Trice’s Reviews > Wolf Totem > Status Update

Thinking about Little Wolf, when you get a wolf by the chain and file down his fangs, you can’t let him go, but you cannot keep him. You cannot domesticate or even tame - you must learn to live with or you will lose all

“Mice are kings in a wolfless grassland”

And the children of modernity rise up to curse the generations who came before, who consumed and destroyed for greed and ease, leaving nothing of heritage, of cooperation, of interchange with Gaia’s many children behind, reaching back to further gone generations in hopes of wisdom and renewal for a new future

Some of what Bilgee teaches Chen reminds me of the kind of balance + careful taking + leaving Robin Wall Kimmerer talks about to respect the environment + the ecosystem + different parts of it so you’re a part of it too + not a parasite. And then in come ppl who have no understanding nor respect for anything but big numbers to increase their own status + they quickly destroy that balance + produce only desert

By turns frustrating + wonderful + heartbreaking + judgmental
Wolf cub dug his own little den into the ground to get down to the cooler sandy levels w/sides shading o’er to escape the summer grassland heat+sun; Chen Zhen’s worrying heart is eased at cub’s ability to problem solve sth he himself hadn’t yet figured out. Yang Ke unsuccessfully tries to save 2 unhatched cygnets fr laborers who killed father swan

I recog the convos abt culture + comparisons btwn, being incomers
Hoping for the wolf cub but apprehensive abt his end. I don’t know how they cld hold onto him once he reaches adulthd + I don’t think they cld get away w/releasing him w/o getting into major trouble w/authorities
Not surprised Dorji’s cub ended the way it did when D seemd to go into it w/even less thot - unsup’d play w/child >injury >kill pup

18 + 19 might be my 2 favorite chapters
Tho they’re still peppered w/the overseer’s determination not to listen to any pleas, cultural or environmental, they also hold the hearts of 2 students + connection w/wild creatures, Chen + his wolf cub, independent + wild but still connected, Yang, the swans + the overwhelming beauty of an untouched valley. Sadness; swans in their beauty always seem to come with sadness

Farming vs herding vs wild life
There are a lot of discussions of the best way to administrate the land and the ppl, and defending old practices for the sake of the ecosystemand the ecosystem for the sake of the herds and for the future

Relief and sadness
So they let the wolf go…after they had maimed it w/a rifle shot. Respect remembered too late…or one kind of too late