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juushikaTitle: The Wilding
Author: Benjamin Percy
Published: Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2010
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 258
Total Page Count: 114,632
Text Number: 333
Read Because: personal enjoyment, won through GoodRead's First Reads
Review: In Eastern Oregon, an undeveloped canyon is about to become a golf resort; before logging begins, a son, father, and grandfather go for a weekend camping trip that will strand them amid that raw wilderness, pitting them against its worst and threatening to consume them. The Wilding is Southern Gothic in all but the specifics of setting: a country roughness, some social incisiveness, and it contrasts the weakness and artifice of the suburban with the seductive, dangerous wilderness of what remains of the natural world, casting neither in a positive light. This is the best of the book, beginning purposeful and strong, ending with a welcome and swift climax—but the middle of the book drags such that its reasonable 250 pages seem far too long.
The longer the book wears, the worse it fares. Its initially strong style, a combination of country gruffness and artistic language, devolves into a plague of similes so common that the text literally become repetitive, littered with "like"s. Any potential for social critique is smothered by a slew of minutiae—meant to build tension, instead slowing the book to a crawl—and a half dozen male points of view and gazes, not excepting in the lone female character: it's not horribly sexist, it's just conformist, limited, insipid, bland, pedestrian; it's the woes of the middle class white man, and it says nothing new. The Wilding isn't bad so much as it's boring, reflecting what the attached reading group guide says it is: a book by committee, where the female POV was added midway through; a book written with the intent to blend the boundaries between "well written" literary fiction and "plot motivated" genre fiction in such a way that it fulfills the supposed qualities of neither and instead flounders midway between, pretentiously unsuccessful. This isn't to say that the book is an utter failure; it's not. It's just not much at all: well-intended, initially appealing, but ultimately I was just glad to see it end. I don't recommend it.
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
Author: Benjamin Percy
Published: Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2010
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 258
Total Page Count: 114,632
Text Number: 333
Read Because: personal enjoyment, won through GoodRead's First Reads
Review: In Eastern Oregon, an undeveloped canyon is about to become a golf resort; before logging begins, a son, father, and grandfather go for a weekend camping trip that will strand them amid that raw wilderness, pitting them against its worst and threatening to consume them. The Wilding is Southern Gothic in all but the specifics of setting: a country roughness, some social incisiveness, and it contrasts the weakness and artifice of the suburban with the seductive, dangerous wilderness of what remains of the natural world, casting neither in a positive light. This is the best of the book, beginning purposeful and strong, ending with a welcome and swift climax—but the middle of the book drags such that its reasonable 250 pages seem far too long.
The longer the book wears, the worse it fares. Its initially strong style, a combination of country gruffness and artistic language, devolves into a plague of similes so common that the text literally become repetitive, littered with "like"s. Any potential for social critique is smothered by a slew of minutiae—meant to build tension, instead slowing the book to a crawl—and a half dozen male points of view and gazes, not excepting in the lone female character: it's not horribly sexist, it's just conformist, limited, insipid, bland, pedestrian; it's the woes of the middle class white man, and it says nothing new. The Wilding isn't bad so much as it's boring, reflecting what the attached reading group guide says it is: a book by committee, where the female POV was added midway through; a book written with the intent to blend the boundaries between "well written" literary fiction and "plot motivated" genre fiction in such a way that it fulfills the supposed qualities of neither and instead flounders midway between, pretentiously unsuccessful. This isn't to say that the book is an utter failure; it's not. It's just not much at all: well-intended, initially appealing, but ultimately I was just glad to see it end. I don't recommend it.
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
