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karenreads1000s's review against another edition
3.0
This book felt wild. Ms. Griffiths is obviously extremely intelligent and can weave a description with references and experience.
walden's review
4.0
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.
johnclough's review against another edition
3.0
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.
ajaneb's review
2.0
I had purchased this book in search for some more travelogues that would help me fall in love with new places, or at least experience them as much as you can through a book. However, I quickly realized this was not that sort of book. It reads like a poem, which is very nice for the first few paragraphs. But then it seems to repeat in thought and style, to the point of recycling almost exact phrases over and over again. And though the obtuse metaphors were refreshing at first, it gave the book a sense of meaninglessness after a while, almost as if the author was just trying to find any combination of words and comparisons she’d not read before, just to be different. Seemed try-hard-y. Then the book seems to transition from intensely poetic and metaphorical to aggressive activist literature. The author doesn’t seem to be capturing the beauty of something as much as she communicates hostility towards things she deems it’s opposites. She criticizes western culture for being close minded, embracing an us vs. them superiority complex. But it rang a bit hypocritical because that same superiority complex was what I heard most in her voice throughout the book: that wilderness is better than the city (instead of perhaps them both serving different but beneficial purposes), that anti westerners are good and westerners are bad (it seems an over generalization but her words leave little for interpretation), and last but not least, she really abhors Christianity without seeming to fully understand the faith (to the point where she is describing the physical need to throw up when a Shaman uses language that seems Christian-friendly). It just doesn’t seem to read very balanced and open minded. I’m not saying she has to love missionaries or embrace capitalism, but I guess I didn’t realize how biased and agenda-ridden her “journey” would be. Finally, she sometimes gets lost in her points. Like at one section of the book she encounters an Amazon town that she describes as disgusting and she explains it away in this confusing theory of wildness becoming too wild that it turns into chaos. So…wildness needs to be only moderately wild? Which seems to fly in the face of her whole don’t-contain-the-wild treatise. Idk, maybe this is a work of art and my uneducated mind doesn’t see the masterpiece in it, but it was paaaaainful.
elliebooks's review
4.0
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
halfmanhalfbook's review
3.0
Such a difficult book to categorise as it transcends travel and emotion.
The book is in sections based on Wild something, e.g. Wild Water and Wild Air and Griffiths had written about her experiences of people and places in these zones.
Parts of it were really good, and a delight to read, other parts were tough because of the subject matter.
The last part was entitled Wild Mind, and she wrote about her experiences of a separation and the trauma following this.
Good at times, but not fantastic
The book is in sections based on Wild something, e.g. Wild Water and Wild Air and Griffiths had written about her experiences of people and places in these zones.
Parts of it were really good, and a delight to read, other parts were tough because of the subject matter.
The last part was entitled Wild Mind, and she wrote about her experiences of a separation and the trauma following this.
Good at times, but not fantastic
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