I have mixed feelings about The Wilder Life, a book-geek memoir written by Wendy McClure about her adult obsession to return to “Laura World” and recapture that elusive feeling she felt as a child reading the Little House on the Prairie books for the first time. Mostly this involves visiting the Laura sites and experiencing what she could of Laura’s world (i.e. churning butter, making hay twists, etc.). I’m a fairly devoted Little House fan, and I’ve happily passed my love for the series down to my girls. In fact, I have had my own instances of Laura-adoration, including dressing up as her for an author fair in fifth grade, detouring off our pre-planned route west on a trip to Yellowstone back in 2003 just so I could visit De Smet, S.D., and lots and lots of blog posts detailing the books’ influence on my girls’ young lives. A couple of things about The Wilder Life, as much as I could relate to it at times, drove me a bit nuts. The biggest issue I took with it is its meandering style. McClure doesn’t start at point A and arrive at point B in any clearly logical fashion; in fact, it’s not unusual to start at A and end, somehow, back at Q, by going in reverse. Although I didn’t expect this book to be a research article, she does include quite a bit of expert opinion and literary analysis (which I mostly enjoyed, an unfortunate sexualized analysis of a scene in one of the books notwithstanding). It’s just that I often couldn’t really get a firm grasp in my mind on which book she was discussing or which site she was visiting. I ended up seeing her experiences as one big, jumbled mush, especially the ones on the prairie. The other thing is, and this one probably goes without saying (especially if the profanity-related statistics in this post on McClure’s blog are any indication), I just didn’t like her tone and voice all that much. (The fact that she includes the statistics on her blog post is probably as indicative of her attitude as anything I can explain here.) The word I’ve seen used most to describe the book is “irreverent,” and though I’d never doubt McClure’s affinity for all thing Laura Ingalls Wilder, I just don’t care for her attitude toward it all.
What kept me reading a book that I had such a major gripe with? I don’t really know. Maybe it’s because I dearly love visiting museums and historical sites, so McClure’s trek across the upper midwest was like a long roadtrip I got to vicariously experience. I also learned things I didn’t know or had forgotten. The biggest one of these is that another Little House on the Prairie movie, produced by Disney, was released in 2005. How did I miss this? (Oh, I remember. I had a newborn and a toddler at the end of 2005, and I hadn’t discovered the world of blogs!) Of course, I’m (almost) always a fan of the book over the movie, but the LHotP television series played a part in my childhood, and yes, I still like it. 🙂 I’d like to track down the 2005 movie some day. The other thing that reading The Wilder Life helped me remember is just how complicated Rose Wilder Lane’s relationship with her parents was. I didn’t remember all that when I read and reviewed Let the Hurricane Roar, and while I really like to let works stand on their own merits, I can’t help but wonder if I would’ve felt the same way about it had I read The Wilder Life first.
The bottom line? This book seemed a little over-the-top for even me, a person who, for the love of Anne Shirley, traveled to Prince Edward Island (and on her honeymoon, no less). It felt to me like McClure was on some existential quest for the Ingalls family to answer all the big questions in her life, but she was still a bit snarky about it. If you like that kind of humor, you might like this book. Just don’t expect it to really give any definitive answers about, well, anything. (Riverhead Books, 2011)
Reviews elsewhere:
Across the Page
Stray Thoughts
5 Minutes for Books
**Special thanks to Janet who passed her copy of the book along to me. Although my review of it is mixed, my esteem for Janet is not. 🙂
I read this book for
Barbara’s LIW Challenge which ends today. Click over to read more reviews and thoughts on all things LIW.
Thanks for linking back to the other reviews! I had read them when they originally came up in my Google Reader but forgotten them.
I guess perhaps because I was warned that this book was “irreverent” and I had recently been burned by a modern book that had more and worse language than I would have thought, this one didn’t seem as bad as I had thought it would be. I knew she was coming from a very secular, non-conservative, “postmodern” viewpoint, so her voice and opinions wouldn’t be the same as mine or most people I know. I didn’t like the less than linear style of story-telling, either — I kept frequently getting mixed up about where they were and what book this particular site was in.
When she talked in the end about all this beginning more or less after her mother died, it seemed to me she was connecting her search for “Laura world” with something elusive or nostalgic she missed with her mother’s loss, with that same sense of “nothing is quite the same and never will be again.” But then maybe I am reading more into it than was there.
This was kind of a hard review to write — I still keep thinking of things I should have added. I would normally have let it sit and simmer for a few days, but wanted to get it done before the end of the reading challenge.
I’m still in the middle of this one. I have some similar thoughts but perhaps not as negative a reaction. I can’t believe that she didn’t start this as a book writing project. I’m sure she really is that obsessed with Laura, but I also think she thought of the idea as a writing project. That doesn’t really matter but it colors my view a bit.
My other thoughts are all along the lines of fictional vs. real characters and how much it really matters to know the “truth”. In some ways I think the Laura of the books is just as important as the real Laura. I haven’t really fleshed out these thoughts. I may post a review of my own when I’m finished.
Barbara–Yes, it did seem to me like she was searching for something with her mother’s death. I think that’s what I meant by “existential quest.” I DID enjoy the details, I just didn’t like the overall tone or style of the book.
Alice,
I, too, felt like she must’ve started her travels with an end in mind. It seems too contrived otherwise, especially knowing she was a writer to begin with.
Well, I think this sounds interesting, though likely a bit annoying, to read. I suspect it is one that I wouldn’t want to own, but the insights would be worth the read. Thank you!
Interesting – as a fellow LIW fan, I must read this. But, as a Christian and LIW purist, I’m sure (from 3 reviews I’ve now read) that parts of it will really grate at me as well. Somehow, profanity in any degree and a LIW book just don’t seem to mix. I enjoyed your thoughts!
I’m holding off on reading your review until I get my copy back and have a chance to read through it! (I checked our library but they don’t have this title yet so I must wait!)
I agree with everything you say here. I thought McClure layered a rather crass modern sensibility over all things Laura. But like you, I kept reading for the vicarious road trip.
I also agree with Barbara about wishing I’d added various things — mostly qualifiers — after I posted my review. Oh well. :-/
Ok, now that I’ve read it for myself and wrote my own review, I hopped back over to read your thoughts. I agree with you almost completely and whole heartedly. I also didn’t know about the 2005 Disney movie. I didn’t have a tv, didn’t watch many movies and had just gotten married that year! So…I guess I missed that but now I’m sure curious!