(no subject)

[haptalaon]

Review: Rewild Yourself

When you dash off a couple of lines, just as a record that you completed some reading; and in the course of writing, hit eight paragraphs and discover you really, truly, hated this book.

Comments

[ashareem]

Meh. Potter and Narnia. Two of my least favorite settings. Thanks for the review, I'll put it on my don't bother list.

[haptalaon]

Yeah, ditto. I enjoyed both series, but I can't go *wild* for them the way some people do - they feel very Written.

"Don't bother" list is exactly it.

[annofowlshire]

Yikes, it sounds like a very shallow book. I think I commented on a post of yours recently that we as a modern culture tend to want everything spelled out for us, simple, safe, fast, preferably in 10 one-liner steps or less. Even “mystery” should have the mystery stripped out quickly because sitting with it would be too disconcerting and anyway who has time for that? This sounds like that in book form.

[haptalaon]

Yeah. Shallow is the right word, and I was surprised by it - because it's not a terrible idea, merely badly executed. So many ways that it could have been improved, all of them very easy.

I remember that post! It's not even that he promises mystery without effort; he seems unaware that mystery is even possible. Like, "we all dream of magic that would allow us to summon animals, but what if I told you the REAL magic was...using binoculars!" like, hmmmmm.

As you know, you absoutely can have experiences of magic and transcendence just by looking at the natural world for a bit, but...despite him writing about that experience, I'm not convinced he really believes in it.