Wild Life

Rating:
Summary: Starts out good, but disappoints at the end
Review: At first, I thought that I was really going to love this book. The main character was funny and irreverent. I particularly liked the passage where she told her maid where the children were ("oh, one's out back playing with knives, another has been kidnapped by Indians, and the third is in the living room playing with the scissors). But once she goes from her life into the forest to search for the lost little girl, the story really does ramble. I was quite bored with it. I finished the book, but only because I wanted to find out if they ever found the lost girl. I was glad to be through when I did finish and could move on to something better.

Rating:
Summary: Wild Life is a feral read!
Review: Early in the 1900s Charlotte Bridger Drummond, a thoroughly modern woman & a writer of popular women's adventures, sets out with a search party to rescue a lost child in the wilderness between Oregon & Washington.

In the beginning, Wild Life is written in a dense & informative narrative style, reminiscent of the literature of that era & Molly Gloss has captured the transformation of a self-assured pioneer woman, confident in her knowledge of the local flora & fauna, until she becomes separated from the search party.

Then Wild Life changes to short entries of despair & longer ones when the observer, the scientist in Charlotte, overtakes the pampered housewife.

When Charlotte wanders into the territory of band of elusive, seemingly human creatures & is accepted as part of their extended family, she must re-think her modern, patronizing opinion of wild animals & learn the secrets to a contented life. Then the unthinkable happens: a battle between modern men & the wild creatures she has befriended & suddenly all the layers of that revered civilization are peeled away.

Wild Life is both a joy & a labor, a remarkably absorbing, thought-provoking & endearing read. Do check out my site for my full review.

Rating:
Summary: "Wildness" can have many definitions!
Review: Early in the 1900s Charlotte Bridger Drummond, a thoroughly modern woman & a writer of popular women's adventures, sets out with a search party to rescue a lost child in the wilderness between Oregon & Washington.

In the beginning, Wild Life is written in a dense & informative narrative style, reminiscent of the literature of that era & Molly Gloss has captured the transformation of a self-assured pioneer woman, confident in her knowledge of the local flora & fauna, until she becomes separated from the search party.

Then Wild Life changes to short entries of despair & longer ones when the observer, the scientist in Charlotte, overtakes the pampered housewife.

When Charlotte wanders into the territory of band of elusive, seemingly human creatures & is accepted as part of their extended family, she must re-think her modern, patronizing opinion of wild animals & learn the secrets to a contented life. Then the unthinkable happens: a battle between modern men & the wild creatures she has befriended & suddenly all the layers of that revered civilization are peeled away.

Wild Life is both a joy & a labor, a remarkably absorbing, thought-provoking & endearing read. Do check out my site for my full review.

Rating:
Summary: overwhelmed
Review: Quite frankly, I loved Molly Gloss' _The Jump off Creek_.

Quite frankly this was just about the weirdest, most schizophrenic book I have ever read. Unfortunately, I was really attracted to it; the issues of a strong minded woman living in the early 1900's, the area of interest being the northern pacific, the early logging historic period, and other fish bait that would entice many of us to turn the pages of this book. Obviously, enough of us did so as to qualify for mention...

However, as much as I want to scream out in favor of this book, it equally drove me insane.

I will refrain from citing the background, as that is done quite well by the previous reviewers.

My review is of one quite overwhelmed. Ms. Gloss wrote a beautiful novel, she just, quite simply wrote too damn much.

Rating:
Summary: overwhelmed
Review: Quite frankly, I loved Molly Gloss' _The Jump off Creek_.

Quite frankly this was just about the weirdest, most schizophrenic book I have ever read. Unfortunately, I was really attracted to it; the issues of a strong minded woman living in the early 1900's, the area of interest being the northern pacific, the early logging historic period, and other fish bait that would entice many of us to turn the pages of this book. Obviously, enough of us did so as to qualify for mention...

However, as much as I want to scream out in favor of this book, it equally drove me insane.

I will refrain from citing the background, as that is done quite well by the previous reviewers.

My review is of one quite overwhelmed. Ms. Gloss wrote a beautiful novel, she just, quite simply wrote too damn much.

Rating:
Summary: A delightful and original story
Review: This highly original and astonishing novel begins with two sisters communicating about a threadbare, almost illegible diary that belonged to their grandmother, wondering how much is real and how much out of grandmother's imagination as a writer. We are thrown back a hundred years to find out. What comes out is a clever admixture of the main narrative as well as essays and adventure stories that sometimes parallel the actual, all of it ostensibly Charlotte's diary.

Although the main plot is not so believable, that is besides the point. Once that is understood, the reader gets eagerly caught up. The plot is really a backdrop or window dressing to the rest.

A quick outline: Charlotte is an educated woman, age 35, and already a widow with five sons, living in a backwater in the State of Washington near the border with Oregon. She is a writer and a feisty feminist, highly stubborn and independent, who defies as much convention as she can get away, but her neighbors are used to that. When Charlotte gets word that her housekeeper's young granddaughter is missing in the vicinity of a remote mountainous logging camp, she sets out on a long journey to find her, although others have failed. What ends in a foregone tragic conclusion for the child almost ends in one for Charlotte as well, as she becomes hopelessly lost in the woods and becomes the companion of wild animals. This is the point where the story actually comes into its own. Charlotte must now not only draw on a philosophy of life, but confront something within herself that is at once exhilarating and frightening, and will forever change her.

As we travel with Charlotte, scenes of the Northwest and the wild American frontier merge with Charlotte's reflections on spirituality, the struggle between preservation of natural resources and the encroachment of civilization, animal rights, modern inventions, independence for women, popular culture and art versus quality, as well as her adventure stories that sometimes strangely parallel her own life or at least her fantasy life. The well-documented and researched descriptions of early settlements of Washington and Oregon, and especially the evocative and haunting wilderness segments coupled with the voice of Charlotte, speak loudly to us across time. This is truly a one-of-a kind book that will pull you under its spell.

Rating:
Summary: Too much Rambling
Review: This is one of the best books I've read in the past ten years. It has ruined me for reading anything else for weeks. I am, after reading the last page over a month ago, still incredibly moved by it and have gone back to read passages from it again and again. I have found myself reading aloud from it, pressing it on others, urging them to read it, even buying copies for them, and I sincerely hope you will be its next reader.
Through some inspired alchemy, Molly Gloss has created an adventure story, a mystery, a quest, and an historical documentation of life in the Pacific Northwest 100 years ago that is believable down to its last detail. If it sounds like I'm gushing, well I am! Wild Life is an absolute miracle of story and beautiful language combined. I will never get over this book. Never.
Charlotte is quite an engaging character. I found myself irritated with her pride at first, but she is so complex and talented and willful and interesting--very like a modern woman stuck in the past--that I couldn't resist following her story to see what was next. When a young child disappears into the depths of the great forest, Charlotte sets off to find her and, as she abandons family and her quiet and productive writing life to go on this quest, I found myself wholly on her side. What happens to Charlotte herself as she pursues her investigation, I won't reveal, but I will say that her encounter with the strangeness and beauty of life in the forest captured me so completely that I could not, for hours on end, allow anything from my real life to interfere with my reading. The world intruded at its own risk. I was so moved by the end of the book that I could not think or see anything else but this story, waking or sleeping.
It is rare that a book can transport a reader so completely into its world, but Wild Life soon seals you into an envelope of reality you will not want to leave. I think its power lies in the fact that it touches something ancient in us, and is an unsentimental call to the purity of nature, our true nature, the nature of our past. It brings us directly into contact with wild life where we find ourselves waiting, where we meet our own "darkness" and take comfort there.
It is an extraordinary accomplishment. Nothing like this book has ever been written before. I doubt there will ever be anything like it again. Sentence by sentence, a miracle. Beautiful, accurate, pleasing, informing, wise, funny, satisfying..oh, you know, I'm sure you get my point by now. Do buy it. It's fun and it's fascinating and it's brilliant. What a combination! Thank you, Molly Gloss.

Rating:
Summary: An extraordinary accomplishment...
Review: This is one of the best books I've read in the past ten years. It has ruined me for reading anything else for weeks. I am, after reading the last page over a month ago, still incredibly moved by it and have gone back to read passages from it again and again. I have found myself reading aloud from it, pressing it on others, urging them to read it, even buying copies for them, and I sincerely hope you will be its next reader.
Through some inspired alchemy, Molly Gloss has created an adventure story, a mystery, a quest, and an historical documentation of life in the Pacific Northwest 100 years ago that is believable down to its last detail. If it sounds like I'm gushing, well I am! Wild Life is an absolute miracle of story and beautiful language combined. I will never get over this book. Never.
Charlotte is quite an engaging character. I found myself irritated with her pride at first, but she is so complex and talented and willful and interesting--very like a modern woman stuck in the past--that I couldn't resist following her story to see what was next. When a young child disappears into the depths of the great forest, Charlotte sets off to find her and, as she abandons family and her quiet and productive writing life to go on this quest, I found myself wholly on her side. What happens to Charlotte herself as she pursues her investigation, I won't reveal, but I will say that her encounter with the strangeness and beauty of life in the forest captured me so completely that I could not, for hours on end, allow anything from my real life to interfere with my reading. The world intruded at its own risk. I was so moved by the end of the book that I could not think or see anything else but this story, waking or sleeping.
It is rare that a book can transport a reader so completely into its world, but Wild Life soon seals you into an envelope of reality you will not want to leave. I think its power lies in the fact that it touches something ancient in us, and is an unsentimental call to the purity of nature, our true nature, the nature of our past. It brings us directly into contact with wild life where we find ourselves waiting, where we meet our own "darkness" and take comfort there.
It is an extraordinary accomplishment. Nothing like this book has ever been written before. I doubt there will ever be anything like it again. Sentence by sentence, a miracle. Beautiful, accurate, pleasing, informing, wise, funny, satisfying..oh, you know, I'm sure you get my point by now. Do buy it. It's fun and it's fascinating and it's brilliant. What a combination! Thank you, Molly Gloss.

Rating:
Summary: Her Name is Mud
Review: This is the title that the King County library system has chosen as their official selection for the popular "If All Of Seattle Read the Same Book" program. I think that two of the main reasons they selected this book are that Washington is celebrating its 150th year of being a state, and Molly Gloss lives in nearby Portland.

This is a scattered and laborious tale of man-hating Charlotte who is raising 5 boys in the Pacific Northwest at the turn of the (last) century. Charlotte is a pulp writer of romances who admires Jules Verne and despises the genre of books she writes. She does it for the money.

Charlotte is a "visionary" who envisions things like electric-powered washing machines and devices to fly in. Luckily, Ms. Gloss has a hundred-year perspective in which to make Charlotte seem smart and ahead of her time. Charlotte is one of the most mean-spirited heroines I have ever had the misfortune to meet. She enjoys freaking out the detested men she meets by wearing men's garb and chewing cigar butts, but making sure her lovely chestnut hair is always attractively arranged.

The most interesting part of the book is when Charlotte becomes lost and has a Sasquatch encounter. I'll give Ms. Gloss credit for that. However, when nearly struck by lightening she manages to save her precious diary, but neglects to remember her boots. Then, she spends 6 weeks lost in the muddy wilderness barefoot. And before that, she spends several nights in a tent with a bunch o'men, and woops! is (of course) molested.

The whole time she is lost she desperately desires to be back with her boys, but the author never goes into what they might have been thinking or feeling for all those long weeks. Plus, in a journal entry 3 years after her disappearance, she writes that she wishes she had more time to write, and that her family takes up way too much of her precious time.

She certainly didn't seem to learn much.

Also, the book is peppered with exhausting pages of irrelevant writings about people the reader has no relationship with, stories from magazines and a bunch of other drivel that I didn't care about.

The end result is a fragmented, confusing and incomplete story that takes too long to get off the ground, and then when it finally does, it's way too brief. I really disliked Charlotte, and I just couldn't get past that.

I suppose that some see Charlotte as the first feminist, but she is so grating that I had no sympathy for her. The only saving grace in the book is that what is happening in "real time" is written in regular font and has artwork by it that is supposed to resemble a frayed edge of paper, so the frustrated reader can skip past all the meaningless essays and get into the story. Then you can go back and read all the filler and find out that it's really not all that interesting.

Rating:
Summary: Better than the last book you read
Review: You get a lot with this book: mystery, comedy, a clear picture of pioneer life at the mouth of the Columbia river at the start of the 20th century. I was completely engrossed; I lost sleep because of this book. Outstanding prose that in itself is a pleasure to read, but the tale is so well told you feel as if you're in it rather than reading. The journal style of the book works great, in my opinion. The first half or so of the book is gritty and realistic while towards the end the book takes on a more adventurous and fantastical air. That's a word of warning to approach the book knowing that the plot may take an eyebrow-raising turn or two.

If you enjoy this book I urge you to get Diane Smith's Letters from Yellowstone. You would think these books are from the same author. Similar style, similar turn of the century wilderness setting, a focus on nature, and colorful characters featuring spitfire pioneer women. I'm off to the library for more Molly Gloss books.