Rating: 
Summary: Honest, direct, lots of harms, no resolution.
Review: I picked up this book with a nice, delicious interest. I wanted to devour every page and emerge with the secrets of the Earth. What I experienced was far from that! The man is honest, BRUTALLY HONEST, and I valued that. The beginning was so potent that I was crying fourteen pages into it. The book is sort of an extended metaphor as he relates his abusive childhood to the world as a whole and tells how it impacted his future. There is no real storyline; it just sort of drifts from one anecdote to the next. The end, though, is incredibly disappointing. He openly admits that there are no solutions to how to save the world. If there were, someone would have saved it. So why even read the book? Well, the frankness is one plus. I must admit that I see death of creatures differently now. I've always known death is neccessary, but I've feared it. I've been vegetarian over a year, and I've been vegan for around eight months. I still don't think it is right to kill other animals, but I now see how an animal killing another can fit into a consistent system of morals. If nothing else, it provided me with a logical explanation. The best this book provides is a clarification of the problem in the world. The answers must be found within each individual, but Derrick Jensen helps to focus the path a bit more.
Rating: 
Summary: amazing and beautiful
Review: I read in an earlier review someone thought jensen thought his abuse was unique. I would disagree venomously, Jensen uses his abuse as the basis for his critique of a culture that does this all the time. If Jensen had thought he was unique his points would be somewhat irrelevant, Jensen constantly in all his work states facts on the prevailance of violence in civilization, and many times uses stats on child and women abuse and rape. His crtique is well thought out and thurough. It seems to me that this book is mostly a collection of beautiful thoughts that concur with memories. I hope that this book gets fully understood, Jensen is not your run of the mill environmentalist, he is much more, he understand that there is a root to this oppression, civilization.
Rating:
Summary: I jolt to the spirit!!
Review: I want to thank Derrick for writing this inspiring book. I give him a lot of credit for his honesty; for the ideas contained inside are connected with so many aspects of his life, what is going on in America and on Planet Earth. He brings attention to practices and thought patterns that many people have chosen to ignore. After reading this, I began to practice listening to the language of Nature even more, and all of the things that she is communicating to me. This is an excellent read!!!
Rating:
Summary: Brave, moving, required reading!
Review: I would like -- no, I MUST shake Mr. Jensen's hand. This is one of the bravest books I've ever read, and as a writer myself I commend the courage it took to write it. Never have I been more moved, more affirmed in my feelings, more outraged (positively) and more -- full. This is what we need to know, what the world must comprehend. It is the most truthful, the clearest mirror ever held up to our culture and it is long overdue. We must look. We must see. Mr. Jensen demands this of us without apology, without sugar, but with the necessary brutal honesty. I don't know how you did it, Mr. Jensen, but somehow, even without offering a definitive answer, you managed to leave me inspired. I closed the book and cried for a long while. Out of sadness, fear, and oddly enough, out of a deep and meaningful hopefuleness. I've told everyone I know this book must be read, felt and passed on. I cannot commend you enough, cannot thank you enough, and could not respect you more for your willingness to go through the journey of writing this book so that we might read it and remember our lives. Would that I could shout it from the rooftops! Do not miss this -- it's a rollercoaster ride, and I did, indeed, go through every emotion conceivable while reading it. And I would not trade the experience for anything in the world. Godspeed!
Rating: 
Summary: Realists beware
Review: I'll try to make this short. This is a wonderful book, but it's not perfect. It comes from the long tradition of idealism born in the American West which includes such figures as Josiah Royce, Ezra Pound and John Steinbeck (though its subect matter is like none of those writers'). It is indiscretely confessional in its personal tone. It is violently radical in its political tone. And it is unapologectically idealistic. Jensen doesn't so much offer any practical solution to the problems he describes as he proposes theoretical responses. It makes the book an interesting philosophical statement rather than a manual for action. Stoics and realists will truly hate it, if they get past the Preface. That reminds me: The first chapter, called "Silencing" is the best in the book and will (or should) knock the breathe out of you. Generally, the writing is lyrical and has the ability to make you swoon. Jensen's creation is so original in that it combines lyricism with propaganda. Most of the world's great revolutionaries were far too scientific to pull off a style even remotely close to this. Read it, but keep your head about you.
Rating:
Summary: A must read for anyone who cares about our collective future
Review: If I could afford it, I would GIVE copies of this book away. I believe it is that important. If polls are to be believed, the majority of Americans say they are concerned about the environment, but few of us manage to live up to our convictions. Jensen's book is so compelling that has the power to push readers from complacency to activism in a quiet, but forceful manner. What is truly unique about this book is the manner in which Jensen discusses his own journey to personal activism. He spent years numbing himself to the sexual abuse inflicted upon him by father. He sees the same processes at work in our destructive relationship to the environment. Learning to treat each othe with greater respect and learning to appreciate the natural living environment, he argues, are irrevocably linked.
Rating:
Summary: A story our culture needs to here.
Review: If we are going to make the world a better place for humans and non-humans to live in we have listen to the wisdom of Derrick Jensen. I've read a Language Older Than Words three times now. It must have taken a lot of courage for Derrick Jensen to write this book. Not only is Derrick exploring the cause of the emotional, physical and sexual abuse that he and his family suffered at the hands and genitals of his father. He is also exploring how are cultures relationship with humans and non-humans is similar to the relationship he and his family had with his father. You will be amazed at the simlarities. A Language Older Than Words definately breaks your heart and mends it at the same time. Thank You Derrick for returning from the abyss and sharing your story and what you've learned with the rest of the community.
Rating:
Summary: For readers with heart only!
Review: If you can't handle the truth, then don't bother. If you demand excellence and honesty from your literature, then don't hestitate to read this. For those of us who know in our hearts that there is something dreadfully wrong with 'the way it is' in our human world, this book is crucial to developing the understanding that we, like the Lorax, must "speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues!" To speak for the other species we must first listen and before we can listen we must accept that such a thing is possible. This book goes a long way in breaking the pattern of denial which has kept our hearts and minds frozen in a hideous world where the only thing we seem to attribute sentience and importance to is other humans, and what these other humans keep saying over and over are outright lies about who we are and what we are doing. Please read this book and know that beyond all these lies and the destruction they try to hide there is another world with another language where the few remaining indigenous tribes and all the other species we haven't destroyed yet are still willing to welcome us back and forgive us for taking so long to admit when we're wrong.
Rating:
Summary: ...chomsky meets quinn
Review: if you think you dont want to be lied to, then read this. if you are interested in environmentalism AND human needs, this unifies them. the only book i've ever read that embraced both anarchist and environmentalist/animist ideals. he's not nice to you. but he's not mad, either....derrick jensen has a lot of love to give. if you are at all interested in that hoaky stuff about communing with nature but arent able to do it yourself yet, then this is perfect for you because derrick jensen is sceptical. he questions whether or not he's really talking with the wolves or if he is just projecting and imagining it. i trusted him because he questioned things scientifically and analyitically but didn't close himself off to the possibility of communicating with non-human beings.
Rating:
Summary: Required reading for human beings.
Review: It's not often that I can say that a book has truly changed my life. Perhaps twice before. One was the first book I ever read which taught me that the Airplane was in the blue sky followed by a kind of realization that I was in fact, reading. One was a book I read when I was twelve which made me realize that a sixteen year old boy in New York City escaping from a Boarding School might think and feel the same way I did. And the one that I just got through reading. A Language Older than Words has changed my perception of my perceptions. It has made me realize that I can hear Spiders, Birds, Trees and I am now working on Lettuce! That the world around me is constanly communicating to me in ways that I had not allowed myself to understand before. It's as though the most gorgeous Beethoven was playing in headphones that I didn't know I had on.
I hear so much more now than I ever did before.
Thank you Derrick!
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