Wild Angel: By Mary Maxwell, by Max Merriwell

Rating:
Summary: The Wild Angel
Review: [e-mail] The Wild Angel by Pat Murphy (Tor Books, NY, Aug. 2000, $23.95, hardcover, ISBN#: 0-312-86626-7). Pat Murphy's latest novel The Wild Angel, (also credited as by Mary Maxwell by Max Meriwell in a playful authorial pseudonymous experiment), is the second in a trio of tales paying homage to great classics of imaginative fiction. The first, 'There and Back Again', was a loving pastiche of Tolkien's The Hobbit re-worked as a space opera. This one is faithful to the spirit of Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan tales and Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book Mowgli stories with a hefty nod to Mark Twain who is quoted in every epigraph for each chapter. The resulting yarn, a delightful cross-genre mix with elements of mystery, western and fantasy/adventure infused with a feminist sensibility, is also a wolf-girl saga that nicely complements the entirely independent Nadya: The Wolf Chronicles (1996). In Gold Rush California (1850), hopeful settlers Rachel and William McKenzie have their dreams cut short when they are murdered by the ruthless robber Jasper Davis in their camp not far from the boomtown of Selby. Their 3 year old daughter Sarah, by hiding in a cave, avoids death, finding her survival depends upon the wolf pack led by the she-wolf Wauna that adopts her. Like her special wolf-companion Beka, one of Wauna's offspring, Sarah grows wild, strong, healthy and wary of humans for many years until a chance encounter and resulting friendship with Malila, a young Miwok Indian woman and shaman who shows her that not all people are to be feared.

Meanwhile, evidence of the crime is discovered by writer/artist Max Philips, but the perpetrator remains unknown. Max, loving to camp and sketch in this wilderness area, as the years pass, occassionally glimpses Sarah, who is becoming known as the Wild Angel for her beauty, spectacular red hair and kindness to distressed travelers. Gradually Max gains Sarah's trust and

friendship for he has been haunted by her ever since the day he discovered her parent's bodies but couldn't find their little girl. He also keeps this odd friend of his secret, fearing that the murderer of Sarah's parents is still nearby which indeed he is, for Jasper Davis has been buying respectability with the proceeds of his crimes, but never forgetting that Sarah witnessed his foul deed. In the outlandish tradition of the pulpy adventure novels on which this book draws inspiration, Sarah eventually joins a circus, meets her long-lost aunt from back east and confronts Jasper Davis in a predictable but undeniably exciting and suspenseful climax. Pat Murphy's crisp, concise prose style and authorial skill in assembling the elements of her mythical novel evokes such an appropriate atmosphere that suspension of disbelief comes effortlessly and the swift-paced narrative sucks the reader right in. The Wild Angel also features vivid depictions of Gold Rush California that ring true and contains graphic descriptions of the 'nature red in tooth and claw' struggle for survival that is life in a pack of wolves as well as of the loving companionship of which these noble animals are capable. A thoughtful subtext contrasting the wilderness and Native American lifestyles in balance with the forces of nature with the exploitation of and damage to the land caused by the Anglo-Americam settlers and miners adds depth to the story without preachiness--not spoiling the sheer fun of this yarn with its lovable protagonists and compelling, fanciful and ultimately heartwarming plot. In the Afterword, Murphy discusses how the layers of pseudonyms influenced her writing and how they will help to tie together 'There and Back Again', this book, and the next one. Meanwhile, allow Sarah, the Wild Angel---a woman who truly runs with the wolves in every sense of those words, to run away with your heart and have a ripsnorting romp of a read while doing so!

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful adventure!!!!
Review: For those of us who felt shut out because all the really great adventure novels were about men and boys, here's one for you! Pat Murphy does Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jack London one better in this riveting adventure about a young girl raised by wolves in the gold country of California. And those male fans of Burroughs and London will find plenty to like here as well! The setting is beautifully rendered, the characters are warm and believable, and her history is impeccable. Despite all that, you'll like it anyway! This is an adventure novel with a heart!

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful adventure!!!!
Review: For those of us who felt shut out because all the really great adventure novels were about men and boys, here's one for you! Pat Murphy does Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jack London one better in this riveting adventure about a young girl raised by wolves in the gold country of California. And those male fans of Burroughs and London will find plenty to like here as well! The setting is beautifully rendered, the characters are warm and believable, and her history is impeccable. Despite all that, you'll like it anyway! This is an adventure novel with a heart!

Rating:
Summary: Tarzan - Lady of the Wolves?
Review: This is a decent light read. However, it didn't come off in my reading as homage to Tarzan, so much as a straight lifting of the plot. While it was somewhat refreshing to see Burroughs-type fiction done from the female perspective, unfortunately most of the Burroughs problems except for the male-dominance remain prevelant; most importantly the essential junvenility of a lot of the plot and perspective. If you basically like fiction written for teenaged boys, except for the strong sexism that such fiction tends to have, you'll probably enjoy this. If you've graduated to sterner fare, you probably won't get past the first half dozen chapters.

In side note though: There have been some fairly modern and well documented cases of feral children - not many to be sure, but enough to make it not completely impossible speculation to have such a child raised by wolves. The difficulty is that by the time such children were found and brought to civilization they were usually beyond the capability of learning true language, and were probably too young at the time they started living in the wild anyway, so there was no way to find out how they had survived.

Rating:
Summary: Unfortunately, a dissenting opinion
Review: This is quite simply a terrible book.

First, it's written in language suitable to, and develops its themes at a level resembling, a child's book. However, it is not being marketed for ten-year-olds, as perhaps it should be, but for adults. (Not that I would recommend it to a ten-year-old either).

I don't quite understand what Murphy thinks she is doing with this Max/Mary Merriwell stuff. Whoever is supposed to have written this book, it isn't any good, and naming a character (Patrick Murphy) after herself is just plain weird.

The plot of Wild Angel is simply impossible. Without wishing to spoil it for anyone who still wants to read it, it involves impossibilities of biology and human physiology. Wolves do not adopt humans and small half-clothed children cannot survive Sierra Nevada winters, period. Granted one role of fantasy is to make us believe the impossible, but Murphy fails to convince me. The characters are shallow and scarcely developed to the point where I kept getting the various women mixed up, and as for the use of language, the Mark Twain quotes dragooned into chapter-heading duty were the only good writing to be found.

The book backs away shyly from any display of sex or violence, not to mention any serious exploration of themes of wilderness, civilization and so forth, which is why it seems like a badly written child's book to me. Clumsy "informative" paragraphs on wolves add to this impression.

It should come as no surprise by this point that I recommend skipping this book.