The Vaster Wilds, In The Distance, book reviews
Lauren Groff
In the Distance
Hernan Diaz
I wanted to slip out a quick review of these titles. My Christmas vacation was spent reading. I think in one week I read four books. It was lovely—
You know, with all the snow and cold, hot tea and chocolate, cozy slippers, warm blankets, putting my feet up in my Tiny House. I was blessed.
I’ve been a fan of Groff for a while. I love her Florida stories and the novel Matrix, not so much her highly-acclaimed Fates and Furies. In fact, that novel put me off so much, I thought I might not return to her work. But every time I hear of a Florida hurricane (which is frequent) I think about her short story collection, Florida. Also, I think I might have been at the Sewanee Writers Conference in a critique group with her. She looks so familiar in her author pic.
It seems that Groff’s interests are varied and far-ranging. All her books are different, coming from, I’m sure, real-life interests that need to be explored.
The Vaster Wild follows an indentured servant girl as she makes an escape from the ill-fated colony along the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia in the early 1600s. This novel (along with the other title I’ll curate) includes accounts of blood, bone-crushing, murder, and sexual violence. The descriptions are graphic and cringe-worthy—but like any accident, I cannot avert my eyes. I kept going and reading as she ran, climbed, traversed unmapped wilderness. I loved the girl’s story so much—where her thoughts led her in her solitary journey. In fact, it reminded me of my solo bike rides. There were days, most days, when I seldom spoke to another human being for hours on end. That sense of achieving distance based upon one’s own effort and agency, seeking shelter, preparing a meal just to sustain the body—all felt so satisfying. Back to the stream of consciousness, the zone, the existential musings, the girl’s thoughts often wandered to childhood memories, to unraveling the mysteries of God and the universe. Indeed, the role fate or God plays in ordering our life.
The novel became my companion when I snuggled down at night in my loft bed in long johns to read and consider the essentials we need in order to survive and the small things that make life worth living.
In the Distance by Hernan Diaz an Argentinian-American writer follows almost the same script. A Swedish immigrant ends up on the West Coast circa 1840s just as gold has been discovered. We follow his journey, nay, his circling of the American deserts, mountains, plains—never making it east of Nauvoo, Illinois/Mississippi River. It was a little aggravating all the zigzagging—to my mind, perhaps just to fit in some twist/event/coincidence in history, Forrest Gump like. In that way the narrative was a bit clunky. Håkan, for instance, became a skilled doctor, learned how to pan gold, an excellent trapper, and like the Mesa Indians learned how to build cliff dwellings. Håkan the wanderer encounters some of the worst of the West, characters that made the account hard to read in their relentless violence. A reminder that our country was founded by a lot of power-hungry men where democratic principles have nothing to do with anything. Again, the joy of reading the tale was the ideal of wilderness, the need to somehow survive. Both of the titles achieved an authenticity that puts the reader in a different place and time. Of course, how do I know, all I know is that while reading I felt tired and hungry after a few pages. That all I had to do was cross the room for a snack or to make tea made me extremely grateful. Both protagonists discovered they were capable of so much more than they thought—they had to, circumstances demanded.
So if you are looking for literary historical adventure
writing—I highly recommend.
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