𝘥𝘰𝘳, 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘴𝘦 𝘱𝘶𝘦𝘥𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘳 𝘥𝘦 𝘭𝘢 𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘻𝘢 𝘴𝘪𝘯 𝘩𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘳 𝘥𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘰 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘮𝘰. 𝘠 𝘧𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢 𝘵𝘢𝘮𝘣𝘪é𝘯 𝘢 𝘭𝘢 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘢." "𝘓𝘢 𝘳𝘶𝘵𝘢 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦 𝘴𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘺ó 𝘦𝘯 𝘭𝘢 𝘥é𝘤𝘢𝘥𝘢 𝘥𝘦 𝟷𝟿𝟻𝟶 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢 𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘳 𝘭𝘢𝘴 𝘤𝘪𝘶𝘥𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘴 𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘢𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘳 𝘔𝘤𝘥𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘥 𝘺 𝘊𝘗𝘙. 𝘛𝘰𝘥𝘰 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘦𝘥𝘪ó 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘭𝘢 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘢 𝘺 𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘱𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘳𝘢 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘣𝘢𝘫𝘰 𝘥𝘦 𝘮í 𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘻𝘢𝘳 𝘦𝘯 𝘮𝘪 𝘷𝘪𝘢𝘫𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘰 𝘮𝘪 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘰 𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘰 𝘥𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘭𝘥𝘰𝘴𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘴." "𝘕𝘰, 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘢 𝘦𝘯 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘥𝘰 𝘥𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘢𝘥. 𝘈𝘥𝘦𝘮á𝘴, 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘴𝘰 𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘥𝘰 𝘯𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘢 𝘦𝘳𝘢 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘰. 𝘓𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘢𝘳é 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘰 𝘭𝘢 𝘤á𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘢, 𝘺 𝘦𝘴𝘰 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘶𝘯 𝘱ú𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘰. 𝘚𝘪 𝘶𝘯𝘰 𝘭𝘰 𝘱𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘢, 𝘛𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘶 𝘮𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰 𝘴𝘰𝘣𝘳𝘦 𝘭𝘢 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘢𝘥 𝘦𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘢𝘤𝘪ó𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘯 𝘴𝘶 𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘰 𝘦𝘴 𝘶𝘯𝘢 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘰𝘫𝘢. 𝘕𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘢 𝘩𝘢𝘺 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘢𝘥, 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘰 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘰𝘴 𝘥𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘪ó𝘯. 𝘏𝘢𝘺 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘭𝘨𝘰 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢 𝘴𝘢𝘣𝘦𝘳 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘦𝘴𝘵á 𝘢𝘩í." "𝘔𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳é 𝘦𝘯 𝘭𝘢 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘢 𝘥𝘦𝘭 𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘮𝘪𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰 𝘦𝘭 𝘢𝘨𝘶𝘢 𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘰 𝘨𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘴 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘵𝘦𝘯í𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘭 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘮𝘰 𝘨𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘰 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘴 𝘥𝘦 𝘭𝘢 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘢 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘭. 𝘚𝘪 𝘭𝘢 𝘮𝘪𝘳𝘢𝘣𝘢𝘴 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩𝘰 𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘯 𝘭𝘢 𝘣𝘢𝘳𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘢 𝘦𝘯 𝘭𝘢 𝘣𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘢, 𝘦𝘭 𝘢𝘨𝘶𝘢 𝘴𝘦 𝘷𝘰𝘭𝘷í𝘢 𝘪𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭. 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘰 𝘦𝘯 𝘶𝘯 𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘥𝘦 𝘙𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘴𝘰, 𝘵𝘰𝘥𝘰𝘴 𝘭𝘰𝘴 𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘨𝘴 𝘴𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘻𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘯 𝘦𝘭 𝘢𝘨𝘶𝘢, 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘦𝘳𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘰 𝘶𝘯 𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘭𝘰 𝘺 𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘴𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘤í𝘢 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘰 𝘤𝘶𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘢𝘣𝘢 𝘶𝘯 𝘵é𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘰 𝘰 𝘤𝘢í𝘢 𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘭𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘥𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘰 𝘥𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘴 𝘢𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘢𝘥𝘰𝘴 𝘺 𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘱í𝘢 𝘦𝘭 𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘫𝘰 𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘦. 𝘊𝘢𝘥𝘢 𝘷𝘦𝘻 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘢𝘣𝘢 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘦 𝘰í𝘢 𝘶𝘯 𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘫𝘪𝘥𝘰, 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘰 𝘦𝘭 𝘳𝘶𝘪𝘥𝘰 𝘥𝘦 𝘶𝘯 𝘤𝘶𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘭𝘰 𝘤𝘶𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰 𝘴𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘫𝘢 𝘦𝘯 𝘶𝘯𝘢 𝘣𝘦𝘣𝘪𝘥𝘢 𝘵𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘢." (...)
(...) "𝘛𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘦 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳 𝘧𝘶𝘦𝘳𝘢 𝘥𝘦 𝘵𝘪, 𝘦𝘯 𝘦𝘭 𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘫𝘦. 𝘋𝘦 𝘰𝘵𝘳𝘰 𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘰, 𝘭𝘢 𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘢 𝘯𝘰 𝘱𝘶𝘦𝘥𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘳. 𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘰 𝘉𝘰𝘩𝘳 𝘥𝘪𝘫𝘰 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘰 𝘯𝘰 𝘦𝘴 𝘮á𝘴 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘶𝘯 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘤𝘰 𝘺 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘦𝘥𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘴 𝘥𝘦 𝘶𝘯 𝘰𝘣𝘫𝘦𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘵ó𝘮𝘪𝘤𝘰 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘰 𝘱𝘶𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘦𝘳 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘴 𝘦𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘪ó𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘯 𝘭𝘢 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘪ó𝘯 𝘥𝘦𝘭 𝘰𝘣𝘫𝘦𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘯 𝘦𝘭 𝘰𝘣𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘢𝘥𝘰𝘳, 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘴𝘦 𝘱𝘶𝘦𝘥𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘳 𝘥𝘦 𝘭𝘢 𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘻𝘢 𝘴𝘪𝘯 𝘩𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘳 𝘥𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘰 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘮𝘰. 𝘠 𝘧𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢 𝘵𝘢𝘮𝘣𝘪é𝘯 𝘢 𝘭𝘢 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘢." "𝘓𝘢 𝘳𝘶𝘵𝘢 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦 𝘴𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘺ó 𝘦𝘯 𝘭𝘢 𝘥é𝘤𝘢𝘥𝘢 𝘥𝘦 𝟷𝟿𝟻𝟶 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢 𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘳 𝘭𝘢𝘴 𝘤𝘪𝘶𝘥𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘴 𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘢𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘳 𝘔𝘤𝘥𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘥 𝘺 𝘊𝘗𝘙. 𝘛𝘰𝘥𝘰 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘦𝘥𝘪ó 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘭𝘢 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘢 𝘺 𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘱𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘳𝘢 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘣𝘢𝘫𝘰 𝘥𝘦 𝘮í 𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘻𝘢𝘳 𝘦𝘯 𝘮𝘪 𝘷𝘪𝘢𝘫𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘰 𝘮𝘪 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘰 𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘰 𝘥𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘭𝘥𝘰𝘴𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘴." "𝘕𝘰, 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘢 𝘦𝘯 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘥𝘰 𝘥𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘢𝘥. 𝘈𝘥𝘦𝘮á𝘴, 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘴𝘰 𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘥𝘰 𝘯𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘢 𝘦𝘳𝘢 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘰. 𝘓𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘢𝘳é 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘰 𝘭𝘢 𝘤á𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘢, 𝘺 𝘦𝘴𝘰 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘶𝘯 𝘱ú𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘰. 𝘚𝘪 𝘶𝘯𝘰 𝘭𝘰 𝘱𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘢, 𝘛𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘶 𝘮𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰 𝘴𝘰𝘣𝘳𝘦 𝘭𝘢 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘢𝘥 𝘦𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘢𝘤𝘪ó𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘯 𝘴𝘶 𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘰 𝘦𝘴 𝘶𝘯𝘢 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘰𝘫𝘢. 𝘕𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘢 𝘩𝘢𝘺 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘢𝘥, 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘰 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘰𝘴 𝘥𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘪ó𝘯. 𝘏𝘢𝘺 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘭𝘨𝘰 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢 𝘴𝘢𝘣𝘦𝘳 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘦𝘴𝘵á 𝘢𝘩í." "𝘔𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳é 𝘦𝘯 𝘭𝘢 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘢 𝘥𝘦𝘭 𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘮𝘪𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰 𝘦𝘭 𝘢𝘨𝘶𝘢 𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘰 𝘨𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘴 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘵𝘦𝘯í𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘭 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘮𝘰 𝘨𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘰 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘴 𝘥𝘦 𝘭𝘢 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘢 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘭. 𝘚𝘪 𝘭𝘢 𝘮𝘪𝘳𝘢𝘣𝘢𝘴 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩𝘰 𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘯 𝘭𝘢 𝘣𝘢𝘳𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘢 𝘦𝘯 𝘭𝘢 𝘣𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘢, 𝘦𝘭 𝘢𝘨𝘶𝘢 𝘴𝘦 𝘷𝘰𝘭𝘷í𝘢 𝘪𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭. 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘰 𝘦𝘯 𝘶𝘯 𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘥𝘦 𝘙𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘴𝘰, 𝘵𝘰𝘥𝘰𝘴 𝘭𝘰𝘴 𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘨𝘴 𝘴𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘻𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘯 𝘦𝘭 𝘢𝘨𝘶𝘢, 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘦𝘳𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘰 𝘶𝘯 𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘭𝘰 𝘺 𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘴𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘤í𝘢 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘰 𝘤𝘶𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘢𝘣𝘢 𝘶𝘯 𝘵é𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘰 𝘰 𝘤𝘢í𝘢 𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘭𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘥𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘰 𝘥𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘴 𝘢𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘢𝘥𝘰𝘴 𝘺 𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘱í𝘢 𝘦𝘭 𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘫𝘰 𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘦. 𝘊𝘢𝘥𝘢 𝘷𝘦𝘻 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘢𝘣𝘢 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘦 𝘰í𝘢 𝘶𝘯 𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘫𝘪𝘥𝘰, 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘰 𝘦𝘭 𝘳𝘶𝘪𝘥𝘰 𝘥𝘦 𝘶𝘯 𝘤𝘶𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘭𝘰 𝘤𝘶𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰 𝘴𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘫𝘢 𝘦𝘯 𝘶𝘯𝘢 𝘣𝘦𝘣𝘪𝘥𝘢 𝘵𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘢." (...)
August 18, 2019
When I first started reading this book my first thought was ‘I wish I’d written this.’ At first I really liked the main character Erin, I thought she was quite reliable as a 19-year-old girl from the Midlands and how she’s interested in things; the world, politics, nature, the environment and people.
I really enjoyed the way Abi Andrews wrote the book and how was split into different sections sometimes set out as an interview/conversations, as a video diary, letters or just a general thoughts.
One thing I loved about this book is that it felt like I was reading non-fiction. It’s easy to forget that this is a fictional account rather than the author’s experience and journey. However, the ideas and topics throughout are very real - philosophy, history feminism and cultural appropriation. E.g. women being explorers when women leaving home is seen as abandonment whereas men leaving for adventures is courageous, brave and expected.
Real figures were used to add extra context with a lot of discussion about: Ted Kaczynski, an American terrorist who abandoned his career as an academic to live a primitive lifestyle as a recluse in a remote cabin. He targeted people who were involved with modern technology as ‘it has a destabilising effect on humanity.’
Rachel Carson - a writer, ecologist and biologist.
Chris McCandless - an American hiker who later was the subject of Into The Wild, a book and now a feature film.
Jack London - American writer and social activist who wrote Call of the Wild which was mentioned a lot by the main character Erin.
(Some interesting people to research)
Throughout Erin questions the purpose of life through her own experiences, book she’s read, people she meets on her journey and things she finds (in the cabin) along the way.
It was really thought-provoking to read Erin’s inner conflicts regarding her making a documentary because to make the documentary and include footage of the wilderness completely undermines the entire point of the journey.
That then stemmed on to how our language sometimes contradicts its meaning. How can there be a word for wilderness if it is wild and largely ‘undiscovered’.
I learned a loads whilst reading, like that New Zealand have given the legal status of personhood to a National Park and a river so they have all the rights of a person and cannot be exploited and are not owned.
Any book with a map is a winner from me and it was nice to have illustrations and photographs throughout, adding to the ‘non fiction feel’.
🗺 🌲 🏔 🐻 👩🏻
walshdanielle.wordpress.com
I really enjoyed the way Abi Andrews wrote the book and how was split into different sections sometimes set out as an interview/conversations, as a video diary, letters or just a general thoughts.
One thing I loved about this book is that it felt like I was reading non-fiction. It’s easy to forget that this is a fictional account rather than the author’s experience and journey. However, the ideas and topics throughout are very real - philosophy, history feminism and cultural appropriation. E.g. women being explorers when women leaving home is seen as abandonment whereas men leaving for adventures is courageous, brave and expected.
Real figures were used to add extra context with a lot of discussion about: Ted Kaczynski, an American terrorist who abandoned his career as an academic to live a primitive lifestyle as a recluse in a remote cabin. He targeted people who were involved with modern technology as ‘it has a destabilising effect on humanity.’
Rachel Carson - a writer, ecologist and biologist.
Chris McCandless - an American hiker who later was the subject of Into The Wild, a book and now a feature film.
Jack London - American writer and social activist who wrote Call of the Wild which was mentioned a lot by the main character Erin.
(Some interesting people to research)
Throughout Erin questions the purpose of life through her own experiences, book she’s read, people she meets on her journey and things she finds (in the cabin) along the way.
It was really thought-provoking to read Erin’s inner conflicts regarding her making a documentary because to make the documentary and include footage of the wilderness completely undermines the entire point of the journey.
That then stemmed on to how our language sometimes contradicts its meaning. How can there be a word for wilderness if it is wild and largely ‘undiscovered’.
I learned a loads whilst reading, like that New Zealand have given the legal status of personhood to a National Park and a river so they have all the rights of a person and cannot be exploited and are not owned.
Any book with a map is a winner from me and it was nice to have illustrations and photographs throughout, adding to the ‘non fiction feel’.
🗺 🌲 🏔 🐻 👩🏻
walshdanielle.wordpress.com
May 7, 2018
5/5
Okay, I might be a little biased with this one as :
- This book is about 19-year-old Erin who, after watching (and I guess, reading ?) Into the Wild decides to make her very own journey to Alaska. I have written my master's thesis all about Krakauer's novel last year so it speaks to me.
- But, the twist is to ask whether McCandless' trip would have been different if he had been a woman. Erin leaves with the aim to film a documentary of her trip, interviewing people on their culture and on their opinion on the relationship between WOman and Wilderness.
- All the scientific and feminist talks !!!! It can probably be a little boring for those who a) do not like feminist rants, b) do not like ecology and do not believe in global-warming and c) do not understand shit about space and scientific theories about animals and nature and atoms.
I liked how Andrews tried to set some space apart for other cultures to be heard like native americans and Inuits. I also agreed with most of the things she said such as how for a very long time there wasn't a name for native americans other than "indians" (it is still kind of true for French as we say "amérindiens") and that shows a lot of how we treat/view these people, that words matter. This is one example out of the MANY MANY ones which are running through this book. It is so rich, so interesting, so clever, so empowering, so lovely as well. I thought it was going to be like Wild by Cheryl Strayed and it really wasn't (which I loved too by the way). It is a lot like McCandless's journey as told by Krakauer but also like Jack London or maybe Pete Fromm's books.
I had a hard time remembering that this was all fictional and that Erin did not exist, so I think this speaks for itself.
If I had to say two things I did not like as much it would be:
- Maybe she sometimes tried to hard to make it sound like Jon Krakauer or John Muir's books and did not make it enough of her own.
- I did not particularly liked the bit where she supposed to "film" herself, I didn't think this whole documentary thing was really interesting to be honest.
I might re-read this one in the future and I'll surely talk about it to anyone who is interested in feminism and/or ecology !
Okay, I might be a little biased with this one as :
- This book is about 19-year-old Erin who, after watching (and I guess, reading ?) Into the Wild decides to make her very own journey to Alaska. I have written my master's thesis all about Krakauer's novel last year so it speaks to me.
- But, the twist is to ask whether McCandless' trip would have been different if he had been a woman. Erin leaves with the aim to film a documentary of her trip, interviewing people on their culture and on their opinion on the relationship between WOman and Wilderness.
- All the scientific and feminist talks !!!! It can probably be a little boring for those who a) do not like feminist rants, b) do not like ecology and do not believe in global-warming and c) do not understand shit about space and scientific theories about animals and nature and atoms.
I liked how Andrews tried to set some space apart for other cultures to be heard like native americans and Inuits. I also agreed with most of the things she said such as how for a very long time there wasn't a name for native americans other than "indians" (it is still kind of true for French as we say "amérindiens") and that shows a lot of how we treat/view these people, that words matter. This is one example out of the MANY MANY ones which are running through this book. It is so rich, so interesting, so clever, so empowering, so lovely as well. I thought it was going to be like Wild by Cheryl Strayed and it really wasn't (which I loved too by the way). It is a lot like McCandless's journey as told by Krakauer but also like Jack London or maybe Pete Fromm's books.
I had a hard time remembering that this was all fictional and that Erin did not exist, so I think this speaks for itself.
If I had to say two things I did not like as much it would be:
- Maybe she sometimes tried to hard to make it sound like Jon Krakauer or John Muir's books and did not make it enough of her own.
- I did not particularly liked the bit where she supposed to "film" herself, I didn't think this whole documentary thing was really interesting to be honest.
I might re-read this one in the future and I'll surely talk about it to anyone who is interested in feminism and/or ecology !
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