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4.2 out of 5
83.08% of customers are satisfied
5.0 out of 5 stars Freedom in nature
I first fell in love with Lauren Groff’s writing with her 2006 Atlantic short story “L. DeBard and Aliette.” It has stuck with me since I first read it in graduate school, yet for some reason I haven’t actually read any of her novels until The Vaster Wilds (Matrix has been on my to-read list for ages!)The Vaster Wilds is quite a self-contained story, following a girl (simply known as “girl,” but by numerous other names throughout her life, such as Lamentations.) Through contextual clues, we find that the girl has fled the famine and disease-stricken Jamestown settlement after she has committed a crime. The girl’s strong-willed drive for survival is the spark the ignites her journey and keeps her fire burning through adversity in the wilderness.Through starvation, disease, injuries, harsh weather, and much more, the girl’s ingenuity keeps her alive. Perhaps it is obvious to say, but the girl’s flight through the harsh wilderness is also very much a journey through her own mind and memories. She was purchased as a type of “pet” for her former mistress; a person forced to be an object or play thing. A person forced to journey across an ocean and care for a young child. A person forced to witness and endure terrible hardship. The harsh reality of the girl’s life in “civilization” was perhaps far more trying than anything the untamed wilderness hurls her way. For in civilization she was bound, yet in the wilderness she is free.Lauren Groff’s writing style is unique, poetic, and beautiful. Perfect and poignant in her phrasing. I watched the movie Beau Is Afraid around the same time I was finishing this novel, and I can’t help but draw similarities in the abstract journeys both physical and emotional, both bizarre and beautiful.
4.0 out of 5 stars An engaging page-turner with some rough edges
I could not put this book down, and that's always good. Groff has an eye for landscape and a taste for lurid plotting that reminds me strongly of Cormac McCarthy - but without his vocabulary and precision. One example that really stood out to me is her repeated use of "hovel" to mean any rudimentary shelter, even a crevice behind a waterfall. Oxford Languages defines hovel as "a small, squalid, unpleasant, or simply constructed dwelling" and I think "constructed" is a key part, here; using "hovel" as a synonym for "poor shelter" felt sloppy.
5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful story of a life
I picked this book as I enjoyed the matrix and had heard of a collection of short stories, but this book came up. I'm not generally a fan of fiction but found this book to be a captivating read. A girl's struggle to survive enemies of man and wilderness and find appreciation for all that is good in the world nonetheless.
3.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful prose - Ending left me in a strange place.
I'm a nature loved and very much enjoyed the focus on this wilderness survival novel. The main character was well developed as was the sparse supporting "cast". The novel is spinkled with flashbacks that gradually reveal the back story. I would have rated this book higher but the ending didn't sit well. A theme that was prevalent throughout the novel was jettisoned in the last pages in an odd way.
5.0 out of 5 stars A journey for body and soul
Wow! What an immersive and fantastically discussable book!Beautiful and poetic language draw you into the experience of the protagonist and release you on a journey of determination and self-preservation. Told with precision and visceral eloquence, you will not soon forget your time in The Vaster Wilds.
4.0 out of 5 stars vast
A survival spiritual travelogue of Jamestown era America - a girl of obscure origins finds a vaster life in the cosmos
5.0 out of 5 stars Lauren's books are soul-lifting discoveries
Lauren's books have a magical quality that transcends mere words. They are like sunrises, illuminating the hidden corners of our hearts. With each page turned, we embark on a journey—a pilgrimage of emotions, a quest for understanding, and a celebration of the human spirit.Her stories are not just narratives; they are whispers from the universe, echoing through time and space. They touch upon the profound and the ordinary, weaving tapestries of hope, love, and resilience. Lauren's characters become our companions, their struggles mirroring our own, their victories igniting our souls.In the quiet moments, when the world fades away, we find solace in her prose. Lauren's books are more than ink on paper; they are vessels of wonder, carrying us to places we've never been and revealing truths we've always known.
2.0 out of 5 stars not my kind of book
I just didn’t enjoy this book. It was a book club pick and wasn’t the type of book I’d choose. It was a bit repetitive and felt long. I didn’t love the third person narrative and though I wanted to root for the girl I just couldn’t. Her resilience was admirable, but the whole book made me tired.
The best book I've read in a long, long time!
If you're like me and love survival themed novels with a historical setting, this is the next novel for you. I read all day and into the evening until it was done. It was both historically accurate and also captured the struggle to survive in the wilderness with the the most deliciously brutal descriptions. I bought a hard copy to keep in my collection of favourite books of all time.
Wow!
This was quite a book. Beautifully written and better than poetry - brutal but addictive and I could not put it down...
A boring novel
Too long when people have read ROBINSON CRUSOE? LAZARILLO de TORMS , PILGRIM4S PROGRESS and books that are called : road movies, this VAST WILDS is not very original and depressing . She writes well on the whole , but , her sentences are too long and she seems to enjoy wallowing in her own prose . So it's boring and the end is depressing .I did not enjoy it at all
Profound
The plot of this book is simple: into a fledgling colony of North America comes a small dusky skinned servant girl from England. When starvation and illness destroy most life in the fort where she now lives, the girl escapes and makes her way through the strange new wilderness, surviving starvation, injury and illness to set up a simple home for herself. There is almost no conversation: it is a book written entirely as narrative - this happened, that happened etc. Apart from the dangerous physical things that happen, the girl observes and thinks, and a voice sometimes leads or challenges her thoughts. She is strong, resourceful, dedicated to staying alive and wins our respect. There are flashbacks to life in England which are vivid in their evocation of Tudor life. There’s the backstory of a Jesuit priest madly and raggedly surviving in the New World. Towards the end there’s the story of what really happened in the girl’s final hours at the fort. These are stories of venality, filth, cruelty mixed in with song, dance and learning.The wonder and majesty of the novel is in the picture it presents of a halcyon world before Europeans took over and in the girl’s changing apprehension of god, the natural world and the place of humanity in it. This is a bland way to describe it. Lauren Groff is a superb writer with a luminous, poetic, heartfelt gift for driving home fundamental truths of our existence that we often stand outside of as we go to the supermarket etc. It feels very timely, given the coming welter of climate change depredations and the ever-changing social and political upheavals. A superb book, that makes us long for a pristine world whose inhabitants have a humble appreciation of their tiny place in the great chain of being.
Won me over
This gruelling story of a servant girl’s flight through early colonial America has its faults. The heroine is too saintly. The other characters are one-dimensional. There is too much preaching to the choir about colonialism and male violence. But it won me over. After skimming the early pages I became gripped by the heroine’s day-to-day struggles. The close-up descriptions of the natural world, in its beauty and harshness, are dazzling. In the end, the story of one person’s survival becomes a meditation on our relationship with the natural world and what it means to be human.
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Product origin: United States
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