The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

A taut and electrifying novel from celebrated bestselling author Lauren Groff, about one spirited girl alone in the wilderness, trying to survive “Extraordinary… staggering…with wrenching beauty…This is a triumph.” –Publishers Weekly, Starred Review “Must be read…The writing is inspired, the imaginative power near mystic.” –Kirkus Reviews A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her. Lauren Groff’s new novel is at once a thrilling adventure story and a penetrating fable about trying to find a new way of living in a world succumbing to the churn of colonialism. The Vaster Wilds is a work of raw and prophetic power that tells the story of America in miniature, through one girl at a hinge point in history, to ask how—and if—we can adapt quickly enough to save ourselves.

A stunningly beautiful fable-esque story in the style of Maggie O'Farrell.

A young servant girl runs in the middle of the night from a starving, disease ridden English colony on the James River in 1600s Virginia. She's running from her mistress, but also from the darkness in her past, and hopefully, towards the safety of French Canada.

Along the way she deals with starvation, injury, disease, animals, other humans, her failing believe in god and the memories of the past.

The girl (named Lamentations, but she admits herself she does not fit this name) is a resourceful and clever and endearing character, and her development, alone as she is in the story and in the wilds is artfully done.

Groff is a true master of the word.

I read b/c this book is on multiple Best of 2023 lists and I can see why it's been honored in this way. A poetic story of survival with some beautiful passages about the wonder of the natural world. Thoughtful subtext of colonization and the blindness to the glory of nature the settlers brought to America. The commentary on how much beauty is missed was particularly resonant for me. And I take to heart the final lines: “The wind passed, even as it is passing now, over all the people who find themselves so dulled by the concerns of their own bodies and?? their own hungers that they cannot stop for a moment to feel it's goodness as it brushes against them. And feel it now, so soft, so eternal, this wind against your good and living skin.”??