Not wild about Wild
I belong to a book group, as it seems about 99% of American women do these days. The books are more or less a pretext for getting together, talking, eating, and talking (did I say talking?).
Sometimes I read the books and sometimes I don’t, but this month I’ve finished about 100 pages so far of Wild by Cheryl Strayed, notice of which I’d somehow previously evaded despite it’s having been tops on the NY Times nonfiction bestseller list for about a gazillion weeks, and an Oprah pick (those two things are hardly unrelated, of course; the book had sold well but not spectacularly until Oprah anointed it).
Wild has a great “hook” at the beginning that drew me in and made me think it would be a good read: while hiking the Pacific Coast Trail solo, Strayed loses one of her boots (after taking them off temporarily) when it falls off a mountain and disappears into the woods below. But as I read on, I found myself more and more annoyed and mystified by Ms. Strayed, and disheartened by the fact that this book has been so popular.
The plot could be summarized (at least so far, and I have no reason to imagine it will substantially change) as: young woman loses mother to cancer, grieves, completely f***s up her life and marriage by wildly self-indulgent and self-destructive behavior (sex, drugs, very little rock and roll), and decides to solo hike along the California portion of the Pacific Coast trail with hardly even the most rudimentary preparation—and lives to tell about it. Along the way she seems to gain little insight or knowledge, and what she does gain can only be called “wisdom” or “knowledge” in comparison to her utter lack of either characteristic at the outset of the book.
And for a writer, and especially a memoir-writer, she’s remarkably lacking in introspection or understanding of either herself or others, and even more remarkably uninterested in either. It’s curious.
But I’m less interested in Strayed’s psyche than in that of her enthusiastic readers. I haven’t plowed through all nearly-1800 reviews on Amazon (that’s how popular this book has been), but I did note that there’s a significant number of readers (about 11% of the commenters there, by my quick calculations) who cannot stand the book and consider Ms. Strayed a self-centered twit. That’s heartening.
Oprah herself appears to have chosen the book because of Cheryl Strayed’s courage. Well, that the woman has. Courage and extreme foolhardiness, the bulk of the dangers faced in the book being of her own making and due to her own lack of thought and planning. But still, courage. And I suppose it takes courage to write about all one’s warts and foibles. But over 300 pages of this is almost as rough going as hiking the Pacific Coast Trail itself.
You may ask why I’m writing this post, and in the manner of Strayed I probably shouldn’t even try to explain. But I think it’s because so many popular books these days share some of the emotional offness of Wild, tell-alls that end up telling little of significance, full of sound and fury, and signifying—well, if not nothing, then next to nothing, except perhaps the fact that we have lost our way on the trail.
I read Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” in college, and that’s a bang-on description of my reaction to it. It seemed to be all about sensory input, and little else.
Neo. You’ve been cheated. You gave up valuable time to read this book (or at least part of it) and it just isn’t worth it. Personally, I want to learn something when I read a book, or have some kind of takeaway. Instead of Buyer’s remorse – you have Reader’s remorse!
rickl: I couldn’t get through On the Road either, come to think of it. Or rather, I ended up sort of skimming it.
Tom Murin: yes, at least I got it out of the library.
I love the library.
I’ve read neither the book nor reviews, and only a bit of Kerouac before wondering what all the fuss was about… sound and fury, as you say. With that disclaimer, is it possible the book is pure fiction? The name Strayed as it appeared first in your blogpost made me think something was amiss, or someone having such a name was compelled to live up to and write a too long book.
dloye: actually, she took the name and dropped her original name.
The book itself is supposed to be completely non-fiction. I think it’s mostly non-fiction but my gut sense is that some is embellished (which is not unusual for memoirs these days—or maybe even before these days).
This is why I’ve turned down offers to join book clubs. I have a friend who attends one and always complains about some of the books and never shares an insightful experience about the ones she didn’t hate.
As I was reading this post, my eye caught sight of the book Eleni in your “I Recommend” sidebar. Now she was a courageous woman!
(By the way, your link for that book goes to an Amazon page that offers only a version available through second-hand sellers;
here’s the link for brand-new paperbacks, and for only $12.67.)
Erica Jong has made a living publishing books about her compulsive fuck ups seasoned with a dash of plain old fucking. It’s not a new genre.
My wife was reading it, so I picked it up and glanced through it, being am AMC member and somewhat of a hiker.
My take was, “Idiot. Idiot. But she can write.”
She is lucky she wasn’t raped and killed.
while hiking the Pacific Coast Trail solo, Strayed loses one of her boots (after taking them off temporarily) when it falls off a mountain and disappears into the woods below.
Someone who doesn’t have the common sense to be careful when taking one’s boots off in steep terrain deserves scorn, not pity. Moreover, why would one take one’s boots off temporarily in the middle of a hike? I did a fair amount of hiking back in the day, and do not recall ever temporarily taking my boots off.
My reaction On the Road was similar to other commenters here. A friend had a an edifying response to the aimless characters in the book. He said that many males do not mature until age 28 or so. The book simply reflects that lack of maturity.
I read the book. What an amazingly self-absorbed twit the author is.
…tell-alls that end up telling little of significance, full of sound and fury, and signifying–well, if not nothing, then next to nothing, except perhaps the fact that we have lost our way on the trail.
You just neatly summed up why I have not bothered to read that book when “everyone” seems to be praising it. And I never bothered to read On the Road either for the same reason. I’ve precious few hours to devote to reading, and memoirs that leave me disgusted with the author are a waste of my time.
I write and teach personal essay and memoir, and ten years ago or so when Strayed’s essay, “The Love of My Life,” came out in an anthology, I was very taken with it. It seemed tough, honest and original. For years I taught it, but then I began to see pieces by Strayed in magazines like SELF, and saw that she was flogging that poignant story to death, and telling it in various versions inconsistent with one another. I realized that she was a seductive writing hustler — there are many who write in this genre.
Ick, I thought. I’ve been taken.
For me, being an Oprah pick is as good as a neon sign, flashing ‘Run! Run away with all speed from this book!”
But maybe I am just being sour – since the genre I write in (historical fiction, and of the non-self-consciously-literary sort) – because my books have about as much chance of being an Oprah pick as they have of being on the Noo Yawk times best-seller list.
Well, I have read a few of Sgt. Mom’s books, and I can tell you, if you haven’t read any yet, you are really missing out.
“To Truckee’s Trail” is still my favorite, but “Daughter of Texas” is a close second.
This seems to be a grand illustration of what Any Rand depicted in her book with Ellsworth Toohey articulating the design behind the glorification and reward of the simplistic and trivial.
The “foolhardy,” in this case, would seem to far outweigh the “courage.” If one is too stupid to know you’re in danger, to call your actions “courageous” would be wildly inaccurate.
While those, like Oprah, who would like to present themselves as the “elites,” entitled to make such pronouncements for the “masses,” they can only serve to exalt the mediocre, in order to not expose themselves as entirely bereft of any good character.
Thanks for the recommendation, Roy! Happily, To Truckee’s Trail is available for B&N’s Nook.
No, that’s disheartening, from your description. Almost 90% failed to grasp this as the drivel it is, by your description alone?
Women’s lit is empty and vacuos
Designed to jerk or emotions around ( which then colors or day)
Us complaint is that guys literature has better characters, more depth, less PC so less a cardboard cut out, don’t felt on endless remixing of a closed set of tricks….
But it was selected because women copy and mimick what they read…. so u dong get Bronte you get trade trash as that is who the heroes are and they pretend they are her when reading…. the twit becomes part of them
Show a man a action movie and he does not look for a garage to try to jump a car roof to roof
Show a woman a lifestyle movie with good emotional jerking and making perversion fun… and u get a society of women dressed from the fetish collection. Not since the days before the car have women purchased so many riding boots, thigh highs, fake hard njplles, mirical bras…. all trying to look like the lady pirate on a rum bottle meets peter pan/ cap hook, meets Barbarella… ( but don’t look)
Sex n the city becomes lifestyle of modern barren maudes heading for golden girls existence
If men copied movies n wore costumes like women ladies would think us nuts. We learned from disco… ha ha
50% std rate kind of makes for interesting rep outside the fishbowl…. but PC only works on our own people
I feel fortunate to have completely missed out on this book. Sounds similar to “Eat, Pray, Love” and “Julie and Julia,” both of which seemed like contrived stories by self-absorbed women. I recall reading that the “Eat, Pray, Love” author had already outlined her story of personal growth & nailed down the book deal before initiating her trip. Have to wonder if it was the same deal for Strayed. The book was outlined and then she did some crazy/stupid things on her trip to ensure she had enough anecdotes to fill it out.
Lizzy:
No, for Strayed she is describing a trip she took almost 20 years ago.
However, her story has been told before, most particularly in a highly-praised short memoir essay/story that was published in 2002 that dealt with much the same subject matter. I look on the book as an expanded version of the shorter piece. And I don’t think there’s any doubt that the basic events in the book and the story happened about when she said they did. Some may be embellished or fictional, but the outlines are certainly true.
If you follow the link and read the story, you will get a rough idea of her style and content. Compared to the book, the story is written more for shock value (i.e. the attention-getting beginning sentence, which deals with two of her big themes, her mother’s death and her own subsequent infidelity and promiscuity, “The first time I cheated on my husband, my mother had been dead for exactly one week”). The book is more mainstream, and although it certainly contains a lot about those two things, the emphasis is much more on the hike and her travails along the way.
Ah, thanks for the clarification – didn’t follow the link because she sounds so silly. I grew up in CO, ands did my fair share hiking & camping (even had a few friends & relatives perish while hiking/rock climbing) so this book sounds incredibly annoying.