Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found

St Just Thursday Evening Reading Group 6th August 2020.

Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found. Cheryl Strayed.

This book was in general quite popular with the reading group, as being interesting, easy to read, and enjoyable (especially during lockdown) for the author's response to scenery and the open air. Readers empathised with Cheryl as she gradually re-found her self-esteem through the extreme physical challenges of her long and arduous journey, and learned to value herself more as she immersed herself in nature. We sympathised with the tough patches, admired Cheryl's tenacity, strength and bravery as she walked alone through desert and snow in boots that were too small and a backpack that was too heavy, and enjoyed the way her accounts of her journey and descriptions of the landscape blended with her thoughts about her life.

Readers also saw the book as a vehicle for her grief, and that her behaviours were an 'acting out' of abuse, bereavement and on-going loss, which she survived and worked through and went on to have a happy marriage and children.

Comments were made about her initial lack of planning and silly mistakes about packing and the amount she would be able to carry, but the way she overcame these early miscalculations had to be admired as well.

One reader had a less positive reaction to the book, feeling that the content was 'contrived', and the reader was somehow being manipulated. She felt she could never warm to the author and had no interest (as some of the other readers definitely did have) in looking up the Pacific Crest Trail and finding out more about it. She did finish the book though, despite her reservations, and mentioned the photographs of the author on the Internet and the contrast between the earlier ones, showing a sad young person worn out before her time, and the more recent ones of a mature woman presenting as comfortable and content.

Comparisons were made with Marion Molteno's All The Light We Cannot See, Helen Macdonald's H is for Hawk, and Raynor Winn's The Salt Path – Wild was felt to be a more engaging book than The Salt Path, and better written.

In general this book was well received by the group; most readers thought it contained humour and interesting encounters with other trail-walkers, as well as being an impressively honest account of her inner life and thoughts – making a very well-rounded and inspiring book. Also a good 'reading group title' which would have generated a lot of discussion had the group been able to meet in person. There is a film of the book but those who had seen it found it disappointing.

This book was read during July 2020 and the continuing social distancing because of the Covid-19 virus, and so the discussion was not 'live' as usual, but took place via a Facebook group, email and telephone conversations.