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Surrender
Blending personal memoir with reportage, SURRENDER is a narrative nonfiction work on the changing landscape of the West and the scavenger, rewilder and ecosexual communities, inspired by a two-year stay in Montana. In the style of Barry Lopez and Annie Dillard, Joanna Pocock, the winner of the 2018 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize, explores the changing landscape of the West in an era of increasing climatic disruption, rising sea levels, animal extinctions, melting glaciers and catastrophic wild fires.
360 pages, Paperback
First published May 15, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
June 25, 2019
I heard there was going to be an Ecosex Convergence in the woods of Washington state in June – our first summer in London since our return. It was to “bring together wild souls who express a love for Life by stewarding and merging with the Earth through the whole of their bodies, minds, and spirits”. The gathering was to be called “Surrender” and was described as “a cauldron for deep connection, healing, and collective creation where life is sacred, our bodies are sovereign, and the Earth is our beloved partner with whom we collaborate to create abundance”.
Frequently while reading Surrender: The Call of the American West, I would stop and wonder what author Joanna Pocock's overall thesis was meant to be – the chapters detail some of her experiences while living in Missoula, Montana over a course of two years, but to me, I felt the absence of a real connective thread. It wasn't until the afterword – where Pocock notes which of these collected essays were previously published elsewhere – that I even realised these were supposed to be thought of as essays. I begin with that fact because that late knowledge helped to elevate the whole for me (and I hope the knowledge is just as helpful for future readers). Partly memoir, partly investigate journalism, partly a philosophical deep-dive into how one can live an authentic life in false times, I was ultimately won over by Pocock's curiosity, self-reflection, and candor. Four stars is a rounding up from three-and-a-halfish. (Note: I read an ARC and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)
The West is one of the last places on earth where thoughts around wilderness as inoculation against the darker forces of modernity are still in the ether, in the discourse, in people's decisions to live off the grid, on the land, in the hoop. For the first time in my life, I was beginning to understand the West and its promise, real and imagined, of freedom, escape, transcendence, and its promise to turn us from predator to prey.
Long an adventurer, London-based writer Joanna Pocock was avid to relocate to the American West with her husband (a filmmaker who was set to research a project there) and their six-year-old daughter; choosing Missoula more or less at random based on vague notions of its writing scene; a place where Pocock might finish the novel she was working on. The city itself turned out to be disappointing – negatively reminding Pocock of her suburban Ottawa childhood – but she was able to use her new home as a base for investigating “the West” itself. Despite stating that she went out of curiosity alone, the essays in which Pocock describes attending a leghold trap certification course and a tour of a proposed copper mine site read like gotcha journalism. And despite the events happening during her stay in Missoula, the parts about family matters back in Ottawa felt out of place in the overall narrative. But the sections in which Pocock meets with back-to-earthers – rewilders, nomads, planters and scavengers – are warm and respectful; the obvious connection that Pocock felt with these people shine through these essays and make them the most interesting and informative to read. (In particular, I was fascinated to learn about Finisia Medrano: a rewilder who lived “on the hoop”; making a nomadic annual circle throughout the American West, foraging for food and replanting the native species that had been lost to human expansion; a “crime” for which Finisia has done jail time.) Ultimately, these travelogue-like essays expose the internal journey that Pocock was traversing:
Sometimes all we can do is surrender, to our circumstances, our desires and fears, our need for escape, our failures, our pain, our inner wildness, our domestication and in turn surrender to whatever essence is at the centre of our very beings. I yearn for the land of the West. I want to obey Finisia's words, to “kneel down and dig”. My conversations there are not finished. There is so much more to say. And I have much more listening to do.
It was very interesting to me that Pocock outlines the ways in which the doomsday-prepper/minuteman movements are akin to the back-to-earthers (with their mutual disdain of laws and government, distrust of modern medicine, preferring to hunt their own meat, homeschooling; self-reliance above all), and while a common theme among all of them is an animosity towards people at large (the Three Percenters might have the AK-47s but Finisia implies that she could murder in defence of the Earth), it was also very interesting that the “Ecosexual” movement (from the first quote) is all about love: love for the Earth, as the ultimate expression of one's sexuality. Pocock acknowledges that as attracted as she is to these rewilding movements, she's also attached to civilisation (even acknowledging the disconnect between deeply caring for the planet and its most vulnerable inhabitants while using a computer whose various metallic components were likely mined by child labourers in developing countries). Examining this kind of internal hypocrisy seems to be Pocock's real thesis, and with the many included quotes from both a lifetime of reading and the interviews that she has conducted over the years, it seems like this has been the central question of her entire life. With all of its information about the ecodisasters looming in the future of humanity, Surrender sure makes it seem that the majority of us are fiddling as Rome burns; Pocock makes the case that we can acknowledge the flames while the tune plays on.
August 6, 2020
This one was a real pleasure to read.
"Surrender" is full of images that stay with you long after you've turned the page, in this case, quite literally. Pocock uses the Sebaldian tactic of including photos (there are dozens of them here) along with her text. I'm not convinced that the photos really added anything to the book — other than a good deal more pages — as the text itself is visual enough in and of itself.
Pocock is an Irish-Canadian living in London who, along with her husband and their young daughter, embarks on a two-year odyssey to Missoula, Montana. During this time she connects with the land, examines varying sides of contentious American issues — like drilling, trapping, mining, and the like — and, you could say, "finds" herself.
Part of the reason I was so intrigued to read this is that I, too, have an innate fascination with the American West. I've never visited Montana (something I hope to correct in due time) but the American West more generally has always held a sort of mystique for me. The spaces are wider, the buildings fewer, the landscape more awe-inspiring, the nature less forgiving.
The other theme in this book is Pocock's "mid-life crisis," for lack of better words. Pocock isn't satisfied with the way her life is going, and London — a city she's lived in since her twenties that she has always looked forward to coming back to — now feels dead to her, or rather, i>unnatural.
This "crisis," this search for something more, serves as the catalyst for the entire book, as Pocock discovers the American West she inhabits the life that maybe she could have had, were it not for her family and the decisions she's made.
The one characteristic that really stuck out to me when reading this was the honesty with which Pocock writes. Whether it's her deliberating about giving it all up, family included, to stay in the American West during a solo trip she takes later on in the book, or her views on the MeToo movement, she writes without filtering herself. That's a rare and invaluable quality in any year, but particularly in 2020, when every spoken — not to mention, i>written — word feels calculated and designed to garner minimal backlash.
Pocock feels like a friend, and you never feel like she's not telling you exactly what she thinks. Even when she's spending time with people she vehemently disagrees with, and she does a lot of that here, Pocock doesn't seem to shy away from expressing her feelings.
As alluring as the American West is, Pocock's fear of living in the US echoes my own.
After having spent eight years living abroad and only recently returning to the States, my own anxiety has risen as I contemplate the cost of things, as I rage over the division that keeps common sense (in any other place) legislation protecting the air, the water, the land, from making it into law, as I stress over the possibility that some accident could befall me and I'd be stuck with a medical bill I couldn't possibly afford.
In these pandemic days, the divisions in the country seem to have risen to a fever pitch, and this plays into my American-anxiety too. The curiosity, the fascination that conversations seem to hold elsewhere, all too often seem to devolve into suspicion and disappointment here.
Not always, of course. Coming "home," if you can call it that, is always a mixed bag, but I often feel like Pocock who, in these pages, doesn't ever feel assured of having a home in the first place. Having grown up in Ontario and moved to the UK in her twenties, she suffers from a similar kind of displacement, has that same chasm inside her that only the certainty of home, of belonging, can fill.
Pocock expresses her delight when she has rewarding experiences and encounters with others, her disappointment when such experiences fail to meet her expectations.
In the final third of the book, Pocock attends an "Ecosex convergence" in Washington State. While there, she is forced to take part in a two-hour lecture on the importance of consent in sexual encounters. Having to constantly ask out loud whether what you and your partner are doing is "OK," having to negotiate boundaries beforehand, or stop any sexual activity and go back and renegotiate them — isn't it all a bit, i>anticlimactic, Pocock wonders?
I'm sure Pocock lost a few readers there, but she again justified my admiration for her writing.
"Surrender" is a book about being open and willing to engage in new experiences. It's about examining our doubts, our fears, and asking "why?"
Maybe it's not about a woman finding herself at all, but rather about a woman being open and willing to admit that maybe she never will, but that won't stop her from looking.
"Surrender" is full of images that stay with you long after you've turned the page, in this case, quite literally. Pocock uses the Sebaldian tactic of including photos (there are dozens of them here) along with her text. I'm not convinced that the photos really added anything to the book — other than a good deal more pages — as the text itself is visual enough in and of itself.
Pocock is an Irish-Canadian living in London who, along with her husband and their young daughter, embarks on a two-year odyssey to Missoula, Montana. During this time she connects with the land, examines varying sides of contentious American issues — like drilling, trapping, mining, and the like — and, you could say, "finds" herself.
Part of the reason I was so intrigued to read this is that I, too, have an innate fascination with the American West. I've never visited Montana (something I hope to correct in due time) but the American West more generally has always held a sort of mystique for me. The spaces are wider, the buildings fewer, the landscape more awe-inspiring, the nature less forgiving.
The other theme in this book is Pocock's "mid-life crisis," for lack of better words. Pocock isn't satisfied with the way her life is going, and London — a city she's lived in since her twenties that she has always looked forward to coming back to — now feels dead to her, or rather, i>unnatural.
This "crisis," this search for something more, serves as the catalyst for the entire book, as Pocock discovers the American West she inhabits the life that maybe she could have had, were it not for her family and the decisions she's made.
The one characteristic that really stuck out to me when reading this was the honesty with which Pocock writes. Whether it's her deliberating about giving it all up, family included, to stay in the American West during a solo trip she takes later on in the book, or her views on the MeToo movement, she writes without filtering herself. That's a rare and invaluable quality in any year, but particularly in 2020, when every spoken — not to mention, i>written — word feels calculated and designed to garner minimal backlash.
Pocock feels like a friend, and you never feel like she's not telling you exactly what she thinks. Even when she's spending time with people she vehemently disagrees with, and she does a lot of that here, Pocock doesn't seem to shy away from expressing her feelings.
As alluring as the American West is, Pocock's fear of living in the US echoes my own.
After having spent eight years living abroad and only recently returning to the States, my own anxiety has risen as I contemplate the cost of things, as I rage over the division that keeps common sense (in any other place) legislation protecting the air, the water, the land, from making it into law, as I stress over the possibility that some accident could befall me and I'd be stuck with a medical bill I couldn't possibly afford.
In these pandemic days, the divisions in the country seem to have risen to a fever pitch, and this plays into my American-anxiety too. The curiosity, the fascination that conversations seem to hold elsewhere, all too often seem to devolve into suspicion and disappointment here.
Not always, of course. Coming "home," if you can call it that, is always a mixed bag, but I often feel like Pocock who, in these pages, doesn't ever feel assured of having a home in the first place. Having grown up in Ontario and moved to the UK in her twenties, she suffers from a similar kind of displacement, has that same chasm inside her that only the certainty of home, of belonging, can fill.
Pocock expresses her delight when she has rewarding experiences and encounters with others, her disappointment when such experiences fail to meet her expectations.
In the final third of the book, Pocock attends an "Ecosex convergence" in Washington State. While there, she is forced to take part in a two-hour lecture on the importance of consent in sexual encounters. Having to constantly ask out loud whether what you and your partner are doing is "OK," having to negotiate boundaries beforehand, or stop any sexual activity and go back and renegotiate them — isn't it all a bit, i>anticlimactic, Pocock wonders?
I'm sure Pocock lost a few readers there, but she again justified my admiration for her writing.
"Surrender" is a book about being open and willing to engage in new experiences. It's about examining our doubts, our fears, and asking "why?"
Maybe it's not about a woman finding herself at all, but rather about a woman being open and willing to admit that maybe she never will, but that won't stop her from looking.
December 11, 2019
In 2018 Irish-Canadian writer Joanna Pocock won the Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize for the work-in-progress that became Surrender. This came to me as an unsolicited review copy and hung around on my shelves for over six months before I finally picked it up. I wasn’t even sure I would read it, but I’m glad I finally decided to. Prompted by two years living in Missoula, Montana and the disorientation felt upon a return to London, this memoir-in-essays varies in scale from the big skies of the American West to the smallness of one human life and the experience of loss and change.
It was a time of transition for Pocock: then in her late forties, she had started menopause and recently been through the final illnesses and deaths of her parents, but was also the mother of a fairly young daughter. She explores personal endings and contradictions as a kind of microcosm of the paradoxes of the Western USA. It’s a place of fierce independence and conservatism, but also almost mystical back-to-the-land sentiment. She attends a wolf-trapping course, observes a native buffalo hunt, meets a transsexual rewilding activist, attends an ecosexuality conference, and goes on a foraging trip. All are in the attempt to reassess our connection with nature and ask what part humans can play in a diminished planet. For an outsider like Pocock – a foreigner and vegetarian who doesn’t drive – so much of the lifestyle is bewildering, but even when she can’t understand she can document with clear eyes.
This is an elegantly introspective work that should engage anyone interested in women’s life writing and the environmental crisis. I worry, though, that the title and bare-bones packaging won’t attract the right readers. A more evocative title (Pocock originally considered “Reclamation”), a more prominent subtitle, and a cover featuring Montana’s big sky (there are dozens of black-and-white photographs interspersed in the text) would go a long way toward bringing it wider attention.
Favorite passages:
“The American West is a crucible for so many of the issues coming at us from our news feeds. Living here you are constantly confronted with land, wilderness, wild fires, drought, mountains and rivers. In this landscape, you are made aware that you are both incredibly small and yet indelibly part of the interconnected web of life.”
“I felt surrounded by people who dreamt of having the freedom of those nineteenth-century mountain men to kill whatever they wanted with impunity.”
“I was trying to work out how to feel the intense grief at the dying planet and the rapid extinction of species while simultaneously carrying on with a productive life. I had been in mourning for decades. My urge to inhabit and enjoy life was at odds with the story running on a loop in the background: the story that is affecting us all, the one where the planet dies at the end.”
It was a time of transition for Pocock: then in her late forties, she had started menopause and recently been through the final illnesses and deaths of her parents, but was also the mother of a fairly young daughter. She explores personal endings and contradictions as a kind of microcosm of the paradoxes of the Western USA. It’s a place of fierce independence and conservatism, but also almost mystical back-to-the-land sentiment. She attends a wolf-trapping course, observes a native buffalo hunt, meets a transsexual rewilding activist, attends an ecosexuality conference, and goes on a foraging trip. All are in the attempt to reassess our connection with nature and ask what part humans can play in a diminished planet. For an outsider like Pocock – a foreigner and vegetarian who doesn’t drive – so much of the lifestyle is bewildering, but even when she can’t understand she can document with clear eyes.
This is an elegantly introspective work that should engage anyone interested in women’s life writing and the environmental crisis. I worry, though, that the title and bare-bones packaging won’t attract the right readers. A more evocative title (Pocock originally considered “Reclamation”), a more prominent subtitle, and a cover featuring Montana’s big sky (there are dozens of black-and-white photographs interspersed in the text) would go a long way toward bringing it wider attention.
Favorite passages:
“The American West is a crucible for so many of the issues coming at us from our news feeds. Living here you are constantly confronted with land, wilderness, wild fires, drought, mountains and rivers. In this landscape, you are made aware that you are both incredibly small and yet indelibly part of the interconnected web of life.”
“I felt surrounded by people who dreamt of having the freedom of those nineteenth-century mountain men to kill whatever they wanted with impunity.”
“I was trying to work out how to feel the intense grief at the dying planet and the rapid extinction of species while simultaneously carrying on with a productive life. I had been in mourning for decades. My urge to inhabit and enjoy life was at odds with the story running on a loop in the background: the story that is affecting us all, the one where the planet dies at the end.”
December 22, 2019
I watched the stars above me. I never wanted to leave. I was suspended here. We all were. This was the discovery I made: we are all living liminal lives. Denying this is part of the madness. The only real thing is the liminality of life, the moments when we can inhabit fluidity, accept the threshold. We are just passing through. Why should we expect anything other than being between places and times and state of being? I realized as I was approaching my fifty-third birthday that I probably would never join the hoop. I may not ever live totally wild, despite the craving to do so. But I did know that these two ‘wests’ [the American West and Dartmoor] had changed me. I would be seeking to give myself over to wildness however I could.
Pocock’s exploration of wilderness, the American West, sexuality, gender, menopause etc. – presented together with several photographs of nature – resonated in unexpected ways. Considering the amount of underlining in my copy, I don’t hesitate to give it 5 stars. Her approach to nature writing through encounters with several women and transgender people – Finisia Medrano, Katie Russell, Lynx Vilden – works just perfectly. I would assume an interest in environmental narratives is needed to enjoy Surrender, otherwise a 300-page examination of our role on Earth (including a long depiction of a visit to an ecosexual convention) might be too much.
Pocock’s exploration of wilderness, the American West, sexuality, gender, menopause etc. – presented together with several photographs of nature – resonated in unexpected ways. Considering the amount of underlining in my copy, I don’t hesitate to give it 5 stars. Her approach to nature writing through encounters with several women and transgender people – Finisia Medrano, Katie Russell, Lynx Vilden – works just perfectly. I would assume an interest in environmental narratives is needed to enjoy Surrender, otherwise a 300-page examination of our role on Earth (including a long depiction of a visit to an ecosexual convention) might be too much.
February 6, 2020
It is said that as we approach our fifties that this can be one of the most stressful parts of our lives. Our bodies are changing, the pressures of looking after sick parents can take their toll and often the demands of children and teenagers can be too much. Joanna Pocock was in this position, menopause had begun and she had recently lost her parents and she needed something to take her away from the humdrum life in London.
She has a fascination with radical environmental movements and was seeking a reconnection to nature. An opportunity presented itself and with her husband and daughter, she left London and headed to the America West and the state of Montana. Whilst there she finds those that have taken a back seat from society and who are trying in their own way to reconnect with the natural world. She attends an Ecosex conference, meets Native Americans as they perfect the skills their ancestors once had, talks with hunters who care little about the landscapes they are walking through and listens to others who are seeking to rewild those same landscapes.
I have witnessed that western light gathers in intensity and sharpness as it crosses the landscape towards me. The vastness, the inscrutability of so much space performs an act of initiation. It does things to you that cannot be undone.
She approached these people and places with very much an open mind and is prepared to listen to all that she is told. Using this it means that she can form her own opinion of what is going on and more importantly to see if there is another way that she can interact with the world around her. I thought it was really nicely written, she is non-judgemental about all of the people that she comes across, open to different perspectives and most of all curious. Most of all this is about the way that she is testing things out to see where her place in the world will be for the future.
She has a fascination with radical environmental movements and was seeking a reconnection to nature. An opportunity presented itself and with her husband and daughter, she left London and headed to the America West and the state of Montana. Whilst there she finds those that have taken a back seat from society and who are trying in their own way to reconnect with the natural world. She attends an Ecosex conference, meets Native Americans as they perfect the skills their ancestors once had, talks with hunters who care little about the landscapes they are walking through and listens to others who are seeking to rewild those same landscapes.
I have witnessed that western light gathers in intensity and sharpness as it crosses the landscape towards me. The vastness, the inscrutability of so much space performs an act of initiation. It does things to you that cannot be undone.
She approached these people and places with very much an open mind and is prepared to listen to all that she is told. Using this it means that she can form her own opinion of what is going on and more importantly to see if there is another way that she can interact with the world around her. I thought it was really nicely written, she is non-judgemental about all of the people that she comes across, open to different perspectives and most of all curious. Most of all this is about the way that she is testing things out to see where her place in the world will be for the future.
January 16, 2025
Okay FINE I'll go touch some grass
April 19, 2020
I received an arc from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
“The West is one of the last places on Earth where thoughts around wilderness as inoculation against the darker forces of modernity are still in the ether, in the discourse, in people’s decisions to live off the grid, on the land, in the hoop. For the first time in my life, I was beginning to understand the West and its promise, real and imagined, of freedom, escape, transcendence, and its promise to turn us from predator to prey.”
I received a copy of Surrender through Netgalley and apparently missed in the description that the author is Canadian and has been residing in London for much of her adult life. It was clear to me in the first few chapters that this was probably not the book for me. I have always lived in rural areas, with the most populated place I’ve called home being my college town of maybe 55,000 people. I also found reading commentary on American landscapes and wild spaces and Western culture from someone who is not American and spent a meager two years living in a single American city to be a bit off putting (why not focus on the rural landscapes of and similarly problematic and violent colonization of Canada?). Much of my identity comes from the wide open spaces of the United States that you would be hard pressed to find elsewhere in the world. Am I being defensive? Yes. Is it justified? I feel as though it could be.
Most of the cultural experiences Pocock seeks out during her two years in Montana involve fringe groups. While these portraits were engaging, the majority of them don’t represent the culture generally found in the rural American West. I suppose maybe in that they speak to the nature of the isolated pockets of the West being refuges and safe havens for nonconformists and extremists. However, the bulk of the rural West is quiet people leading unpretentious lives in a way they hope will be fulfilling and will nurture their families. While Pocock is relatively upfront about choosing only to explore these radical lifestyles, I think it is irresponsible of her to use these as a foil for the majority of rural culture in the American West.
Additionally, her ignorance regarding the management of livestock and wildlife (a concept she refers to as “ridiculous”) is apparent, as she dismisses brucellosis as simply a vehicle that ranchers use to prevent further proliferation of wild buffalo, despite it being a highly infectious reproductive disease that can be transmitted to humans, and scoffs at the impact of wild animals on the land. She dismisses big game hunting as something hunters do exclusively for “fun” and so they can share photos of dead animals on the internet, ignorant to the fact that the majority of hunters feel a deep respect for and kinship to the animals that feed their families, a reverential experience of hunting that she reserves exclusively for Native American hunters. Pocock is someone who chooses not to eat meat and mentions being “disturbed” by dead animals, so I’m also not sure that her reflections on the sacredness of hunting should be the ones we’re turning to for wisdom on the matter anyway.
Despite numerous issues I perceived in regards to Pocock’s perspective and how she has chosen to represent what remains of the wild spaces of the West, her voice is rich and generous. I appreciated her discussions of an incremental approach to global change, the idea that not every conscious choice needs to be monumental, and her quiet observances of the magic language of wild and indigenous spaces upon which all outsiders have profited. I felt as though Surrender was gaining momentum, and then 2/3rds of the way through, Pocock attends an ecosex gathering where she goes on an emotional tangent about how conversations about consent ruin the spontaneity and adventure of sex, which for me was the straw that broke the camel’s back, as they say.
I think if you’re someone who has never lived in the rural American West, who is looking for an outsider’s cursory take on countercultures and radical groups found there, or who shares Pocock's penchant for a very particular brand of environmental philosophies, Surrender will read as fresh, candid, and revelatory. As someone who has spent years living, breathing, and experiencing the wild spaces and rural communities of the American West and who has rather strong feelings about consent, I felt that Surrender was not without sageness, but overall shallow and presumptuous. Pocock oscillates between wide-eyed, almost child-like awe at the counterculturists she has decided are wholesome, serene, and symbiotic beings and slack-jawed horror at the counterculturists she has deemed not worthy of the nuance she affords the others, pegging them as violent, one-dimensional, and embodying “What is wrong about the West”. Despite Pocock’s appealing writing style, her nuggets of wisdom and occasional astute observations were unfortunately not enough to redeem this one for me.
“The West is one of the last places on Earth where thoughts around wilderness as inoculation against the darker forces of modernity are still in the ether, in the discourse, in people’s decisions to live off the grid, on the land, in the hoop. For the first time in my life, I was beginning to understand the West and its promise, real and imagined, of freedom, escape, transcendence, and its promise to turn us from predator to prey.”
I received a copy of Surrender through Netgalley and apparently missed in the description that the author is Canadian and has been residing in London for much of her adult life. It was clear to me in the first few chapters that this was probably not the book for me. I have always lived in rural areas, with the most populated place I’ve called home being my college town of maybe 55,000 people. I also found reading commentary on American landscapes and wild spaces and Western culture from someone who is not American and spent a meager two years living in a single American city to be a bit off putting (why not focus on the rural landscapes of and similarly problematic and violent colonization of Canada?). Much of my identity comes from the wide open spaces of the United States that you would be hard pressed to find elsewhere in the world. Am I being defensive? Yes. Is it justified? I feel as though it could be.
Most of the cultural experiences Pocock seeks out during her two years in Montana involve fringe groups. While these portraits were engaging, the majority of them don’t represent the culture generally found in the rural American West. I suppose maybe in that they speak to the nature of the isolated pockets of the West being refuges and safe havens for nonconformists and extremists. However, the bulk of the rural West is quiet people leading unpretentious lives in a way they hope will be fulfilling and will nurture their families. While Pocock is relatively upfront about choosing only to explore these radical lifestyles, I think it is irresponsible of her to use these as a foil for the majority of rural culture in the American West.
Additionally, her ignorance regarding the management of livestock and wildlife (a concept she refers to as “ridiculous”) is apparent, as she dismisses brucellosis as simply a vehicle that ranchers use to prevent further proliferation of wild buffalo, despite it being a highly infectious reproductive disease that can be transmitted to humans, and scoffs at the impact of wild animals on the land. She dismisses big game hunting as something hunters do exclusively for “fun” and so they can share photos of dead animals on the internet, ignorant to the fact that the majority of hunters feel a deep respect for and kinship to the animals that feed their families, a reverential experience of hunting that she reserves exclusively for Native American hunters. Pocock is someone who chooses not to eat meat and mentions being “disturbed” by dead animals, so I’m also not sure that her reflections on the sacredness of hunting should be the ones we’re turning to for wisdom on the matter anyway.
Despite numerous issues I perceived in regards to Pocock’s perspective and how she has chosen to represent what remains of the wild spaces of the West, her voice is rich and generous. I appreciated her discussions of an incremental approach to global change, the idea that not every conscious choice needs to be monumental, and her quiet observances of the magic language of wild and indigenous spaces upon which all outsiders have profited. I felt as though Surrender was gaining momentum, and then 2/3rds of the way through, Pocock attends an ecosex gathering where she goes on an emotional tangent about how conversations about consent ruin the spontaneity and adventure of sex, which for me was the straw that broke the camel’s back, as they say.
I think if you’re someone who has never lived in the rural American West, who is looking for an outsider’s cursory take on countercultures and radical groups found there, or who shares Pocock's penchant for a very particular brand of environmental philosophies, Surrender will read as fresh, candid, and revelatory. As someone who has spent years living, breathing, and experiencing the wild spaces and rural communities of the American West and who has rather strong feelings about consent, I felt that Surrender was not without sageness, but overall shallow and presumptuous. Pocock oscillates between wide-eyed, almost child-like awe at the counterculturists she has decided are wholesome, serene, and symbiotic beings and slack-jawed horror at the counterculturists she has deemed not worthy of the nuance she affords the others, pegging them as violent, one-dimensional, and embodying “What is wrong about the West”. Despite Pocock’s appealing writing style, her nuggets of wisdom and occasional astute observations were unfortunately not enough to redeem this one for me.
October 5, 2020
This book is a strange mix of a middle-aged woman's memoir, a call to action/alarm over rising environmental crises, and an examination of the mythic appeal of the American West, which is so strong it compels people even from outside the country. You should be into all those angles if you want to enjoy this book.
The "story" is that our late-40s menopausal author is living in London, and she and her husband are feeling very disconnected from their lives there. So they decide to move with their 8 year-old daughter to Missoula, Montana to get more space and live closer to nature. The book details Pocock's experience there, as she explores the predator hunting and trapping community, the thinking behind the prevalence of conservative politics, the "ancestral skills" community (people learning and practicing things our prehistoric ancestors did) hunting buffalo alongside Native people, the philosophy of elder transwoman Finisia Medrano who travels around the West planting and foraging, the debate over copper mining (specifically the Black Butte Copper Project, which actually just broke ground in September 2020, though a lawsuit is still pending), and a really long section in the last third of the book when she attends an "ecosex" festival.
What a journey. The book is broken up into chapters but there are no headings and no table of contents. There are black and white pictures interspersed throughout, which help give a sense of place.
I still can't really believe that while visiting Montana myself I pulled this book off the shelf under a truly huge "Western Interest" area and paid full price for it. Not that I regret it - but I almost never do that for a book so far outside of my usual reading zone.
I suppose as a displaced city dweller myself in that moment I felt a kinship. Once I started to read the book (back in my home city), while I was occasionally rolling my eyes at how dire and depressive Pocock makes things seem (her young daughter is honestly the most well-adjusted person in the entire narrative), it gripped me. I learned a lot about people who are serious about this back-to-nature approach, and how it interacts and shows up in their politics.
The "ecosex" part is tonally different than the rest, and I think may be jarring for some people, but for me - having spent significant time in various festival and intentional gathering spaces - it felt familiar enough for me to indulge the foray. It's also nice because it offers something positive.
I am still somewhat bemused that I enjoyed this book. I liked it, and I found that it has left me with a lot of thoughts afterward. I don't know what to make of it, but I'm not sure I'll ever find something quite like this again.
The "story" is that our late-40s menopausal author is living in London, and she and her husband are feeling very disconnected from their lives there. So they decide to move with their 8 year-old daughter to Missoula, Montana to get more space and live closer to nature. The book details Pocock's experience there, as she explores the predator hunting and trapping community, the thinking behind the prevalence of conservative politics, the "ancestral skills" community (people learning and practicing things our prehistoric ancestors did) hunting buffalo alongside Native people, the philosophy of elder transwoman Finisia Medrano who travels around the West planting and foraging, the debate over copper mining (specifically the Black Butte Copper Project, which actually just broke ground in September 2020, though a lawsuit is still pending), and a really long section in the last third of the book when she attends an "ecosex" festival.
What a journey. The book is broken up into chapters but there are no headings and no table of contents. There are black and white pictures interspersed throughout, which help give a sense of place.
I still can't really believe that while visiting Montana myself I pulled this book off the shelf under a truly huge "Western Interest" area and paid full price for it. Not that I regret it - but I almost never do that for a book so far outside of my usual reading zone.
I suppose as a displaced city dweller myself in that moment I felt a kinship. Once I started to read the book (back in my home city), while I was occasionally rolling my eyes at how dire and depressive Pocock makes things seem (her young daughter is honestly the most well-adjusted person in the entire narrative), it gripped me. I learned a lot about people who are serious about this back-to-nature approach, and how it interacts and shows up in their politics.
The "ecosex" part is tonally different than the rest, and I think may be jarring for some people, but for me - having spent significant time in various festival and intentional gathering spaces - it felt familiar enough for me to indulge the foray. It's also nice because it offers something positive.
I am still somewhat bemused that I enjoyed this book. I liked it, and I found that it has left me with a lot of thoughts afterward. I don't know what to make of it, but I'm not sure I'll ever find something quite like this again.
January 4, 2024
Me avergüenza admitir que a mi edad, y con mis canas, caí en esta trampa mercadotécnica.
_Rendición. En busca del sentido de la existencia en un planeta dañado_, de Joanna Pocock. Cuenta cómo en su "middle life crisis" se fue a vivir a Montana un par de años. Y ya. Luego regresa a su casa en Londres y escribe su memoire para ingenuos con crisis de ecoansiedad como yo.
Si este es el "giro ecologista" de Errata naturae, van muy mal. Puro greenwashing.
_Rendición. En busca del sentido de la existencia en un planeta dañado_, de Joanna Pocock. Cuenta cómo en su "middle life crisis" se fue a vivir a Montana un par de años. Y ya. Luego regresa a su casa en Londres y escribe su memoire para ingenuos con crisis de ecoansiedad como yo.
Si este es el "giro ecologista" de Errata naturae, van muy mal. Puro greenwashing.
January 27, 2020
Finished: 27.01.2020
Genre: non-fiction (memoir)
Rating: A++++++
#WorldFromMyArmchair
Conclusion:
#BrilliantWriting
Chapeau au bas for Joanna Pocock!
My Thoughts
Genre: non-fiction (memoir)
Rating: A++++++
#WorldFromMyArmchair
Conclusion:
#BrilliantWriting
Chapeau au bas for Joanna Pocock!
My Thoughts
May 4, 2021
In Surrender I discovered a fellow wanderer, a kindred spirit who asks many of the same questions I’ve explored in my own writing—questions of belonging, of what makes a home, of living intentionally, and of deep and complicated human relationships with the natural world. I enjoyed Pocock’s outsider’s view of the American West, specifically the arid open landscapes of Montana and surrounding shrub-steppe, dry mountain, high desert and rangelands, all as foreign to me as a New England-born coastal Pacific Northwesterner as they likely were to her as a Canadian-born Londoner. And yet rather than just visit and observe, Pocock moves in, joins communities, attends meetings, interviews key players, and sticks around with the people she meets and is curious about, in true immersion-journalism style, giving her readers fascinating insights into individuals as diverse as wolf trappers, nomadic rewilders, miners, bison hunters, and ecosexuals, the latter of whom I’d never even heard of.
If Surrender had been a book of wandering and wondering while the author was young, it would have been labelled a “coming of age” memoir. Because she engaged in this wanderlust as a mother facing menopause, the term midlife crisis gets thrown around. And yet I see in Pocock the same sort of ongoing, lifelong questing I see in an increasing number of others who will always question the status quo—those of us who remain seekers, inquisitors, and wanderers our whole lives, who always seem to be coming of age. Even if we settle down, we may not ever truly settle, but will continue wondering and wandering, even if only in our books. This book is a valuable addition to the genre, to be savored the first time, then read again.
If Surrender had been a book of wandering and wondering while the author was young, it would have been labelled a “coming of age” memoir. Because she engaged in this wanderlust as a mother facing menopause, the term midlife crisis gets thrown around. And yet I see in Pocock the same sort of ongoing, lifelong questing I see in an increasing number of others who will always question the status quo—those of us who remain seekers, inquisitors, and wanderers our whole lives, who always seem to be coming of age. Even if we settle down, we may not ever truly settle, but will continue wondering and wandering, even if only in our books. This book is a valuable addition to the genre, to be savored the first time, then read again.
September 19, 2024
"Oí risas y el crepitar del fuego. Observé las estrellas. No quería marcharme jamás. Me había quedado suspendida en ese lugar. Todos nos habíamos quedado suspendidos. Ese fue mi descubrimiento: todos vivimos vidas intermedias. Negar eso es parte de la locura. La única certeza es la transitoriedad de la vida, los momentos en los que podemos habitar la fluidez, aceptar el umbral. Lo estamos atravesando, sin más. ¿Por qué deberíamos esperar algo distinto a estar entre dos lugares, entre dos épocas, entre dos estados de ánimo?"
June 4, 2024
I loved this book. The environmentally centric writing spoke to me and my interests directly. Each section was complimented with its own heartbreaking story about the various industrial exploits, organizations, and cultural history, describing what's shaped life in Montana. The author’s non-judgmental outlook towards ways of life that could not be further from her own was refreshing and apolitical, which feels all too rare for this day and age. Her perspective reminded me of a time when I was a kid, where those on either side of the political spectrum still had a certain level of respect for one another.
October 19, 2023
Probably not objectively bad- subject matter was really interesting she just got on my nerves a bit and her writing style was clunky. A couple of strange things about trans people as well which was very unexpected
December 26, 2023
I love reading essays that mix the personal with larger societal issues. This collection focuses on our relationship with nature and ecology, specifically in the US. Weird, interesting, and entertaining.
January 24, 2021
Raw, honest, and brilliant.
The captivating story of a woman on a quest to find her identity filled with tales of communion with one’s self, others, and the great land that is a home to us all.
The captivating story of a woman on a quest to find her identity filled with tales of communion with one’s self, others, and the great land that is a home to us all.
June 26, 2023
un ensayo cautivador e ideal para mi obsesión con el medio ambiente, las comunas y los movimientos ecologistas pseudo radicales
May 30, 2019
An Irish-Canadian (via London, England) has a mid-life crisis in the American upper-mid-West (Missoula, Montana and environs) that coincides with our world-wide ecological collapse. Thoughtful, engaging, articulate, and intelligent, Pocock's book for the first half combines memoir with American history, natural and political. In the second half of the book, when Pocock returns to the American West without her husband and daughter, Pocock's book becomes increasingly intimate as her sense of self-discovery leaves her increasing uncentered during her ecological explorations, and her Romantic notions of connectedness to the Earth clash with her rational knowledge of the possible/probable about what can and will be done to restore the balance between humans and nature.
February 1, 2020
"The West is one of the last places on Earth where thoughts around wilderness and inoculation against the darker forces of modernity are still in the ether, in the discourse, in people's decisions to live off the grid, off the land, in the hoop. For the first time in my life, I was beginning to understand the west and it's promise, real and imagined, of freedom, escape, transcendence and its promise to turn us from predator to prey."
•
Joanna Pocock decides to packs up her family and her life in England and set out for an adventure in the American West to Montana!
I absolutely loved this book! It was like nothing I have read before. She blends and layers genres seamlessly, from personal to political, nature writing, and philosophy to reportage creating this breathtaking journey of one womans experiences through the American West. Pocock documents her travels of living in Missoula over the course of two years. Reporting on the environmental calamities surrounding her. Partaking in what the "new" land has to offer.
Meeting facinating characters along the way. Sexologists, nomads, scavengers, a trangender rewilder who follows her food sources through migration and more. Hearing how these people live their lives interknit with the wilderness was so vivid and engrossing! Also included are several black and white photos throughout.
So much more than a memoir, but a beautifully written manifesto of sorts for our planet and the ways humans have lost the connection and appreciation for our Earth. An important read for these times. Highly reccomend! Especially if you enjoy the likes of Dillard, Solnit, and Oliver.
•
Thank You to the tagged publisher for sending me this book opinions are my own.
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For more of my book content check out instagram.com/bookalong
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Joanna Pocock decides to packs up her family and her life in England and set out for an adventure in the American West to Montana!
I absolutely loved this book! It was like nothing I have read before. She blends and layers genres seamlessly, from personal to political, nature writing, and philosophy to reportage creating this breathtaking journey of one womans experiences through the American West. Pocock documents her travels of living in Missoula over the course of two years. Reporting on the environmental calamities surrounding her. Partaking in what the "new" land has to offer.
Meeting facinating characters along the way. Sexologists, nomads, scavengers, a trangender rewilder who follows her food sources through migration and more. Hearing how these people live their lives interknit with the wilderness was so vivid and engrossing! Also included are several black and white photos throughout.
So much more than a memoir, but a beautifully written manifesto of sorts for our planet and the ways humans have lost the connection and appreciation for our Earth. An important read for these times. Highly reccomend! Especially if you enjoy the likes of Dillard, Solnit, and Oliver.
•
Thank You to the tagged publisher for sending me this book opinions are my own.
•
For more of my book content check out instagram.com/bookalong
November 8, 2019
"I was trying to work out how to feel the intense grief at the dying planet and the rapid extinction of species while simultaneously carrying on with a productive life". Joanna Pocock and her partner, both going through something of a mid-life crisis and sick of London city live, move with their young daughter to to Montana in the USA where. There, despairing of the damage done to the environment by mining and hunting, she spends time with people seeking new ways of life - scavenging Buffalo culls, reviving old skills, practicising "ecosex", and even trying to live a nomadic paleolithic lifestyle. She also spends some time with hunters and miners. Some of her stereotypes are challenged, as she discovers that people are a lot less easy to categorise than she had initially assumed. There's no easy take-away from this book, and much of the environmental damage Pocock uncovers is very depressing, but there is some inspiration to be drawn from the new ways of life people are making in the middle of this crisis.
November 17, 2019
This just didn't click with me. I can see how people would like this - I enjoyed the writing style, and it's smart and interesting - but it just didn't quite work for me. I think my main thing was that a lot of the rewilders she meets are kinda right wing and really into eating bear and deer, and there were slight digs at millennials and vegans that just distanced me from the author.
October 24, 2021
Le hasard des lectures d’août, trois à la suite, se penchent sur d’autres relations pour faire « société », et encore, je ne suis pas certaine que ce soit « société » qui soit le mot juste.
Trois façons d’appréhender le monde et d’y prendre sa place. De rentrer en relation avec les autres avec ce qui fait société.
Joanna Pocock explore, plus que cherche, dans son livre Abandon (qui n’est pas un roman, ni un essai, mais cet entre-deux non fiction des anglo -saxons, les paradoxes de l’ouest américain, la façon de vivre - à défaut de se réconcilier avec la nature, avec la Terre plus exactement. Elle y rencontre des « rewilders », à l’initiative d’un mouvement de ré-ensauvagement, certains très radicaux, d’autres plus à la charnière dans un rôle de passeur, de sensibilisation et d’éducation. Elle va dans des mouvements de chasseurs de loups et de l’autre côté ceux qui les observent et les protègent. Elle suit les communautés des Buffalo Field Campaign (ceux qui protègent les bisons de Yellowstone en particulier), des Buffalo Bridge (ceux qui ne chassent pas mais qui savent découper un bison et surtout tout transformer : peau, os, graisse, viande) et ceux qui chassent quelles qu’en soient les raisons : des natives qui perpétuent des traditions, des urbains qui se prennent pour des chasseurs…
« Je ne m’étais moi-même jamais vu comme une proie. C’est là que quelque chose a basculé en moi. Ma relation avec la Terre venait de prendre une toute nouvelle trajectoire à la suite de la remarque anodine d’un parfait inconnu (…)
Tous les paradoxes sont permis, détaillés, analysés, sans jamais être jugés. C’est admirable.
Elle va même à un stage d’un mouvement nommé Ecosex Convergence, où la sexualité est ramenée à l’amour de la Terre. Un extrait de ce passage est lisible sur ce site.
Son attirance pour le mythe de l’ouest américain, magnifié par des livres comme My beautiful Darling, Sauvage, Indian Creek, Dans la foret, ne fait pas d’elle une fanatique, au contraire, plutôt une chercheuse, ni de réponse ou solution, mais des clés de compréhension ou d’options de voies pour vivre sans être totalement schizophrénique.
« Elle (Joan Didion) ajoute que pour pouvoir poursuivre son travail, il a fallu « accepter le désordre ». Peut-êre que ces mots apportent une réponse à l’énigme : comment vivre sur une planète qu’on sait mourante ? Peut-être qu’aller de l’avant c’est ne pas s’enliser dans le désespoir . C’est simplement accepter le désordre. Oublier l’ordre que nous sommes programmés à trouver dans la nature : plonger dans le chaos
Joanna Pocock rencontre au cours de sa quête un personnage fascinant Finisia Medrano. Une femme qui a vécu de façon nomade et quasiment en autosuffisance pendant 35 ans sur ce qu’elle appelle l’anneau : un circuit dans l’ouest américain qui couvre plusieurs états (Washington, Californie Wyoming, Montana, Indiana.. ). Sur l’anneau, elle replante des espèces vulnérables tout du long, ne prend jamais plus que ce qu’elle donne, vit de cueillette, peut-être un peu de chasse, se déplace avec des chevaux. Cette femme a fait sa transition dans les années 70, à l’époque ou se faire opérer pour une ré-attribution de genre n’était certainement pas facile, a vécu dans une grotte sur les plages de Californie de LSD et de sexe (quand elle était encore un homme) et de ce qu’on lui donnait. Elle a été mariée à quelqu’un de 45 ans plus âgé qu’elle, c’est son mari qui a payé sa chirurgie de ré-attribution de sexe. Une histoire de vie rocambolesque dont plus de la moitié seule ou presque, nomade, dans les bois. Elle est décédée l’année dernière au printemps.
La suite de cette vie nomade a été reprise par Michael Ridge, depuis 8 ans, il semble ne pas être seul mais accompagné, et semble moins radical que Finisia : ils ont un site, et des chroniques en podcast disponibles sur Spotify.
Le livre de Joanna Pocock n’est pas un grand livre, et ne sera probablement jamais un best-seller, il nous reste un gout d’insatisfaction quand on le referme, d’unfinished business. Inabouti, pas qu’on est besoin de solution, mais de son analyse, de son point de vue, de ce qu’elle en retire, de ce qu’elle a intégré de sa quête ou même de comment elle va la poursuivre. Certes elle retourne vivre à Londres (elle le dit la sécurité de sa retraite et du système de soin sont devenus des choses dont elle ne sait plus se passer), mais j’aurai aimé savoir comment elle va continuer.
Trois façons d’appréhender le monde et d’y prendre sa place. De rentrer en relation avec les autres avec ce qui fait société.
Joanna Pocock explore, plus que cherche, dans son livre Abandon (qui n’est pas un roman, ni un essai, mais cet entre-deux non fiction des anglo -saxons, les paradoxes de l’ouest américain, la façon de vivre - à défaut de se réconcilier avec la nature, avec la Terre plus exactement. Elle y rencontre des « rewilders », à l’initiative d’un mouvement de ré-ensauvagement, certains très radicaux, d’autres plus à la charnière dans un rôle de passeur, de sensibilisation et d’éducation. Elle va dans des mouvements de chasseurs de loups et de l’autre côté ceux qui les observent et les protègent. Elle suit les communautés des Buffalo Field Campaign (ceux qui protègent les bisons de Yellowstone en particulier), des Buffalo Bridge (ceux qui ne chassent pas mais qui savent découper un bison et surtout tout transformer : peau, os, graisse, viande) et ceux qui chassent quelles qu’en soient les raisons : des natives qui perpétuent des traditions, des urbains qui se prennent pour des chasseurs…
« Je ne m’étais moi-même jamais vu comme une proie. C’est là que quelque chose a basculé en moi. Ma relation avec la Terre venait de prendre une toute nouvelle trajectoire à la suite de la remarque anodine d’un parfait inconnu (…)
Tous les paradoxes sont permis, détaillés, analysés, sans jamais être jugés. C’est admirable.
Elle va même à un stage d’un mouvement nommé Ecosex Convergence, où la sexualité est ramenée à l’amour de la Terre. Un extrait de ce passage est lisible sur ce site.
Son attirance pour le mythe de l’ouest américain, magnifié par des livres comme My beautiful Darling, Sauvage, Indian Creek, Dans la foret, ne fait pas d’elle une fanatique, au contraire, plutôt une chercheuse, ni de réponse ou solution, mais des clés de compréhension ou d’options de voies pour vivre sans être totalement schizophrénique.
« Elle (Joan Didion) ajoute que pour pouvoir poursuivre son travail, il a fallu « accepter le désordre ». Peut-êre que ces mots apportent une réponse à l’énigme : comment vivre sur une planète qu’on sait mourante ? Peut-être qu’aller de l’avant c’est ne pas s’enliser dans le désespoir . C’est simplement accepter le désordre. Oublier l’ordre que nous sommes programmés à trouver dans la nature : plonger dans le chaos
Joanna Pocock rencontre au cours de sa quête un personnage fascinant Finisia Medrano. Une femme qui a vécu de façon nomade et quasiment en autosuffisance pendant 35 ans sur ce qu’elle appelle l’anneau : un circuit dans l’ouest américain qui couvre plusieurs états (Washington, Californie Wyoming, Montana, Indiana.. ). Sur l’anneau, elle replante des espèces vulnérables tout du long, ne prend jamais plus que ce qu’elle donne, vit de cueillette, peut-être un peu de chasse, se déplace avec des chevaux. Cette femme a fait sa transition dans les années 70, à l’époque ou se faire opérer pour une ré-attribution de genre n’était certainement pas facile, a vécu dans une grotte sur les plages de Californie de LSD et de sexe (quand elle était encore un homme) et de ce qu’on lui donnait. Elle a été mariée à quelqu’un de 45 ans plus âgé qu’elle, c’est son mari qui a payé sa chirurgie de ré-attribution de sexe. Une histoire de vie rocambolesque dont plus de la moitié seule ou presque, nomade, dans les bois. Elle est décédée l’année dernière au printemps.
La suite de cette vie nomade a été reprise par Michael Ridge, depuis 8 ans, il semble ne pas être seul mais accompagné, et semble moins radical que Finisia : ils ont un site, et des chroniques en podcast disponibles sur Spotify.
Le livre de Joanna Pocock n’est pas un grand livre, et ne sera probablement jamais un best-seller, il nous reste un gout d’insatisfaction quand on le referme, d’unfinished business. Inabouti, pas qu’on est besoin de solution, mais de son analyse, de son point de vue, de ce qu’elle en retire, de ce qu’elle a intégré de sa quête ou même de comment elle va la poursuivre. Certes elle retourne vivre à Londres (elle le dit la sécurité de sa retraite et du système de soin sont devenus des choses dont elle ne sait plus se passer), mais j’aurai aimé savoir comment elle va continuer.
Read
June 26, 2019Sometimes I’ll pick up a book to read (or in this case, order it,) just when I need it most. I can’t say there is a time when I think less about the environmental crises, and the impending deterioration of life on this planet,but I had just read The Guardian’s article about the US’s appetite for plastics, its shipments of recycling to other nations around the globe, most of whom cannot recycle all of their own plastics waste and/or hold lower standards of oversight and regulation. This news brought another wave of despair: We produce more than we can recycle. It is actually cheaper to use new plastics , rather than recycled. And we are trained to consume, it is how we define ourselves, our economy, our relationships. We simply cannot save ourselves, our fear of dying is so strong.
Even before the Guardian article, I thought Joanna Pocock’s Surrender might be some of what I needed. It was.
Pocock’s move to Montana provides us with her succinct accounts of the degradations to the Earth and native peoples that are so much a part of our nation’s history of western expansion. She meets political groups, trappers, rewilders living off/for the land, and is able to share their stories without coloring them for the reader.
The arc of Pocock’s 300 plus page essay takes us from descriptions and histories of a new land, investigations of the people who inhabit this “new” land, and then candid writing of her own experiences when she partakes of what the new land offers. It is the story of a woman, witnessing the environmental calamities around her, and seriously considering, given her limited options, what actions can she take.
I didn’t always agree with Pocock’s observations, or her approach. (why do we only hear of her own vegetarian eating regimen—and then, only mentioned— when she eats some Bison she is offered? And her contemplation of “consent” was limited.) but I was always engaged.
Her depictions of people she meets, particularly Finisia Medrano (google her!) are vivid and endearing.
I have to say, as I read Surrender, I discovered Pocock was a kindred soul, wishing, somehow, to take the great leap that would ensure life on Earth for centuries to come, yet too bound by all she knows, all her obligations, and all she’s accustomed to, to cast it all off.
Pocock fills her essay with references to other books, other writers, more to read: Barry Lopez, Rebecca Solnit, the aforementioned Finisia.
Even before the Guardian article, I thought Joanna Pocock’s Surrender might be some of what I needed. It was.
Pocock’s move to Montana provides us with her succinct accounts of the degradations to the Earth and native peoples that are so much a part of our nation’s history of western expansion. She meets political groups, trappers, rewilders living off/for the land, and is able to share their stories without coloring them for the reader.
The arc of Pocock’s 300 plus page essay takes us from descriptions and histories of a new land, investigations of the people who inhabit this “new” land, and then candid writing of her own experiences when she partakes of what the new land offers. It is the story of a woman, witnessing the environmental calamities around her, and seriously considering, given her limited options, what actions can she take.
I didn’t always agree with Pocock’s observations, or her approach. (why do we only hear of her own vegetarian eating regimen—and then, only mentioned— when she eats some Bison she is offered? And her contemplation of “consent” was limited.) but I was always engaged.
Her depictions of people she meets, particularly Finisia Medrano (google her!) are vivid and endearing.
I have to say, as I read Surrender, I discovered Pocock was a kindred soul, wishing, somehow, to take the great leap that would ensure life on Earth for centuries to come, yet too bound by all she knows, all her obligations, and all she’s accustomed to, to cast it all off.
Pocock fills her essay with references to other books, other writers, more to read: Barry Lopez, Rebecca Solnit, the aforementioned Finisia.
May 9, 2020
There was a lot I really liked about this work of narrative non-fiction. In the UK edition of the book, there are no obvious section breaks, so it was kind of cool to experience the essayistic style in a book-length form. The narrative held my attention. There were also several aspects of this book that made it harder for me to enjoy, including the author's seeming obsession with the wildness of the American West. She attempts to bring nuance to this discussion and is self-aware of her tendency to romanticize the mountains and wildlife and everything, but I'm not sure that was sufficient. What made it worse is that she spent most of the book disparaging the places she was most familiar with: Canadian suburbs (where she grew up and claims no emotional connection to the landscape) and the busy, chaotic, and commercialized city of London, which she contrasts with "wild" and remote locales in Montana, Oregon, and Washington.
Now, I love the landscape of the American West (even though I've never attempted to live "on the hoop"), and I can see why someone would fall in love with it. But the West isn't all about rural life or living off the land. I grew up in the suburbs and managed to find some way to connect to the landscape of my backyard and of local trails and rivers and parks. And, having spent a significant amount of time hiking in the countryside and "wilds" of the UK, I feel like I am on the other side of the coin--I fell in love with the English countryside. There were moments on the moors in Northern England and in the Scottish highlands where I felt small and vulnerable, where I "felt like the prey", to use Pocock's mantra. It's not till the last few pages of the book that Pocock seems to realize on a rewilding trip in Dartmoor that the British Isles, too, have their wildness, though it's different from that of the American West. This, along with a few other limited perspectives on people and places that I found irritating, made it hard for me to totally enjoy this book. I guess I'm just really tired of the wilderness concept being used to devalue landscapes that have seen more human alteration than others.
Now, I love the landscape of the American West (even though I've never attempted to live "on the hoop"), and I can see why someone would fall in love with it. But the West isn't all about rural life or living off the land. I grew up in the suburbs and managed to find some way to connect to the landscape of my backyard and of local trails and rivers and parks. And, having spent a significant amount of time hiking in the countryside and "wilds" of the UK, I feel like I am on the other side of the coin--I fell in love with the English countryside. There were moments on the moors in Northern England and in the Scottish highlands where I felt small and vulnerable, where I "felt like the prey", to use Pocock's mantra. It's not till the last few pages of the book that Pocock seems to realize on a rewilding trip in Dartmoor that the British Isles, too, have their wildness, though it's different from that of the American West. This, along with a few other limited perspectives on people and places that I found irritating, made it hard for me to totally enjoy this book. I guess I'm just really tired of the wilderness concept being used to devalue landscapes that have seen more human alteration than others.
April 11, 2021
I loved the start of this book, it will resonate well with so many people. Closing in on being 50, loss of parent or parents, perimenopause and a sudden realisation that life is getting shorter. In fact the author makes a very true statement about a mid life crisis, the realisation that there is more past than future and that it is a kind of boredom with the status quo.
This is the starting point of this book documenting the author's move to Montana for two years with her husband and fairly young child (age 7). They both agree they want to move from London, and they both want to be closer to the wilderness, so a small town, Missoula, in Montana is where they go.
As well as discussing some parts of the move, the day to day life, the majority of the book is about her attempt to connect with the earth. From going to a bison hunt / shoot (I think the author is vegetarian), to learning how to set traps, attending an Ecosex convention and finding those that are teaching others to live off the land, the author has a fairly diverse range of experiences. These are probably fairly unique to the American midwest, and certainly wouldn't be the same in the UK - as the author notes when she heads to an event on Dartmoor.
The book is well written and engaging, with photographs dotted through the book (although I found the quality of the photgraphs really annoying, some were so dark I struggled to make out the details). It covers a number of environmental issues, particularly water pollution, that are probably not as well known outside of the US as they should be. It was also a book that was very different to any in terms of content than I had found before. But, saying all this, I am not sure what the author discovered about herself that she probably didn't already know and I was left wondering why?
It is not one I would read again, and not one I would particularly recommend to friends, as I am not sure what I got from it that was beneficial but still an interesting book.
This is the starting point of this book documenting the author's move to Montana for two years with her husband and fairly young child (age 7). They both agree they want to move from London, and they both want to be closer to the wilderness, so a small town, Missoula, in Montana is where they go.
As well as discussing some parts of the move, the day to day life, the majority of the book is about her attempt to connect with the earth. From going to a bison hunt / shoot (I think the author is vegetarian), to learning how to set traps, attending an Ecosex convention and finding those that are teaching others to live off the land, the author has a fairly diverse range of experiences. These are probably fairly unique to the American midwest, and certainly wouldn't be the same in the UK - as the author notes when she heads to an event on Dartmoor.
The book is well written and engaging, with photographs dotted through the book (although I found the quality of the photgraphs really annoying, some were so dark I struggled to make out the details). It covers a number of environmental issues, particularly water pollution, that are probably not as well known outside of the US as they should be. It was also a book that was very different to any in terms of content than I had found before. But, saying all this, I am not sure what the author discovered about herself that she probably didn't already know and I was left wondering why?
It is not one I would read again, and not one I would particularly recommend to friends, as I am not sure what I got from it that was beneficial but still an interesting book.
September 7, 2022
A veces me ataca una especie de ansiedad que, sin ser incapacitante, me mantiene en alerta, con el pecho encogido y ganas de llorar por horas. Se puede disparar por una petición profesional, asuntos económicos o un desencuentro personal; es de baja intensidad, pero sostenida por horas, agota. Cuando se repiten con frecuencia días como esos, salgo al campo, camino y camino por horas, intento frenar al cerebro para que la angustia desaparezca; observo pájaros y hierbas, trato de reconocerlos y casi sin darme cuenta, me apaciguo. Suena cursi, pero así lo siento; es en medio del campo, en plena naturaleza donde siento que puedo escuchar el latido de la tierra, que no estoy sorda a su llamada, que puedo reconocerla, conectar, y al conectar con la raíz esencial, conecto conmigo. Con la presa, no la depredadora. Con mi fragilidad y mi verdadera altura.
De esa especie de búsqueda va Rendición, la experiencia de la escritora Joanna Pocock con grupos de lo más variopintos en su intento de encontrarse siendo una mujer consciente del maltrato a la tierra y de sus lazos con la sociedad de consumo de la que se confiesa incapaz de escapar del todo.
En Rendición se encuentran los tramperos, los Amigos del Rifle, los cazadores de lobos, los carroñeros, los rewilders, los preparacionistas, los ecosexuales…Una miríada de grupos que no imaginaba que existían, pero que están ahí, en silencio, moviéndose en círculos, por los márgenes. Muchos de ellos buscando la forma de sostenerse en el planeta de la forma menos dañina posible, como lo hacían nuestros ancestros.
Y entre todas esas caras, esas experiencias, la voz de la autora, confesando sus miedos y este párrafo que me ha conectado con la voz del apache Gerónimo (Once I moved about with the wind. Now I surrender to you and that is all): “A veces, lo único que podemos hacer es rendirnos: a las circunstancias, a los deseos y miedos, a la necesidad de oír, a nuestros fallos, a nuestro dolor, a nuestra naturaleza interna, a nuestra domesticación y, en definitiva, cualquiera que sea la esencia situada en el centro de nuestro ser.”
De esa especie de búsqueda va Rendición, la experiencia de la escritora Joanna Pocock con grupos de lo más variopintos en su intento de encontrarse siendo una mujer consciente del maltrato a la tierra y de sus lazos con la sociedad de consumo de la que se confiesa incapaz de escapar del todo.
En Rendición se encuentran los tramperos, los Amigos del Rifle, los cazadores de lobos, los carroñeros, los rewilders, los preparacionistas, los ecosexuales…Una miríada de grupos que no imaginaba que existían, pero que están ahí, en silencio, moviéndose en círculos, por los márgenes. Muchos de ellos buscando la forma de sostenerse en el planeta de la forma menos dañina posible, como lo hacían nuestros ancestros.
Y entre todas esas caras, esas experiencias, la voz de la autora, confesando sus miedos y este párrafo que me ha conectado con la voz del apache Gerónimo (Once I moved about with the wind. Now I surrender to you and that is all): “A veces, lo único que podemos hacer es rendirnos: a las circunstancias, a los deseos y miedos, a la necesidad de oír, a nuestros fallos, a nuestro dolor, a nuestra naturaleza interna, a nuestra domesticación y, en definitiva, cualquiera que sea la esencia situada en el centro de nuestro ser.”
November 29, 2023
I don't typically love nonfiction but I found Pocock's memoir/travelogue/reportage incredibly insightful and easy to connect with.
Surrender is mostly about Pocock's time in Missoula and thereabouts, a two year period in her early 50s when her husband, having a mid-life crisis, moved the family to the U.S. Pocock describes being entranced by the land which was a mixture of raw wildness and paved over Christian small town Americana. The book is mainly her time meeting various rewilding and survivalist communities, people who want to get back to the land and are as terrified about climate change as she is.
Where the book let me down a bit was that Pocock is an interesting woman who has clearly lived a broad and extensive life and sometimes she drops hints of this and goes no further. She details that during her time in Missoula she was hoping to write about her stifling childhood in Ottawa growing up in a huge Roman Catholic family with a father she still struggles to describe as a hoarder. The book opens with an anecdote about one of her sisters dying abruptly of cancer at a young age. She also talks about the difficulties of becoming a mother late and life and her monogamous sexual past, coming of sexual maturity in the '80s.
The glimpses of these little bits of Pocock's life are so frustrating because I want to follow these narrative threads. I would read that book on Ottawa. Alas.
The book as it is is great though and introduced me to several knew ideas, thoughts and ways of life I had never considered before. I enjoyed it a lot.
Surrender is mostly about Pocock's time in Missoula and thereabouts, a two year period in her early 50s when her husband, having a mid-life crisis, moved the family to the U.S. Pocock describes being entranced by the land which was a mixture of raw wildness and paved over Christian small town Americana. The book is mainly her time meeting various rewilding and survivalist communities, people who want to get back to the land and are as terrified about climate change as she is.
Where the book let me down a bit was that Pocock is an interesting woman who has clearly lived a broad and extensive life and sometimes she drops hints of this and goes no further. She details that during her time in Missoula she was hoping to write about her stifling childhood in Ottawa growing up in a huge Roman Catholic family with a father she still struggles to describe as a hoarder. The book opens with an anecdote about one of her sisters dying abruptly of cancer at a young age. She also talks about the difficulties of becoming a mother late and life and her monogamous sexual past, coming of sexual maturity in the '80s.
The glimpses of these little bits of Pocock's life are so frustrating because I want to follow these narrative threads. I would read that book on Ottawa. Alas.
The book as it is is great though and introduced me to several knew ideas, thoughts and ways of life I had never considered before. I enjoyed it a lot.
December 7, 2019
Joanna Pocock writes like a dream, and with such honesty - it takes immense bravery to bare your soul as Joanna has done in Surrender. But the result is astonishing, and if you thought a book about a woman confronting menopause running off to the American wilderness to hang out with rewilders and ecosexuals sounds weird, think again, because when you read it in the context of Joanna’s journey of self-discovery, from childhood in stifling suburban Ottawa to wild times in 1990s London (disclaimer - with me!! - we worked together for the same publishing house, although I was less adventurous) and on to settling down to motherhood; then time spent researching and writing with her partner and young daughter in Montana makes perfect sense.
So yes, I should come clean and say Joanna is a mate, and when you read her intense words you’d be forgiven for thinking she might be a little intense herself, even, dare I say it, odd. But she’s not! She’s gentle and lovely and totally honest - no pretence - and has a wicked glint in her eye, and that flash of humour, of being able to both analyse herself and laugh at herself is an endearing quality. This book is something else, I’ve never read anything quite like it, and reviewers all around the world are noticing - it’s making the best books of 2019 lists and deservedly so.
So yes, I should come clean and say Joanna is a mate, and when you read her intense words you’d be forgiven for thinking she might be a little intense herself, even, dare I say it, odd. But she’s not! She’s gentle and lovely and totally honest - no pretence - and has a wicked glint in her eye, and that flash of humour, of being able to both analyse herself and laugh at herself is an endearing quality. This book is something else, I’ve never read anything quite like it, and reviewers all around the world are noticing - it’s making the best books of 2019 lists and deservedly so.
January 31, 2020
4.5 Stars. Joanna Pocock takes us on an engaging tour through the Western United States, wandering through different eco-radical groups on all sides of the political spectrum (sometimes all at once!) Pocock's authorial voice here, as someone immensely curious and emotionally adept without being overly didactic or guided, really benefits the journalistic elements of the book, as many of these organizations and troupes might not always be so open to outside eyes, especially, as Pocock notes, in the emboldened Trump era. I can tell Surrender is a well-written book because, even as Pocock delves into material I'm a bit more familiar with, it never feels redundantly surface-level; she has a beautiful empathic-yet-analytic relationship with the world that could make anything feel both felt and interesting. I do wish she did more to analyze what I see as the main unspoken core of the book, which is that most of the people that she encounters and includes in the book are white people of the west who have built a unique cosmology based off of the lifestyles and beliefs of native people of the American West, with varying levels of respect and cultural understanding. Pocock does touch on this in glancing instances, but it really is a core aspect of the book and should probably be addressed in a more comprehensive way.
November 18, 2022
I found this book hard to get through and somewhat exhausting to read. But if you're looking for an author writing to make sense of her experiences and wading through her angst and desperation around climate change, losing/finding one's home, and reclaiming inner and outer wildness - Pocock may be for you.
This book was still eye opening in regards to an outsider's experience in Montana, the state's natural but complicated beauty, and how the western idea of wilderness inspires many groups, movements, and personalities (some of which she goes into great detail and could not be further from my own beliefs ie ecosex....). So I did learn a few things but the nonchalant dismissal of monotheism and traditional family units was definitely off-putting.
This book was still eye opening in regards to an outsider's experience in Montana, the state's natural but complicated beauty, and how the western idea of wilderness inspires many groups, movements, and personalities (some of which she goes into great detail and could not be further from my own beliefs ie ecosex....). So I did learn a few things but the nonchalant dismissal of monotheism and traditional family units was definitely off-putting.
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