Wild
An Elemental Journey
-
-
4.8 • 4 Ratings
-
-
- £3.99
-
- £3.99
Publisher Description
WINNER OF THE ORION BOOK AWARD
Part travelogue, part manifesto for wildness as an essential character of life, Wild is a one-of-a-kind book from a one-of-a-kind author
'Undefinable, untameable, profound and extraordinary' Observer
_________________________
'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 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.'
Wild describes an extraordinary odyssey, courageous and sometimes dangerous. It is by turns funny, touching and harrowing, and offers a poetic consideration of the tender connection between human society and wildlands.
_________________________
'Easily the best travel book that I have read in the last ten years' Guardian
'Wild is like nothing else I've ever read: thrilling, troubling, frightening, exhilarating. This is a truly necessary book, and we are all lucky that the subject found a writer worthy of it' Philip Pullman
'Passionate, rigorous and utterly honest, Griffiths's remarkable book is written in a style as wild and exciting as its subject' Robert Macfarlane
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In her second book (after A Sideways Look at Time) Griffiths narrates her seven-year exploration of the wildest places left on the globe the Amazon rain forest, the Arctic and New Guinea, among others. The book is divided into five sections representing the "elements": earth, ice, water, fire and air. Her search for what remains wild is as much a linguistic and spiritual journey as it is a physical one, although she does take real risks, like drinking psychedelic ayahuasca infusions with shamans deep in the jungle. Griffiths's central thesis that by developing and destroying our last wildernesses we are impoverishing our lives is not an original one, but she brings fierce conviction and impressive scholarship to her work. Although Griffiths has great erudition and a real sensitivity to language, her ultraromantic perspective, in which civilization is always bad and nature always idyllic, lacks nuance. For someone so inspired by nature, Griffiths doesn't allow her observations to speak for themselves; instead, every event becomes another opportunity to condemn modern man. The lack of a narrative arc makes the book a collection of variations on a theme, and although Griffiths is a gifted writer, after 60 such essays, the mind starts to wander.
Customer Reviews
A Wild Ride
I heard Jay read a section of this book on a writing course recently. I can speak for everyoe there when I say it was a staggering, moving, uplifting experience and I've had the book for 4 years! There is no full length version available, apparently, so please I Tunes, make one available? This is a one of a kind book that needs to be heard by the whole human race.....before its too late.