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Once There Were Wolves
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I plan to start later this week. I've really been looking forward to reading it.
Due to various challenges, this will be an end of the month read for me but I'm excited for it.
I've already read it and loved it! So I'm looking forward to an interesting discussion:)
I loved this author’s book Migrations, and I liked this one too. I especially liked the information about the wolves and how they help regrow forests. (I thought about this book when I discovered that hungry deer are eating the plants right outside my bedroom window.)The story also has an unusual murder mystery.
Content Warning - there is a bad scene involving sexual violence (the MCs sister). I recommend skipping right over it when it starts. If I can get the kindle, I’ll find the section to let you know where it is.
I suggest not reading my review until you have read the book, as to not disrupt your own reading and experience of it. I am going to post it below. I would skip it, until you have formed your own experience of it. Diana and Nancy, I will look for your reviews.
I can understand very well why many people deeply appreciated this book. It was a book club sensation for awhile, and even I had wanted to do it in my own book club. I waited to read it, saving it for that. But in the end, my book club is doing two other books I recently finished, and this one "came up" as an opportunity to read it with Goodreads friends. I am very glad that it wasn't chosen for a two hour discussion. Because a part of me never wants to talk about it again. Wants to flush the images and the feelings , the entire thing from my consciousness. It was too rough for me. It was rough on my heart, on my senses, on my consciousness. I was deeply uncomfortable reading this. I didn't enjoy it, although I appreciated it. From a craft and consciousness point of view, I deeply appreciated it and respected it. I just didn't enjoy the experience.
Our main character has a condition I had never heard of, called mirror-touch-synesthesia. Even that was too much to process. I simply couldn't bear the experiences that our main character bears. I couldn't bear the images, senses, touch, emotion, and the pulls of her heart. We as readers are forced to bear her experience. But the experience of this condition on top of this blend we have while experiencing Inti's story, it was simply too much. Too much to bear, to process, to experience, to live with. I finished it this morning because I had to. I had to be done. Its even affecting what I am choosing to read next. I am not moving onto the Book of Names or the Hidden Palace. I am going with Mr. Perfect on Paper, and its sitting in my car's backseat.
So - this book. It had a lot. It had ecology, it had twins, it had domestic violence, it had re-forestation and re-wilding. It had neglect, it had family of origin abuse, it had trauma after trauma, after trauma, and medical damage. In the end, the wolves and the humans have the same (sometimes dark and murderous) dynamics. Everything about both running in packs and separating, mating and breeding, running away, violence, and love. It was all encompassing. And therefore simply too much. That is all. Jean Meltzer, here I come.
Without giving anything away, does Once There Were Wolves have animal cruelty/abuse? I loved Migrations and really want to read this but I can't tolerate cruelty to animals.
Well, I finally find some time to write a review - it's hereAnd while I was writing, I realised that I wanted to discuss much more things about it. So I'll share some questions here now and write my thoughts later.
- Do you think Inti's condition did her more good or bad? Would you like to have it?
- How do you understand the idea of "rewilding"?
- What do you think happened to Aggie?
Sallys wrote: "Without giving anything away, does Once There Were Wolves have animal cruelty/abuse? I loved Migrations and really want to read this but I can't tolerate cruelty to animals."Yes, it definitely has some of it.
Diana really loved the book. She asked the question about the main characters condition. Actually I found it heartbreaking. Not that it was all good or all bad, but merely too much. I don't know if a person could manage that level of feeling. Funny how moving onto the Hidden Palace, I am reminded that Chava Levy has a similar quality, and cannot find peace, except with Ahmed. Only she hears the thoughts, and pain, but doesn't feel it in her body in reverse mirror. The other question is about what happened to Aggie. I do think one wonders what happened to her voice. If it was something physical or a psychological symptom of trauma. We do later find out that her attacker did put his hands on her throat. But then by the end of the book she speaks, correct?
I think re-wilding is an important concept, but you have to accept the "wild" part of it. That was an important concept in the book, that wild cannot be controled and it is the price of fighting for it, that you cannot control it. Its just nature.
I am very intersted in the whole rewilding concept, along with concepts of keystone species, of which wolves are one and animal corridors. I read Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution and found it so intriguing.If you have ever watched the video about wolves in Yellowstone?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5O...
It is really amazing what a keystone species can do to help the environment.
Booknblues wrote: "I am very intersted in the whole rewilding concept, along with concepts of keystone species, of which wolves are one and animal corridors. I read [book:Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Cons..."Thanks for sharing the video, Booknblues! It was a new concept to me. I haven't heard before about how important predators are for saving the environment.
Amy wrote: "Diana really loved the book. She asked the question about the main characters condition. Actually I found it heartbreaking. Not that it was all good or all bad, but merely too much. I don't know if..."I totally agree with you, Amy, that Inti's condition was heartbreaking. It's quite interesting to feel the things that way, but it only made things more complicated for her.
As for Aggie, I viewed her silence as more of a mental than a physical problem. And it was so sad that (view spoiler)
And what do you think happened to her in the end? (view spoiler)
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Books mentioned in this topic
Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution (other topics)Migrations (other topics)
It seems a quickie, and it's on my highest priority list. I had sort of been saving it because I had hoped my own local book group would do it. But "we" are already doing Remarkably Bright Creatures and Firekeeper's Daughter on December 4th. So I am thrilled to be joining the Trim Group. This is yet another book that is quite popular for Book Clubs and fits the tag.