The Wilderness

THEODOR

Loked again

very realistic, but at the same time disturbingly strange

A grand novel, written in such a way that you, yourself, feel as though you were suffering the disease. Heart-wrenching, yet at the same time insightful, Harvey did a great job in portraying her character as he battles to contain his hold on precious memories, attempting to decipher what is truth, and what is a folly imagining created by the disease, fearful that, at some point, he will soon lose all remembrance of his jumbled past, and therefore himself, too. A great novel, as before stated it vividly portrays the effects of Alzheimer's disease, but a bit strange in some areas of the character's life, such as the continued reference of the human skinned bible, the immensely unnatural behavior of his religious mother, and, in fact, the main character's own strangeness as he recalls specific memories of his life. It was a good novel, definitely worth a look at, but at the same time I must admit that it disturbed me upon many occasions due to its strangeness, which was rather creepy in a number of areas.

The Wilderness A brilliant debut novel on Alzheimers

The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey (Book Review)
The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey is now in paperback by Jonathan Cape. It has been short listed for the Orange Prize. It is the author's debut novel. She has a masters degree in philosphy and has taught English, so I am now suprised it is literary and truthfull. It has been brillantly researched. This is a psychological fiction novel about Jake a 60 year old architect who has short term memory loss but his long term memory is ok. The story is his reconciltion of life as he remembers it as he sits on a plane overlooking his country. It is written in a compassionate and literary style. Nothing is as it seems. The disease highlights loss and confusion in life.

"In amongst a sea of events and names that have been forgotten, they are a number of episodes that float with striking buoyancy to the surface".

As his Alzheimers progresses his memory and his identity goes. It is narrated in the third person and its prose is lyrical. This book is the wilderness of a confused mind attacked by Alzheimers Disease. The story moves back and forth as Jake goes through memories. Fact and fiction and past and present blur in his stories.

" I feel like all my wires are been unplugged one by one. Not even in order just one by one."

This is heartwrenching and a thought provoking read. It reads like a family drama and we slowly gather the jigsaw pieces together to discover the true story. This book conveys the signifance of our memory and the cruelty of old age. We can outlive our bodies and minds. Anything is plausible and nothing is certain. The themes that run through the novel are: loss, conflict, marriage, love and religion.

No text was provided for this review.