Wild & Eat Pray Love

All that walking of the Pieterpad got me thinking on Wild, the story of Cheryl Strayed who walked the Pacific Crest Trail. I'd never read her novel, but I'd seen the film a couple of times (and I did walk a short bit of the PCT when in Oregon last year). I decided I wanted to read the actual novel, also because in one Gilmore Girls episode where Lorelai decides to 'go Wild', people ask her whether she is going 'book Wild' or 'movie Wild', so that hints to an actual difference between the two. 
Well, there is, and there isn't. The novel is more honest, stating that Cheryl didn't actually walk the entire PCT, like the film implies, but parts of it. She also hitchhiked a lot to get around difficult parts, or when she was lost. She feels no problem doing this, since the whole point of her trip is to get through it, mostly alone, not to walk the entire trail.

The novel starts with what happened in her life up until she found herself on the PCT, with her family living in a self-built house in the woods of Minnesota, her mother suddenly dying, her family falling apart followed by her marriage breaking down. In the film, this is all interspersed with the walking, but here we get the entire backstory in one go, with references to certain past events on later on in the story. This gives some insight in Cheryl, who turns out to have had a past living 'wild', and should be a lot more resourceful than she sometimes comes across in the film.
Or here, for that matter. Having pulled the guidebook from a bookstand in an outdoor shop on a whim, having picked her starting point just because the PCT intersects with the highway there, having bought all her supplies without checking whether she can actually carry them are just a couple of the mistakes she makes before she gets properly underway. She meets several hikers who have prepared years for this trip, in her case it was just a couple of months. Also, she had actually spent all her money on her gear and food, selling her belongings to be able to get on the trail, so she doesn't really have anything to go back to.
That says enough about how desperate she is to get away from things. I read some reviews telling that this is not a book about how to hike the PCT, or that Cheryl 'cheated', or that she was lucky to get through being so thoroughly unprepared. Which may all be true, but then you're missing the point of the story. This is not a 'how to hike the PCT' guide, this story is about someone feeling so lost in the world, because her mother died, because her family fell apart, because she couldn't cope with the grief and made her marriage fall apart, that she has to pull away from it all to properly mourn and fall apart and then piece herself back together. And she doesn't spare herself in the process; apart from telling us about her lack of experience, preparation and money, she also tells us about all the faults she made, feelings she had that she shouldn't be having, doubts and insecurities and all those nasty bits of ourselves we'd rather not have anyone know. Maybe it helps that she wrote the book more than ten years after she undertook the journey, so she can now reflect on what she went through. 

After the background story we get to the trail proper, starting in the Mojave Desert. The first days are described in lots of detail; what was her rhythm, what she packed, how she cooked, where she got water, how the resupply boxes work, etc. On the trail and on the resupply stations she meets several other hikers,  and the whole vibe of the trail-walking community stood out very clearly in the novel; in the film the focus was mostly on Cheryl herself. Here, she walks some stretches together with others, or arranges to camp at the same spot in the evening, so she can walk and think alone, but have evenings of fun with the others. And when the Sierras turn out to be too snowed in, she takes a major detour and decides to move her trip further up the trail, finishing on the Oregon/Washington border rather than in Ashland. Several others do try to get through the snow, or abandon the whole trail to start again another year, but she bands together with several of the others.
Apart from her fellow hikers, she meets several others who help her along the way, who give her rides or food or a shower when she is in need. This felt so American to me, that people living in these remote nature areas care for each other in this way. Another typically American thing was the way she handled the wildlife, meeting several bears on her journey but not worrying too much about them; when I travelled the west coast last year we were constantly aware that we were in 'bear country', fully prepared on what to do if we saw one, while we never did. Cheryl takes the wildlife, the views, the changing landscape, the high mountains and dry deserts simply as part of the country she knows and loves, not realising that many of us never get to see such natural beauty.

Where the first few stretches and most memorable moments of her trip are described in much detail, the ending feels pretty rushed. That bit of PCT I hiked on Mt. Hood is mentioned in a whirl, as she by then can hike 40 to 50 kms a day and is probably eager to finish. All the focus on the beginning and less so on the end made the story feel a bit unbalanced. But the good news is; by then she has found the inner peace she was looking for; she has forgiven herself, she has accepted the changes that have come to her family, her former marriage, and her former place in the world. She has grieved, and let go, and is now ready for the rest of her life to begin. And her journey, although sometimes a bit awkwardly written, is one of hope.


After finishing Wild, I decided to reread Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Partly because I was in the mood for this type of book; American women going on a solo journey to forget past griefs, but also because I'd read that book years ago, shortly after it came out, and I couldn't really remember a lot about it any more. Also, I haven't seen the film, because the reviews were so bad. The novel felt very high brow and spiritual to me then, and having actually started doing some yoga myself I thought I could probably better relate to the main character. Who, as it turns out, was about the same age I am now when she undertook her trip, feeling her life had broken down around her because her marriage failed (because she cheated, I might well add). This felt like a pretty narrow base upon which to built your life, but who am I to judge?
I soon discovered that the novel probably felt 'high brow' to me all those years ago because Gilbert keeps dragging a lot of 'experts' into the story. "As my friend Susan said...", "My Guru calls this...", "Plato defined this as...", "In many travel guides..."; it's like she's padding her own experience by other peoples quotes just to make it feel heavier. But I'm reading her experience, her transcendence from infinite sadness to infinite joy. If I wanted to know what Plato said on meditation or what guidebooks have to say about the island of Bali, I'll go and read them.
But if you took all that out, not much is left. She starts by explaining how everything went to pieces, how she found herself crying on the bathroom floor one night and heard an 'inner voice' and realised she had to get out of that life. She then merrily jumped into another dysfunctional relationship with another guy, and after that broke down and she'd 'lost everything' in the divorce proceedings with her husband, she decided to go on a trip to Italy, India and Indonesia for a year, to experience the world of pleasure, the world of faith and the world that balances these two. 

To put one of the fiercest Roman Catholic countries in the box of 'pleasure' without any 'faith' may be a little short-sighted, but surely she'll realise that when she actually gets to Italy. Sadly, no. She takes a language course at an Italian institution, ditches that when she realises it doesn't teach her the 'real Italy', then travels around the country visiting all the tourist hotspots just to ask the locals for the best restaurant in town. She proudly tells us she didn't visit a single museum during the whole trip, and only went into some churches when her sister came to visit. I mean, if I wanted to pick a country to spend 4 months just eating, I'd probably pick Italy too, but don't turn it into a big thing about 'experiencing pleasure' when you make absolutely no move to actually experience the real Italian culture or history.
Then she's off to India to live in an ashram with her Guru. Wait, no, her Guru isn't actually there, she's in the US making the big bucks. But her energy is around and it will ease her soul. Although all three parts contain the same number of chapters (36), this somehow felt like it was more than the other two combined. It dragged on and on, with her struggling to find meditative peace, until suddenly she does. The only really good thing about this part is Richard from Texas, who keeps her from only thinking about herself and her sad little problems the whole time.
Finally, she is off to Indonesia to live with a medicine man on Bali. Here she has done her background research, because she can tell us why the Balinese are the most balanced people in the world, all the while quoting travel books because again she doesn't actually experience the Balinese culture, she goes to one of the most touristy villages and becomes part of the expat community. Of course, here she finds true love and lives happily ever after (only she doesn't, as she and 'Felipe' have split up a couple of years ago, Wikipedia tells me). 

So does she end up the most balanced person ever, in perfect harmony with her need for pleasure and her need for faith? Did she actually let go of her old self, her old ways? We don't know. In contrast to Cheryl's story, this one lacks the actualy personal growth she went through. If the goal was to focus less on herself and her petty problems, then she clearly failed. This book is one big ego document, purely describing what she did, what she thought and what she experienced. Somewhere she mentions that it is typical that all three countries she visits start with an 'I', but her own selfabsorbness keeps her from actually doing something about it. Luckily, in other parts she can be pretty funny in her descriptions, her writing style is quick and easy, and she does have some good points (although most of them are quotes of others). So, reading it did not wholly feel like lost time. I came away feeling mostly 'why did you write this book?' and the answer was in the acknowledgements; she could only fund the trip through an advance she got from her publisher for writing it. So it was inevitable that, on a trip where nothing really happened and she didn't learn a whole lot, this would be the end product.