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Wild: An Elemental Journey
I took seven years over this work, spent all I had, my time, money and energy. Part of the journey was a green riot and part a deathly bleakness. I got ill, I got well. I went to the freedom fighters of West Papua and sang my head off in their highlands. I met cannibals infinitely kinder and more trustworthy than the murderous missionaries who evangelize them. I anchored a boat to an iceberg where polar bears slept; ate witchetty grubs and visited sea gypsies. I found a paradox of wildness in the glinting softness of its charisma, for what is savage is in the deepest sense gentle and what is wild is kind. In the end - a strangely sweet result - I came back to a wild home...
460 pages, Paperback
First published December 28, 2006
125 people are currently reading
2444 people want to read
About the author
Jay Griffiths
32 books134 followersJay Griffiths was born in Manchester and studied English Literature at Oxford University. She spent a couple of years living in a shed on the outskirts of Epping Forest and has travelled the world, but for many years she has been based in Wales.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 99 reviews
July 26, 2009
Couldn't finish it: it made me feel angry - seemed a bit much "Repressed intellectual privileged white woman goes to hang out with non-repressed poor people, takes drugs, lets it all hang out, feels much better, and writes a rave about how great it is to be poor and in touch with nature etc, dressed up with some residual intellectualism". I don't think that's entirely fair, but that's how I'm felt about it.
March 26, 2015
If you only have time for one sentence, hear this: Jay Griffiths’ book, Wild, is one of the most powerful books I’ve ever read. Wild is a celebration of wildness and freedom. It celebrates societies that work, societies that have complete respect for their ecosystems, societies that have survived for thousands of years without suffering destructive whirlwinds of mass hysteria.
Griffiths is a brilliant heretic and a proud one. Her book shows us what happens when madness collides with wildness. It helps us understand the dark injuries that destroyed our own freedom, and put us on the path to what we have become. It is 350 pages of full-throttle outside-the-box thinking, written with passion and eloquence. For outside-the-box thinkers, it’s just awesome. For light sleepers, it might provide a life-changing wakeup call.
Griffiths was born in deepest, darkest England, a devastated island that was once a magnificent rainforest. She was blessed with the precious curse and gift of having an active mind. She excelled at asking penetrating questions that were not proper for young ladies (or lads) to ask. The wardens were not amused.
During her teen years, she hung out with fundamentalist Christians, but what they were teaching could not survive rational scrutiny, and her mind was highly allergic to blind faith. Painful clashes inspired her to run away. She abandoned the normal life for which she had been trained. “I lost a walled city but found a wildness and freedom. I never regretted it.”
She wandered around the world, but life was not always easy. “Following a passionate freedom can mean loneliness, penury, humiliation, for we live in a world where the caged hate the free.” By and by, she floated away into a healthy dance with depression. Depression is one of life’s valuable idiot lights, warning us that it’s time to pay attention and alter our course.
One day, the phone rang, and a friend invited her to Peru, where she could hang out with shamans, use powerful medicine, and recover her lost soul. So she did, and it worked. The heavy black clouds soon dispersed. She spent the next seven years working on her book, travelling from the Amazon to New Guinea, Australia, and Arctic Canada.
We routinely teach our children that wild people are primitive, and that their way of life is inferior and undesirable. In so doing, we erect a brick wall that prohibits fresh wild notions from flushing the crud out of our wheezing, slobbering imaginations. Instead, we teach our children to live like there’s no tomorrow, to shop till you drop, to leave nothing behind for future generations.
Griffiths understands that the brick wall must be smashed, for the sake of all life. Her mind is a sledgehammer. She takes us on visits to wild ecosystems that stood in the path of the all-devouring global economy. She listened to the wild people, in a caring and respectful manner, hearing their pain, rage, and despair. They had a healthy way of life before the invasion. They needed nothing from us. They simply wanted to be left alone.
She took long treks through the jungle with wild people who possessed immense knowledge of the plants and animals. They perceived that all flora and fauna have spirits (except for domesticated plants). They saw that all wild beings were animated by the same life force, but different species appeared in different forms. We were all equal. When humans lived like equals, rather than masters, they didn’t gang rape their ecosystem, because that would have been inconceivable.
After days of hiking through a perfectly healthy land, a treasure of abundant life, they stumbled upon the town of Maldonado, the cash economy, the modern world — electric lights, pop music, abundant booze and drugs, discarded syringes, splatters of puke, and overflowing outhouses. Everyone seemed to be mad. “To me, the forest had been wildly beautiful and the town was a hideous wasteland.”
One chapter was devoted to the vast wildness of the sea, the place where all life began. The surface of Mars is better known to us than the floor of our oceans. The underwater world is a realm of immense beauty, and diversity. Cetaceans, like whales and dolphins, are incredibly intelligent, and they live in an incredibly intelligent manner, exactly as evolution prepared them to live, wild and free, without technology (a brilliant strategy for long-term success).
The ocean is a place where primates have little business, beyond the shoreline. Civilized primates have become abusive, ravaging the sea life, and filling the waters with toxins, sewage, garbage, and noise. Climate change is making the oceans so acidic that catastrophic harm now seems very likely. Wild people didn’t do this — even when they lived too hard, the harm they caused was far, far less than the harm caused by our way of life.
Missionaries were high on the list of people that Griffiths most resented, because their mission was to destroy wild cultures, and convert wild people into literate, employed, Christian consumers. In Peru, four different missionary groups, using helicopters and speed boats, competed to find uncontacted tribes. They knew that they would import deadly diseases, but they didn’t care. In some places, half of the people died within two years of their arrival. The priests blamed female shamans for the illness, and the angry people killed the shamans.
Common gifts for the converts included axes, tobacco, clothing, and mirrors. Mirrors enabled people to see their own faces, and become more aware of their individuality. Jesus saved individuals, not communities. God lived in heaven, and the Earth was a realm of wickedness, so it didn’t matter, it was worthless. Missionaries built roads into the jungle, which were soon used by miners, loggers, and other destroyers. Separated from the family of life, the modern heart gets hard.
Missionaries forced the natives to surrender their sacred objects, which they burned. Within two generations, traditional knowledge becomes extinct, because it is no longer being passed down to the young, who spend their days in classrooms. Cultural genocide is emotionally shattering. In one Brazilian tribe, over 300 natives committed suicide.
In Australia, the invasion of civilization has been devastating for the Aborigines and their home, but the elders maintain a sense of patience, for the noxious cities are nothing more than ugly scabs. Whites have never possessed the spirit of the land, which remains alive beneath the parking lots and shopping centers. With time, the disease will pass; the land will heal and thrive once again, to the best of its ability.
Humans are not domesticated, we are genetically wild animals, but so many have been tamed. “Tamed creatures are dolt-minded and dumb, insipid and bland,” Griffiths tells us. “The tame are trained only to hear the voice of their tamer, having ears only for command.” Our wild genes scream in despair, as we go berserk with cage rage. “Sensible habits and good road safety skills will keep you alive till eighty. So what? If you didn’t know freedom, you never lived.”
The myth of human superiority has constructed an enormous ecocidal monstrosity, and its ongoing self-destruction will result in unimaginable harm. If we cannot find a way to return to our humble place in the family of life, we will have no future. That’s the message here.
Griffiths is a brilliant heretic and a proud one. Her book shows us what happens when madness collides with wildness. It helps us understand the dark injuries that destroyed our own freedom, and put us on the path to what we have become. It is 350 pages of full-throttle outside-the-box thinking, written with passion and eloquence. For outside-the-box thinkers, it’s just awesome. For light sleepers, it might provide a life-changing wakeup call.
Griffiths was born in deepest, darkest England, a devastated island that was once a magnificent rainforest. She was blessed with the precious curse and gift of having an active mind. She excelled at asking penetrating questions that were not proper for young ladies (or lads) to ask. The wardens were not amused.
During her teen years, she hung out with fundamentalist Christians, but what they were teaching could not survive rational scrutiny, and her mind was highly allergic to blind faith. Painful clashes inspired her to run away. She abandoned the normal life for which she had been trained. “I lost a walled city but found a wildness and freedom. I never regretted it.”
She wandered around the world, but life was not always easy. “Following a passionate freedom can mean loneliness, penury, humiliation, for we live in a world where the caged hate the free.” By and by, she floated away into a healthy dance with depression. Depression is one of life’s valuable idiot lights, warning us that it’s time to pay attention and alter our course.
One day, the phone rang, and a friend invited her to Peru, where she could hang out with shamans, use powerful medicine, and recover her lost soul. So she did, and it worked. The heavy black clouds soon dispersed. She spent the next seven years working on her book, travelling from the Amazon to New Guinea, Australia, and Arctic Canada.
We routinely teach our children that wild people are primitive, and that their way of life is inferior and undesirable. In so doing, we erect a brick wall that prohibits fresh wild notions from flushing the crud out of our wheezing, slobbering imaginations. Instead, we teach our children to live like there’s no tomorrow, to shop till you drop, to leave nothing behind for future generations.
Griffiths understands that the brick wall must be smashed, for the sake of all life. Her mind is a sledgehammer. She takes us on visits to wild ecosystems that stood in the path of the all-devouring global economy. She listened to the wild people, in a caring and respectful manner, hearing their pain, rage, and despair. They had a healthy way of life before the invasion. They needed nothing from us. They simply wanted to be left alone.
She took long treks through the jungle with wild people who possessed immense knowledge of the plants and animals. They perceived that all flora and fauna have spirits (except for domesticated plants). They saw that all wild beings were animated by the same life force, but different species appeared in different forms. We were all equal. When humans lived like equals, rather than masters, they didn’t gang rape their ecosystem, because that would have been inconceivable.
After days of hiking through a perfectly healthy land, a treasure of abundant life, they stumbled upon the town of Maldonado, the cash economy, the modern world — electric lights, pop music, abundant booze and drugs, discarded syringes, splatters of puke, and overflowing outhouses. Everyone seemed to be mad. “To me, the forest had been wildly beautiful and the town was a hideous wasteland.”
One chapter was devoted to the vast wildness of the sea, the place where all life began. The surface of Mars is better known to us than the floor of our oceans. The underwater world is a realm of immense beauty, and diversity. Cetaceans, like whales and dolphins, are incredibly intelligent, and they live in an incredibly intelligent manner, exactly as evolution prepared them to live, wild and free, without technology (a brilliant strategy for long-term success).
The ocean is a place where primates have little business, beyond the shoreline. Civilized primates have become abusive, ravaging the sea life, and filling the waters with toxins, sewage, garbage, and noise. Climate change is making the oceans so acidic that catastrophic harm now seems very likely. Wild people didn’t do this — even when they lived too hard, the harm they caused was far, far less than the harm caused by our way of life.
Missionaries were high on the list of people that Griffiths most resented, because their mission was to destroy wild cultures, and convert wild people into literate, employed, Christian consumers. In Peru, four different missionary groups, using helicopters and speed boats, competed to find uncontacted tribes. They knew that they would import deadly diseases, but they didn’t care. In some places, half of the people died within two years of their arrival. The priests blamed female shamans for the illness, and the angry people killed the shamans.
Common gifts for the converts included axes, tobacco, clothing, and mirrors. Mirrors enabled people to see their own faces, and become more aware of their individuality. Jesus saved individuals, not communities. God lived in heaven, and the Earth was a realm of wickedness, so it didn’t matter, it was worthless. Missionaries built roads into the jungle, which were soon used by miners, loggers, and other destroyers. Separated from the family of life, the modern heart gets hard.
Missionaries forced the natives to surrender their sacred objects, which they burned. Within two generations, traditional knowledge becomes extinct, because it is no longer being passed down to the young, who spend their days in classrooms. Cultural genocide is emotionally shattering. In one Brazilian tribe, over 300 natives committed suicide.
In Australia, the invasion of civilization has been devastating for the Aborigines and their home, but the elders maintain a sense of patience, for the noxious cities are nothing more than ugly scabs. Whites have never possessed the spirit of the land, which remains alive beneath the parking lots and shopping centers. With time, the disease will pass; the land will heal and thrive once again, to the best of its ability.
Humans are not domesticated, we are genetically wild animals, but so many have been tamed. “Tamed creatures are dolt-minded and dumb, insipid and bland,” Griffiths tells us. “The tame are trained only to hear the voice of their tamer, having ears only for command.” Our wild genes scream in despair, as we go berserk with cage rage. “Sensible habits and good road safety skills will keep you alive till eighty. So what? If you didn’t know freedom, you never lived.”
The myth of human superiority has constructed an enormous ecocidal monstrosity, and its ongoing self-destruction will result in unimaginable harm. If we cannot find a way to return to our humble place in the family of life, we will have no future. That’s the message here.
January 9, 2008
Ms. Griffith doesn't think like me. This is the very reason I am reading this tome. She is a radical feminist, anti-Christian, anti-corporate, and anti-western civilization in her views. I have found her challenging, engaging, often aggravating, but always a good story teller. It has been a positive stretch for me to read this book.
December 11, 2010
I've never read a book quite like this; it's very difficult to describe. Seven years in the writing, like some mythical hero's trials, it's a hymn to the wild, written by a young poet, anthropologist, philosopher, adventurer, and probably manic depressive too. It's divided into sections for each element: Earth, Ice (an element on its own), Water, Fire, and Air, and Griffiths travels the globe in search of unspoiled wildness: the Amazon, the Arctic, Indonesia, Australia, and West Papua (with a brief epilogue in Outer Mongolia). It might seem overdone in places but there is some wonderful sweeping poetry and passionate advocacy of the rights of "savages", as well as epic rage against suburbia, Christianity, and golf courses, among other things.
The language itself is wild and anarchic, although she is wonderful on the etymology of words, drawing all sorts of intriguing connections. On the enclosure of land in Australia, for example: "Fence... means not only boundary but also the keeper of stolen goods, and settlers, stealing the land, fenced it before they did anything else."
Her bibliography is staggeringly eclectic and erudite: she quotes the Bible, Rousseau, Francis Bacon, Conrad, and Flanders and Swann with equal facility. Yet despite her erudition she can become fully absorbed by "wild" cultures, getting stoned with shamans in Peru, going out with whale hunters in Alaska, or struggling through mountains and swamps in West Papua with local guides whom she feels more at home with than the obnoxious-sounding anthropologist who is her companion.
The language itself is wild and anarchic, although she is wonderful on the etymology of words, drawing all sorts of intriguing connections. On the enclosure of land in Australia, for example: "Fence... means not only boundary but also the keeper of stolen goods, and settlers, stealing the land, fenced it before they did anything else."
Her bibliography is staggeringly eclectic and erudite: she quotes the Bible, Rousseau, Francis Bacon, Conrad, and Flanders and Swann with equal facility. Yet despite her erudition she can become fully absorbed by "wild" cultures, getting stoned with shamans in Peru, going out with whale hunters in Alaska, or struggling through mountains and swamps in West Papua with local guides whom she feels more at home with than the obnoxious-sounding anthropologist who is her companion.
I took seven years over this work, spent all I had, my time, money and energy. Part of the journey was a green riot and part a deathly bleakness. I got ill, I got well ... I got to the point of collapse. I got the giggles. I met cannibals infinitely kinder and more trustworthy than the murderous missionaries who evangelize them. ... I found a paradox of wildness in the glinting softness of its charisma, for what is savage is in the deepest sense gentle and what is wild is kind.
March 2, 2016
This book exhibits strong language and sexual references and my review contains one example of that towards the end. I have checked that this does not violate the Goodreads review guidelines (which you can read by following this link: https://www.goodreads.com/review/guid...). Although I apologise for any offence this may cause, I believe it is necessary to meet this author on her own ground, as I hope will become clear as you read on.
In her teens Jay Griffiths had an experience of a strongly conservative form of Christianity that left deep scars. It is hard to tell from her brief description (pp.323-4) just how long this period of her life was, but the experience was clearly profound. Like many who are wounded in this way, she has a very strong but incomplete (and therefore inaccurate) picture of what Christianity is. Sadly much of what she suspects is then reinforced by her encounters with other fundamentalist Christians as she travels to different parts of the world. Seeing first hand much of the tragedies brought about by the spread of Europeans, including aggressive capitalists and missionaries (sometimes in an unholy alliance), confirms her in her belief that it is a harmful faith. There are painful, essential conversations to be had here about the appropriateness of Christian interventions in other cultures. We have – some of us – learned our lessons the hard way. Others have learned nothing at all.
The strength of this book is therefore also its weakness. Griffiths writes passionately. She is not afraid to take sides. But this wholeheartedness blinds her to some of the nuances that exist in the world as it is today. Suspecting ‘the Christian god’ to be malign she looks for evidence wherever she can and – surprise, surprise – finds it. But this never amounts to a proper critique of Christianity, based as it is on supposition and lies. She therefore sabotages her own argument. For me this feeds two fears: first that the thundering machinery of ignorance and prejudice continues to desecrate the human spirit; second – and far more important – that the real evils of colonialism go unabated, for an ineffective challenge is as bad as no challenge at all.
Griffiths is at her best – as most of us are – when she concentrates upon what she loves. Her command of English is impressive: flowing, poetic, at times transcendent. She demonstrates that the flint-hard Saxon so often exiled from polite publication has its place and must not be ignored. She gives voice to the profundity (and profanities) of nature in so many of her manifestations, and I found myself transported time and again, scanning whole sections so that I can revel in the sensuous, vital, living power of her words. She is hardest to take when she is attacking the things she hates, mostly because her weapon is a scattergun: everyone who looks like part of the problem – whether they are or not – is mown down. I think I saw Jesus among the dead.
Where I believe her to be wrong is that wilderness and wildness is not a problem for those who follow Christ unless – and this is a human trait, we all do it – we make it one. Jesus went to the wilderness. He was even offered the opportunity to change it, to tame it, to bend it to his will – which he refused. But the wilderness is frightening. Many of us shy back from it. The devil appears there, certainly, but more surely in the cities. It is only in the wilderness where Satan is exposed and speaks with her/his own voice. For those of us who believe, Jesus is the face of one who, in love with the world, gives all he has. “thunder and cunt"? These things can be from God however you choose to name them, and they are good. Self-willed? Yes, like their creator, who is also their lover. Jesus’ self-identification as ‘the good shepherd’ is by contrast to the hired hand who runs away. It is not about making everyone a sheep, it is about himself and his fierce passion, an intense fire. We see his image in the West Papuans who become heedless (p.305) of the British/Indonesian bullets, for only the beloved matters. Where do we read of Jesus taming, or advocating the taming, of any creature? To whom indeed do those freedom fighters pray (pp.302ff)?
Wild was a book that chose me: winking across a crowded library, causing me to change tack. Endorsed by one of my favourite authors, Robert Macfarlane, I promised I would read it and have kept my promise. It has been one of the most profound, vital and difficult books I have ever read, and I will not be the same again.
In her teens Jay Griffiths had an experience of a strongly conservative form of Christianity that left deep scars. It is hard to tell from her brief description (pp.323-4) just how long this period of her life was, but the experience was clearly profound. Like many who are wounded in this way, she has a very strong but incomplete (and therefore inaccurate) picture of what Christianity is. Sadly much of what she suspects is then reinforced by her encounters with other fundamentalist Christians as she travels to different parts of the world. Seeing first hand much of the tragedies brought about by the spread of Europeans, including aggressive capitalists and missionaries (sometimes in an unholy alliance), confirms her in her belief that it is a harmful faith. There are painful, essential conversations to be had here about the appropriateness of Christian interventions in other cultures. We have – some of us – learned our lessons the hard way. Others have learned nothing at all.
The strength of this book is therefore also its weakness. Griffiths writes passionately. She is not afraid to take sides. But this wholeheartedness blinds her to some of the nuances that exist in the world as it is today. Suspecting ‘the Christian god’ to be malign she looks for evidence wherever she can and – surprise, surprise – finds it. But this never amounts to a proper critique of Christianity, based as it is on supposition and lies. She therefore sabotages her own argument. For me this feeds two fears: first that the thundering machinery of ignorance and prejudice continues to desecrate the human spirit; second – and far more important – that the real evils of colonialism go unabated, for an ineffective challenge is as bad as no challenge at all.
Griffiths is at her best – as most of us are – when she concentrates upon what she loves. Her command of English is impressive: flowing, poetic, at times transcendent. She demonstrates that the flint-hard Saxon so often exiled from polite publication has its place and must not be ignored. She gives voice to the profundity (and profanities) of nature in so many of her manifestations, and I found myself transported time and again, scanning whole sections so that I can revel in the sensuous, vital, living power of her words. She is hardest to take when she is attacking the things she hates, mostly because her weapon is a scattergun: everyone who looks like part of the problem – whether they are or not – is mown down. I think I saw Jesus among the dead.
Where I believe her to be wrong is that wilderness and wildness is not a problem for those who follow Christ unless – and this is a human trait, we all do it – we make it one. Jesus went to the wilderness. He was even offered the opportunity to change it, to tame it, to bend it to his will – which he refused. But the wilderness is frightening. Many of us shy back from it. The devil appears there, certainly, but more surely in the cities. It is only in the wilderness where Satan is exposed and speaks with her/his own voice. For those of us who believe, Jesus is the face of one who, in love with the world, gives all he has. “thunder and cunt"? These things can be from God however you choose to name them, and they are good. Self-willed? Yes, like their creator, who is also their lover. Jesus’ self-identification as ‘the good shepherd’ is by contrast to the hired hand who runs away. It is not about making everyone a sheep, it is about himself and his fierce passion, an intense fire. We see his image in the West Papuans who become heedless (p.305) of the British/Indonesian bullets, for only the beloved matters. Where do we read of Jesus taming, or advocating the taming, of any creature? To whom indeed do those freedom fighters pray (pp.302ff)?
Wild was a book that chose me: winking across a crowded library, causing me to change tack. Endorsed by one of my favourite authors, Robert Macfarlane, I promised I would read it and have kept my promise. It has been one of the most profound, vital and difficult books I have ever read, and I will not be the same again.
October 31, 2008
I can't remember being so turned off a book so quickly. It felt like it was written by a teenager. The essence of wildness in peyote! ... please!
June 24, 2019
It took me a year and a half to finish this, simply because I didn't want it to finish this book. It lay beside my bed as a Bible. I have swallowed every single phrase out of this book, chewed it and dived into extreme details, wishing that kids learn all this in geography classes. The author uses great figurative language and if you are not a native speaker, you can learn so much from her. She uses words beautifully and has a coherent research for writing this novel. I awe her attempts to find wilderness in the most remote places on Earth and elaborate on the destruction of wildlife by modern society.
January 4, 2014
While I enjoyed the stories of her global travels and descriptions of other cultures and customs, I was intensely repelled by Ms. Griffiths' obvious deep-seated hatred for so many things, especially white people and western “civilization”. Ms. Griffiths has a way with words and can weave beautiful, poetic images… yet often resorts to crude slang. If you enjoy odd philosophical meanderings and radical ideologies, pseudo-intellectual eco-socialism, and scathing attacks on the moralism and ethics of anyone who isn’t a loincloth-gird “savage”, this book is for you.
June 22, 2013
Author Jay Griffiths spent 7 years of her life on a life changing journey to the world’s remotest places living with indigenous peoples and learning their compassionate and wise ways. This book is a celebration of their often-neglected outlooks and especially their connection to the natural rhythms and harmonies of Gaia. Divided into chapters named after the four elements, each one follows her experience in the realms of Earth, Air, Fire and Water (Ice). The deepest message of this book is that what is most wild in the world, and in our selves, is also what is most kind. Its savage criticism is reserved for European ways of thinking that have led to widespread destruction of species and entire eco-systems and posits that reversing this trend by changing our relationship to ourselves is the great challenge of our time. I will always remember her description of the Jaguar she encounters in the dream state of a South American shamanic rite and her enrapturement at its “exquisite shimmer of sexual charisma”. We need to save the wild in ourselves before we can possibly save it anywhere else!! This book is amazing and the record of a different kind of odyssey. SIMON
September 2, 2013
I found this book hugely compelling. I started reading it on a camping holiday with my children - exactly the right environment. As I turned the pages sitting outside our tent in the dark as they slept, surrounded by hills with bats flitting around me and a whiskey warming my throat, Jay Griffith's words tapped into exactly what I was feeling - the 'wildness' that is so essential to feeling properly alive. 'Wild' is a poem to the earth and the indigenous people who truly know how to treat it and respect it. It is an intensely feminine book in many ways, an is also, as Griffiths tells the by turns joyous and tragic stories of the people she encounters on her travels, raw and emotional. I certainly drank in every word and, as I did so, felt increasingly angry at the ways so many in the world have a crashingly ignorant and harmful view of which 'ways of living' are preferable - and are doing so much damage in the expressing of this. This is an important book, beautifully written and breathtaking in its intelligence. I adored it.
January 14, 2014
My reactions to this book and the author are ambivalent. On the one hand, she is certainly passionate about preserving wildness in all its forms and taking action. On the other hand, her dualistic viewpoint means that situations and cultures are painted in un-nuanced, black and white terms. Griffiths is also a fierce supporter of native cultures/peoples, who are suffering theft of lands and destruction by western moneyed interests. For example, my eyes were opened to the complicity of the U.S. in the land grab in Papua New Guinea.
But the flip side is that Griffith's moral outrage is not consistently applied. For example, she seems to consider certain practices by indigenous peoples sacrosanct just because they are "traditional"--regardless of the harm these practices cause to other living beings, whose own populations are under threat.
But the flip side is that Griffith's moral outrage is not consistently applied. For example, she seems to consider certain practices by indigenous peoples sacrosanct just because they are "traditional"--regardless of the harm these practices cause to other living beings, whose own populations are under threat.
July 26, 2016
Wild - a very confusing story should be the title. I found the author jumped around alot in the book and although some of the description used in the book was very awe-inducing, I found that she repeated herself quite alot.
I did not finish this book because after a while I found her writing to be annoying and she was a little bit condescending and patronising
I did not finish this book because after a while I found her writing to be annoying and she was a little bit condescending and patronising
August 19, 2013
I've just recently finished reading this book - after eight months. I really laboured through it, and only finished it because I don't like starting a book and not finishing it. It came highly recommended by someone I admire, but I have a few quibbles with it.
Jay writes exquisitely, which I truly admire and envy her for. She is also extremely brave and adventurous for having tackled places and situations that she writes about. I also share many of her views on wildness. What irked me was her self-righteous tone at times. I did find her 'preachy', and often inconsistent and offensive in her views.
She does unilaterally dismiss all 'western white' people as being in the wrong and all 'primitive'(ie, victims of the white westerners and untainted by civilization)people and their cultures as 'right'. Of course there was a lot of wrong done in the name of civilization and turning people to Christianity, but there must have been a lot of good people among them too. Likewise, I don't believe for a moment that the 'primitive' people are not capable of their own atrocities too.
She comes across as pro-women, but she does admit that she feels more comfortable in the presence of men, and her description of the people in West Papua does point to chauvinist behaviour. When a child dies in that society it is womens'ears or finger tips that are chopped off and not men's. She writes eloquently of being allowed, as an honorary man, to sit with the men in their hut at night while they smoked but I'd like to ask why the women in that society are excluded from such gatherings. Isn't it reminiscent of 'men only' clubs in the western world, or of Victorian times when women used to beat a hasty retreat after dinner to leave the men to their port and cigars?
Another point is her bashing of Christianity. Each to their own and all that but would she have got away if she wrote like this about the Jewish faith? or Islam? A little respect for other belief systems, whether you agree with them or not, would not have detracted from the value of the book.
At the end, she describes her heartbreak very movingly, but then goes on to say that after a period - a few weeks - it's time to thrive and start living again as nature does. Well, good for her but for some people it takes longer than others to recover from tragic events, and some don't recover at all. Are such people less than others?
A great author, but a little humility would not hurt.
Jay writes exquisitely, which I truly admire and envy her for. She is also extremely brave and adventurous for having tackled places and situations that she writes about. I also share many of her views on wildness. What irked me was her self-righteous tone at times. I did find her 'preachy', and often inconsistent and offensive in her views.
She does unilaterally dismiss all 'western white' people as being in the wrong and all 'primitive'(ie, victims of the white westerners and untainted by civilization)people and their cultures as 'right'. Of course there was a lot of wrong done in the name of civilization and turning people to Christianity, but there must have been a lot of good people among them too. Likewise, I don't believe for a moment that the 'primitive' people are not capable of their own atrocities too.
She comes across as pro-women, but she does admit that she feels more comfortable in the presence of men, and her description of the people in West Papua does point to chauvinist behaviour. When a child dies in that society it is womens'ears or finger tips that are chopped off and not men's. She writes eloquently of being allowed, as an honorary man, to sit with the men in their hut at night while they smoked but I'd like to ask why the women in that society are excluded from such gatherings. Isn't it reminiscent of 'men only' clubs in the western world, or of Victorian times when women used to beat a hasty retreat after dinner to leave the men to their port and cigars?
Another point is her bashing of Christianity. Each to their own and all that but would she have got away if she wrote like this about the Jewish faith? or Islam? A little respect for other belief systems, whether you agree with them or not, would not have detracted from the value of the book.
At the end, she describes her heartbreak very movingly, but then goes on to say that after a period - a few weeks - it's time to thrive and start living again as nature does. Well, good for her but for some people it takes longer than others to recover from tragic events, and some don't recover at all. Are such people less than others?
A great author, but a little humility would not hurt.
September 5, 2014
Weirdly alluring.
I stumbled across this book during one of my fishing trips in the charity shops. It was the cover that made me want this, and also because it was so different from what I usually read.
I didn't realise it was travel writing until I was part way through, Griffiths goes on a journey that is more spiritual than literal, even thought her destinations are beautiful and real and gritty.
This was a heavy going read. It reminded me of Anne Michaels, whom I recently read as part of my course.
This is like a travel writing/poetry hybrid. And in that sense, I'm not sure this is for the faint hearted, Griffths says some things that makes a lemon-lover like me blush!
I'm nearly finished, but again, the dense descriptions and admissions makes it difficult to read except in short bursts.
For me this was exciting writing, insanely unique and tickles all the senses.
^.^
I stumbled across this book during one of my fishing trips in the charity shops. It was the cover that made me want this, and also because it was so different from what I usually read.
I didn't realise it was travel writing until I was part way through, Griffiths goes on a journey that is more spiritual than literal, even thought her destinations are beautiful and real and gritty.
This was a heavy going read. It reminded me of Anne Michaels, whom I recently read as part of my course.
This is like a travel writing/poetry hybrid. And in that sense, I'm not sure this is for the faint hearted, Griffths says some things that makes a lemon-lover like me blush!
I'm nearly finished, but again, the dense descriptions and admissions makes it difficult to read except in short bursts.
For me this was exciting writing, insanely unique and tickles all the senses.
^.^
July 7, 2021
Well this started off amazingly with rainforests, indigenous ceremony, Ayahuasca, wild jungle terrain. Whilst Jay Griffiths got a little over-orgasmic about the use of words synonymous with wild, I was still enjoying things at this point.
Then BOOM, Arctic, murdered animals, slaughtered whales and she's gleefully sticking her hand in a whale's heart (whilst feeling totes emosh of course!!) and eating seal liver (to be one of the lads) and begging to be taken out on hunt boats, you know just for the local craic! It was then that I just thought "oh fuck off Jay Griffiths"!!
All kudos to people who immerse themselves in other cultures, but this just felt like gratuitous "look at me, I'm mad me" type bullshit, with unnecessary luxuriating in animal cruelty.
Just stop it Griffiths!
This is quickly going to the charity shop.
Then BOOM, Arctic, murdered animals, slaughtered whales and she's gleefully sticking her hand in a whale's heart (whilst feeling totes emosh of course!!) and eating seal liver (to be one of the lads) and begging to be taken out on hunt boats, you know just for the local craic! It was then that I just thought "oh fuck off Jay Griffiths"!!
All kudos to people who immerse themselves in other cultures, but this just felt like gratuitous "look at me, I'm mad me" type bullshit, with unnecessary luxuriating in animal cruelty.
Just stop it Griffiths!
This is quickly going to the charity shop.
August 13, 2008
I loved it, I hated it. In and out of it I went. I loved the stories she told, hated her self-importance and her overdone prose, which would at times leave Walter Pater in the shade. See my views on her chum Macfarlane.
Are we entering a new era of ichor and tesellated pavements, where everyoen goes for Immediate Impact? If so, get out the Hemingway! If you want wild, read Big Two-hearted River, which I'm willing to bet Griffiths hates because it's about a man and not menstrual cycles (ay-ay-ay).
Girzzling over, some of the stories (probably just abotu as truue as Hemingway's) are wonderful, and I do love her passion. BTW< what abotu some British wild? roger Deakin is better on this. Lower carbon footprint, too.
Are we entering a new era of ichor and tesellated pavements, where everyoen goes for Immediate Impact? If so, get out the Hemingway! If you want wild, read Big Two-hearted River, which I'm willing to bet Griffiths hates because it's about a man and not menstrual cycles (ay-ay-ay).
Girzzling over, some of the stories (probably just abotu as truue as Hemingway's) are wonderful, and I do love her passion. BTW< what abotu some British wild? roger Deakin is better on this. Lower carbon footprint, too.
November 26, 2008
One of the best books I've ever read. Part travelogue, part self-exploration, Ms. Griffiths explores how she feels environmental destruction is related to man's inherent fear of other. She's right up there with Terry Tempest Williams in my book.
October 7, 2017
An inspiring book of a lady who met many indigenous people around the world and discovered how they have been persecuted by the west and Christians. Trying to change their simpler content ways; being at one with nature, having respect for all living things. It makes me realise how much we have digressed from that in this materialistic world, a slave to corporations and fear.
The Christians intentionally went to uncontacted tribes in the amazon even though they knew they would cause death and disease in the people. How the Canadian government make the Inuit children go to school and how they are losing their knowledge of the land, to lose a life that they were happy with. There is now have a massive drug and suicide problem as a result of the government trying to change their way of life. People are trying to revert back, and success is shown.
I wish we were different, I wish we were more passive to others, I wish we had more freedom, I wish we respected nature more. As the indigenous people did/do.
The Christians intentionally went to uncontacted tribes in the amazon even though they knew they would cause death and disease in the people. How the Canadian government make the Inuit children go to school and how they are losing their knowledge of the land, to lose a life that they were happy with. There is now have a massive drug and suicide problem as a result of the government trying to change their way of life. People are trying to revert back, and success is shown.
I wish we were different, I wish we were more passive to others, I wish we had more freedom, I wish we respected nature more. As the indigenous people did/do.
January 26, 2020
I loved this book very much. I found the ending very honest but also disappointing in a way. In another way I loved the reality of the ending.
The actual experiences of living with indigenous tribes were amazing, the descriptions of natural history and landscape beautiful and the honest accounts of endeavour, successes and difficulties so inspiring.
Her excursions into feminist philosophising upon male adventuring were both illuminating and humorous and her deep interest in linguistics fascinating.
The actual experiences of living with indigenous tribes were amazing, the descriptions of natural history and landscape beautiful and the honest accounts of endeavour, successes and difficulties so inspiring.
Her excursions into feminist philosophising upon male adventuring were both illuminating and humorous and her deep interest in linguistics fascinating.
May 10, 2020
This book is a collection of travel essays loosely joined by a central theme of extreme wilderness and it's inhabitants. The essays are of an extremely mixed quality. The best ("Wild Air", set in West Papua) successfully brings together global politics and capitalism, anthropology, and deep ecology, while remaining an engaging journey. The worst ("Wild Earth", set in the Amazon) attempts the same but fails totally on account of its obnoxious tone.
Griffiths' style can best be described as over-confident. This is something she occasionally pulls off in moments of poetic righteousness. Often, however, she comes across as naive and pretentious. Given that this was at its worst in the first essay, it left lasting damage on her credibility for much of the remainder of the read.
That said, by the end I felt like Griffiths' had redeemed herself, or I had just warmed to her style. The book proved an intriguing lense through which to critique my Western suburban existence, and definitely made me want to go outside.
Griffiths' style can best be described as over-confident. This is something she occasionally pulls off in moments of poetic righteousness. Often, however, she comes across as naive and pretentious. Given that this was at its worst in the first essay, it left lasting damage on her credibility for much of the remainder of the read.
That said, by the end I felt like Griffiths' had redeemed herself, or I had just warmed to her style. The book proved an intriguing lense through which to critique my Western suburban existence, and definitely made me want to go outside.
June 12, 2021
Make no mistake - Jay Griffiths is a talented and poetic writer of prose. But for me that wasn't enough to excuse or overlook her pretentious attitudes about humanity's so-called 'wildness' and place within nature. She talks about cultural appropriation then goes on to describe her experience of wild living among a tribe in Thailand where she ate rats, testicles and "even a wild cat" without any hint of conscience or realization how hypocritical that sounds. Maybe it's the fact I don't eat animals that this struck me as selfish and hedonistic. But does she really think such behavior puts her in touch with nature, with her own human-animalness, with the true essence of what it is to be "wild" - or was this just a self-indulgent foray into her own construct of wildness? Well, there are definitely interesting passages & chapters in the book -- though her rambling on & on about her own vagina isn't one of them -- & her anger toward humanity for it's blatant disregard of nature and the destruction of the earth's wild places *is* commendable, but her own inclination to violence toward non-human animals turned this earth advocate off. I will say, I do agree with her on most environmental issues but I'm tired of humanity's cruelty directed at non-human animals, and particularly so when done pretentiously in the name of "wildness". No doubt the Trump brothers say the same when they're slaughtering endangered animals on one of their safaris. Maybe one day Griffiths will find a more compassionate way to satisfy her need for abandon and self-gratification.
October 15, 2021
Another life-changer for me....I was mesmerised by her breadth of knowledge about so many things. She sets the book out in chapters - Wild Earth, Wild Air, Wild Water .... and uses each chapter to compare the thjoughs and beliefs of many different indigenous communities across the world - concerning nature and wildness/wilderness. What really fascinated me was her insistence on the history of Christianity as being the main force for both colonial expansion and for putting humans above all other species and Christian/Western humans above all others. Some of the quotes from missionary's letters that she uses are truly shocking, more powerful seen in the context she lays out of homo sapiens being part of nature not dominant over nature. We know this as a truism, but reading how in practice that caused such terrible damage to our planet is really interesting.
It was written in 2004, befor the Climate Emergency was in everyones thoughts all the time, yet the evidence she gives about habitats destroyed and the problems arising for native people around the world is very necessary and even more humbling.
It keeps reverberating in me everything I read or listen to daily now. I keep hearing assumptions of human superiority thrown out in every news broadcast and in many conversations with friends and associates.
It was written in 2004, befor the Climate Emergency was in everyones thoughts all the time, yet the evidence she gives about habitats destroyed and the problems arising for native people around the world is very necessary and even more humbling.
It keeps reverberating in me everything I read or listen to daily now. I keep hearing assumptions of human superiority thrown out in every news broadcast and in many conversations with friends and associates.
August 1, 2019
Obviously this is an incredible book filled with a lot of important information about indigenous people and lesser known places.
Personally, I just wished Jay had written a more flowing narrative of her experience in each place: the earth, ice, water, fire air and mind.
I understand that the book is about wildness, and that certainly reflects in the narrative structure, which feels sporadic and out of control, difficult to follow.
What begins as absorbing prose becomes a three page list of how to say freedom in 16 different languages, or what begins as a story about time spent out at sea becomes an information booklet littered with facts and figures. At times it reads like a literary dissertation, quote on quote on quote with jumbled references that are hard to follow.
Without those parts, which I felt were overdone and took away from the true narrative of the book, I feel the book would have been better as it would be more readable and accessible, something that I feel it should be as it seems to wish to enlighten more people about its content. With this intention in mind, it seems ironic to then litter the book with incomprehensible wordplay and explanations that seem to only make sense if you are in the author’s mind.
I’m sure other people ‘get’ the references too and find those exciting, I just speak from my personal experience with the book. By the end I adopted a habit of skim reading those overwritten sections and following back to the narrative.
It’s okay to just write about your experience without backing it up by other sources. I recognise the importance of referencing other people because that also gives them a window of opportunity to be recognised and respected. I just found those discussions a little overly weighty, rather than placed in a way that flows with the text.
Maybe that lack of flow, as I said before, is intentional to have us get used to true wildness. But I prefer the idea of nature flowing not so juttingly, like a river, as it does in my experience.
Jay is clearly a gifted writer and has a brain full of valuable information and a heart full of compassion for others.
Worth reading to learn more about indigenous people, the Inuits, shamans and the people of West Papua. Just be prepared to do some skimming if you don’t feel like reading a thesaurus.
3.5/5
Personally, I just wished Jay had written a more flowing narrative of her experience in each place: the earth, ice, water, fire air and mind.
I understand that the book is about wildness, and that certainly reflects in the narrative structure, which feels sporadic and out of control, difficult to follow.
What begins as absorbing prose becomes a three page list of how to say freedom in 16 different languages, or what begins as a story about time spent out at sea becomes an information booklet littered with facts and figures. At times it reads like a literary dissertation, quote on quote on quote with jumbled references that are hard to follow.
Without those parts, which I felt were overdone and took away from the true narrative of the book, I feel the book would have been better as it would be more readable and accessible, something that I feel it should be as it seems to wish to enlighten more people about its content. With this intention in mind, it seems ironic to then litter the book with incomprehensible wordplay and explanations that seem to only make sense if you are in the author’s mind.
I’m sure other people ‘get’ the references too and find those exciting, I just speak from my personal experience with the book. By the end I adopted a habit of skim reading those overwritten sections and following back to the narrative.
It’s okay to just write about your experience without backing it up by other sources. I recognise the importance of referencing other people because that also gives them a window of opportunity to be recognised and respected. I just found those discussions a little overly weighty, rather than placed in a way that flows with the text.
Maybe that lack of flow, as I said before, is intentional to have us get used to true wildness. But I prefer the idea of nature flowing not so juttingly, like a river, as it does in my experience.
Jay is clearly a gifted writer and has a brain full of valuable information and a heart full of compassion for others.
Worth reading to learn more about indigenous people, the Inuits, shamans and the people of West Papua. Just be prepared to do some skimming if you don’t feel like reading a thesaurus.
3.5/5
August 7, 2021
When I started reading this book I fell in love with it immediately - it swept me off my feet with luscious, vibrant, sensual imagery and highly original poetic language. Lots of wordplays and language tangents. I quickly became immersed in the author's deep honest world, in the Amazon jungle and with the peoples there.
The book is arranged in five main parts, based on the elements of earth, ice (yes), water, fire and air, and the author's travels to five places where she connects with indigenous people in the Amazon jungle, the Canadian Arctic near Greenland, Indonesian sea off Sulawesi, central Australia (around Uluru and Alice Springs), and the highlands of West Papua (known by the Indonesian invaders as Irian Jaya).
Jay Griffiths explores the wild and natural world as she learns about it from the local people, who are as much a part of the landscape as all the other creatures. This is a love song to Mother Earth in all her writhing sexy glory, teeming with stunning and interconnected creatures including humans. The "wild" isn't scary, or unpopulated with humans, or a wasteland, it's thrumming with joyous life.
She also tells the stories of past and present colonisation and exploitation of the people and the land by invaders who seek to dominate and extract what they can from the earth and the people. As if to underline the point, as I read this book the news broke of the discovery of unmarked graves of hundreds of stolen First Nations children in Canada. I cried.
Griffiths makes it very clear that this isn't just historical - this racist, genocidal raping and pillaging of people and the earth continues to the present day, blatantly and with tacit or overt approval by many countries and people. Particularly galling was the attitude of some white women in West Papua whose husbands were working at the Freeport mine, which is toxifying the water the locals drink from. Yet the white women said they were teaching the locals "hygiene".
The weakest section was the one about water, as there is very little about the sea gypsies; we don't get much of a sense of them and their culture. There is heaps of amazing information about creatures in the sea though.
I devoured this book, although towards the end it started to pale a bit; seemed to become a bit self-indulgent. But overall a really absorbing read.
The book is arranged in five main parts, based on the elements of earth, ice (yes), water, fire and air, and the author's travels to five places where she connects with indigenous people in the Amazon jungle, the Canadian Arctic near Greenland, Indonesian sea off Sulawesi, central Australia (around Uluru and Alice Springs), and the highlands of West Papua (known by the Indonesian invaders as Irian Jaya).
Jay Griffiths explores the wild and natural world as she learns about it from the local people, who are as much a part of the landscape as all the other creatures. This is a love song to Mother Earth in all her writhing sexy glory, teeming with stunning and interconnected creatures including humans. The "wild" isn't scary, or unpopulated with humans, or a wasteland, it's thrumming with joyous life.
She also tells the stories of past and present colonisation and exploitation of the people and the land by invaders who seek to dominate and extract what they can from the earth and the people. As if to underline the point, as I read this book the news broke of the discovery of unmarked graves of hundreds of stolen First Nations children in Canada. I cried.
Griffiths makes it very clear that this isn't just historical - this racist, genocidal raping and pillaging of people and the earth continues to the present day, blatantly and with tacit or overt approval by many countries and people. Particularly galling was the attitude of some white women in West Papua whose husbands were working at the Freeport mine, which is toxifying the water the locals drink from. Yet the white women said they were teaching the locals "hygiene".
The weakest section was the one about water, as there is very little about the sea gypsies; we don't get much of a sense of them and their culture. There is heaps of amazing information about creatures in the sea though.
I devoured this book, although towards the end it started to pale a bit; seemed to become a bit self-indulgent. But overall a really absorbing read.
October 26, 2017
This is a very worthwhile book for anyone who is troubled by the way we treat the world, and all those in it. It is very well researched, and thoughtfully, if not passionately written. The author vacillates between a brash assault on the reader and a softer and resigned tone that can be hard to get used to. It is in keeping with the manic disposition of the cruelty and injustice she witnesses and tries to interpret.
I have seen several reviews where people have put her down for being God Hating and White hating, I don't think for one moment that is the message of this book. What is true is that a balance existed for many generations before these two things were introduced to Indigenous cultures. Rather than a quiet fire side chat that consisted of "this is our particular view" from the likes of the missionaries et al., It was an immediate call for change to peoples, cultures, beliefs and the places that were left unspoiled for generations. People who understood in order for there to be enough to sustain us, we must protect it and take only what we need.
Competition and greed are the direct cause of the poverty that exists among these cultures today. They have lost their identity and with it their soul. They are often aimless and tortured by the things they have seen done to their land and their people. They have turned to drink and drugs to ply the pain of what they cannot remember or choose to forget. Their beliefs have been diluted or stripped completely and they now find themselves without a country, culture or religion that is relatable.
This is something that saddens me greatly. The truth of the matter is life is not a game to be won in the end, it is to be lived minute by minute, at the most day by day. It is to be lived up close and in person, to be smelled, tasted and felt. Success is not measured in the end by what you have accumulated, how well you have lived, or how famous you are. The greatest success may be that no one remembers you at all, that you have not hurt, deceived, mistreated or maligned anyone or anything, that you have left no lasting imprint to be judged or misjudged by later. Life is fleeting.
Remember...no one gets out of life alive.
I have seen several reviews where people have put her down for being God Hating and White hating, I don't think for one moment that is the message of this book. What is true is that a balance existed for many generations before these two things were introduced to Indigenous cultures. Rather than a quiet fire side chat that consisted of "this is our particular view" from the likes of the missionaries et al., It was an immediate call for change to peoples, cultures, beliefs and the places that were left unspoiled for generations. People who understood in order for there to be enough to sustain us, we must protect it and take only what we need.
Competition and greed are the direct cause of the poverty that exists among these cultures today. They have lost their identity and with it their soul. They are often aimless and tortured by the things they have seen done to their land and their people. They have turned to drink and drugs to ply the pain of what they cannot remember or choose to forget. Their beliefs have been diluted or stripped completely and they now find themselves without a country, culture or religion that is relatable.
This is something that saddens me greatly. The truth of the matter is life is not a game to be won in the end, it is to be lived minute by minute, at the most day by day. It is to be lived up close and in person, to be smelled, tasted and felt. Success is not measured in the end by what you have accumulated, how well you have lived, or how famous you are. The greatest success may be that no one remembers you at all, that you have not hurt, deceived, mistreated or maligned anyone or anything, that you have left no lasting imprint to be judged or misjudged by later. Life is fleeting.
Remember...no one gets out of life alive.
April 9, 2021
I must read this again.
April 30, 2018
Genuinely one of, if not the, best book I've read. Wild does in a few pages what other books may only come close to through its entirety.
Wild is made up of five elemental journey's Griffiths underwent in writing the book; Earth (Amazon), Ice (Arctic), Fire (Australia), Water (Sea!), and Wind (West Papua), with a smaller part at the end of Mind. In each, I was engrossed with Griffith's journey, the culture and history of the places she visited and its languages, the introspection of the English language as a consequence, and the constant investigative nature of the writings, showing our own culture as just another version of organised society, rather than a superior one.
Essentially, Wild challenges the notion of what it is to be Wild, and if you begin with the word rooted in negative connotation, her writing will do well to uproot those thoughts.
Parts of the book had me laughing, parts with my stomach in knots, and throughout, captivated.
I couldn't recommend this book more.
Wild is made up of five elemental journey's Griffiths underwent in writing the book; Earth (Amazon), Ice (Arctic), Fire (Australia), Water (Sea!), and Wind (West Papua), with a smaller part at the end of Mind. In each, I was engrossed with Griffith's journey, the culture and history of the places she visited and its languages, the introspection of the English language as a consequence, and the constant investigative nature of the writings, showing our own culture as just another version of organised society, rather than a superior one.
Essentially, Wild challenges the notion of what it is to be Wild, and if you begin with the word rooted in negative connotation, her writing will do well to uproot those thoughts.
Parts of the book had me laughing, parts with my stomach in knots, and throughout, captivated.
I couldn't recommend this book more.
March 5, 2016
While it starts off with a beautiful meditation about the indigenous cultures, wilderness, and language, halfway through the book it deteriorates into blaming all the world's evils on "white man" and Christianity. It is undeniable that certain countries have occupied and attempted to destroy indigenous cultures for centuries, but at the same time the author is ready to brush off the realities of indigenous life if they don't fit her narrative.
In the chapter describing her trip to West Papua she enjoys the hospitality of the locals, and is allowed to say in men's houses as a visitor. Which she finds very familiar and enjoys her evenings around the fire with songs and stories. I dare to suggest if she stayed in the women's house where children are looked after and dinner is made and other chores performed, she wouldn't be so quick to snidely dismiss kitchen appliances and suburban lifestyles.
In the chapter describing her trip to West Papua she enjoys the hospitality of the locals, and is allowed to say in men's houses as a visitor. Which she finds very familiar and enjoys her evenings around the fire with songs and stories. I dare to suggest if she stayed in the women's house where children are looked after and dinner is made and other chores performed, she wouldn't be so quick to snidely dismiss kitchen appliances and suburban lifestyles.
March 28, 2015
The thing I most enjoyed were the stories harvested from time spent with people living in wild and varied landscapes. The author holds an uncomfortable mirror up to the West, exposing centuries of abuse of native peoples across the globe, exploring how the earth is commoditised and exploited. This is an urgent issue and she speaks with passion. I also found aspects of this book difficult and off-putting. The long self-indulgent etymological sections & endless narrative would have been more potent if written more succinctly. Whilst I understand the value of reclaiming words used to denigrate the feminine, I at times found the expletive packed pages a little adolescent. By the end I had worked out which bits to read more deeply and which bits to skim read. I enjoyed it and endured it.
April 5, 2013
A striking book. Straightforward, irreverent, intimate and elegant, as wild nature, which never dissimulates, is. Sometimes too wordy like an intricate wild forest, other times profound and wise like the silent and perceptive mind of the ocean, or perspicacious and playful like a bird flight high in the sky. Life is meant to be free and self-willed, a joyful comedy, but too often it is coercively constricted into an oppressive, unnatural tragedy. A denounce of how greed and the thirst for power and control annihilate free natural expressions in the name of false and despicable values. A celebration of free, wild life that with passionate spontaneity keeps renewing and transforming.
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