Woodswoman by Anne LaBastille

Anne LaBastille was a pretty amazing woman.  In a time where most women wouldn't think of being on their own, she went out and built her own cabin in the Adirondacks and lived there alone.  And this book is the telling of her first couple years out there, and a little bit of her history before that.

With a divorce from her husband in her future, Anne needed to set out and find her own path.  After loving hiking, camping, and the outdoors, she decides to buy some land in the Adirondack wilderness and build a small cabin out there.  Without electricity and running water, or even an indoor toilet, it's very rustic, but it's where she finds home.   Spending her time writing, or with her dog, she finds peace out in the woods, and when she craves company she can always go into town.  She even goes over a couple harrowing experiences she has out by herself.  But the best thing about being there, is that she gains even more appreciate for the wilderness and the animals that live there.

Anne is the main character in this book.  Well, aside from her dog.  So we really only see her through her eyes, and she doesn't spend much time on herself.  Hardly any actually, she describes the wilderness around her.  She does touch on the few romantic interests she had in her life, but they are all positive, despite the relationships ending.  Even the man she divorces is shown in a mostly positive light in the book.  And her neighbors, aside from a few, are described positively as well.  She does tend to show a distaste for litterers and peace disturbers, but really, who could blame her?

Sometimes this book could drag on a little with the descriptions of the wilderness.  Although there were pictures to show a little bit of what it was like, it was hard to see what she was trying to describe sometimes.  But in all, I found it a very interesting book.  I liked the way she lived her life and how she seemed to be so at peace with her decisions.  Hers seemed an ideal life in some ways, although I'm not sure I'd ever be ok without an indoor toilet.  But to each their own.

An interesting book.  I will definitely look into reading the sequel.  I'm sure it will be just as interesting as this one.

Woodswoman
Copyright 1976
278 pages

Typee by Herman Melville

Herman Melville tells a somewhat autobiographical tale in this story about time spent among cannibals in the South Seas. Somewhat autobiographical because there is a lot of fictional elements to this story.

After ditching a ship run by a mad captain, our main character finds himself on an island with only one other person as they go through the jungle trying to survive on what little food they grabbed. When at last they find a tribe of the island, they are both wary and overjoyed. Because he has an injury, he is unable to leave with the friend and instead is left to the friendly hands of the natives, who really don't want him to leave anyway. So much so that they hold him as a very comfortable hostage. While recuperating from his injury he observes their life and how carefree it is and admires them as a people.

While some elements of this book are autobiographical, I do have to say that Melville really isn't as interesting as the natives think he is. He is injured for the vast majority of the time so I'm surprised he held such a fascination to them. The natives were mostly fairly described and in fact compared favorably to his English brethren, which is a surprise considering the time it was written. I think the most derogatory thing that he wrote was that they seemed to like to be lazy, but would work when needed to. Compared to how he made fun of the English, its actually pretty interesting what he thinks of them.

While Melville has a lyrical way of writing, I found this book to be very tedious. Yes there were beautiful descriptions of the island and its people that made it seem a very desirable place, but these were repeated over and over and over. I stopped caring about breadfruit around the fifth time it was described and some of the other repetitions grew old after the second go around. I just wish he had branched out a bit in his descriptions. I did find some of his adventures interesting but he describes these incidents far and few between.

Definitely not one of the better books I've read in awhile. I know it's a classic, but so much more could have been done with it.

Typee
Copyright 1846
260 pages