In the eye of the wild
Description
After enduring a vicious bear attack in the Russian Far East's Kamchatka Peninsula, a French anthropologist undergoes a physical and spiritual transformation that forces her to confront the tenuous distinction between animal and human.
In the Eye of the Wild begins with an account of the French anthropologist Nastassja Martin’s near fatal run-in with a Kamchatka bear in the mountains of Siberia. Martin’s professional interest is animism; she addresses philosophical questions about the relation of humankind to nature, and in her work she seeks to partake as fully as she can in the lives of the indigenous peoples she studies. Her violent encounter with the bear, however, brings her face-to-face with something entirely beyond her ken—the untamed, the nonhuman, the animal, the wild. In the course of that encounter something in the balance of her world shifts. A change takes place that she must somehow reckon with.
Left severely mutilated, dazed with pain, Martin undergoes multiple operations in a provincial Russian hospital, while also being grilled by the secret police. Back in France, she finds herself back on the operating table, a source of new trauma. She realizes that the only thing for her to do is to return to Kamchatka. She must discover what it means to have become, as the Even people call it, medka, a person who is half human, half bear.
In the Eye of the Wild is a fascinating, mind-altering book about terror, pain, endurance, and self-transformation, comparable in its intensity of perception and originality of style to J. A. Baker’s classic The Peregrine. Here Nastassja Martin takes us to the farthest limits of human being.
In the Eye of the Wild begins with an account of the French anthropologist Nastassja Martin’s near fatal run-in with a Kamchatka bear in the mountains of Siberia. Martin’s professional interest is animism; she addresses philosophical questions about the relation of humankind to nature, and in her work she seeks to partake as fully as she can in the lives of the indigenous peoples she studies. Her violent encounter with the bear, however, brings her face-to-face with something entirely beyond her ken—the untamed, the nonhuman, the animal, the wild. In the course of that encounter something in the balance of her world shifts. A change takes place that she must somehow reckon with.
Left severely mutilated, dazed with pain, Martin undergoes multiple operations in a provincial Russian hospital, while also being grilled by the secret police. Back in France, she finds herself back on the operating table, a source of new trauma. She realizes that the only thing for her to do is to return to Kamchatka. She must discover what it means to have become, as the Even people call it, medka, a person who is half human, half bear.
In the Eye of the Wild is a fascinating, mind-altering book about terror, pain, endurance, and self-transformation, comparable in its intensity of perception and originality of style to J. A. Baker’s classic The Peregrine. Here Nastassja Martin takes us to the farthest limits of human being.
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ISBN:
9781681375854
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Grouping Information
| Grouped Work ID | b5f08158-d324-5482-811e-3f8d465ddf4c |
|---|---|
| Grouping Title | in the eye of the wild |
| Grouping Author | nastassja martin |
| Grouping Category | book |
| Grouping Language | English (eng) |
| Last Grouping Update | 2023-09-24 13:38:45PM |
| Last Indexed | 2023-10-02 06:00:32AM |
Solr Fields
accelerated_reader_point_value
0
accelerated_reader_reading_level
0
auth_author2
Lewis, Sophie
author
Martin, Nastassja
author2-role
Lewis, Sophie,translator
author_display
Martin, Nastassja
available_at_cable
Cable Forest Lodge Library
detailed_location_cable
Cable Adult Nonfiction
display_description
"What happened on that day, the 25th of August, 2015 was not: Bear attacks a French anthropologist in the remote Kamchatka Mountains. What happened was: Bear and woman meet violently and the boundary between realms, between the human and the animal, is erased. What happened was a meeting of mythical time and real time, of the past and the instant of encounter, of flesh and of dream. To Believe in the Animal tells the story of the anthropologist Nastassja Martins's nearly fatal run-in with a bear while conducting research in Russia and of the aftermath of the event, of the wounds she took away from it but also of a rebirth in spirit and mind. As an anthropologist, Martin has made a name for the fullness of her engagement with the peoples she studies, the Gwich'in of Alaska and the Evens of far eastern Siberia. She seeks to bridge the distance between the subject, so-called, and herself, between the different experiences and kinds of knowledge that each of them brings into play, the better to frame, and open up, questions about the nature of human beings. In her dangerous encounter with the bear, however, Martin encounters another kind of being altogether, setting off a series of subsequent disasters. She is left severely mutilated and undergoes multiple operations in a provincial Russian hospital, whose ghastly chief surgeon sports a mouthful of gold teeth and presides over a harem of young nurses. Back in France, she goes under the knife again, supposedly to fix the work done in Russia, but the results are even more problematic. She comes to the conclusion that she must return to Kamchatka. She must discover what it means to have become, as the Evens call it, a miedka, a person who is not only human but beast. That is the only way that she can follow through on the anthropological work she had begun"--
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Book
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Books
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b5f08158-d324-5482-811e-3f8d465ddf4c
isbn
9781681375854
itype_cable
BOOK - PAPERBACK
last_indexed
2023-10-02T11:00:32.869Z
lexile_score
-1
literary_form
Non Fiction
literary_form_full
Non Fiction
local_callnumber_cable
599.78 MAR pb
owning_library_cable
Cable Forest Lodge Library
owning_location_cable
Cable Forest Lodge Library
primary_isbn
9781681375854
publishDate
2021
publisher
New York Review Books
recordtype
grouped_work
subject_facet
Anecdotes
Anthropologists -- Biography
Bear attacks -- Russia -- Kamchatka -- Anecdotes
Biographies
Human-animal relationships
Martin, Nastassja
Nature -- Effect of human beings on
Anthropologists -- Biography
Bear attacks -- Russia -- Kamchatka -- Anecdotes
Biographies
Human-animal relationships
Martin, Nastassja
Nature -- Effect of human beings on
title_display
In the eye of the wild
title_full
In the eye of the wild / Nastassja Martin ; translated from the French by Sophie R. Lewis
title_short
In the eye of the wild
topic_facet
Anthropologists
Bear attacks
Effect of human beings on
Human-animal relationships
Martin, Nastassja
Nature
Bear attacks
Effect of human beings on
Human-animal relationships
Martin, Nastassja
Nature
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