In the Eye of the Wild, Nastassja Martin
In the Eye of the Wild, Nastassja Martin
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In the Eye of the Wild

Author: Nastassja Martin, Sophie R. Lewis

Narrator: Cassandra Campbell

Unabridged: 4 hr 4 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 12/20/2022


Synopsis

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. 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.

About Nastassja Martin

Nastassja Martin is a French author and anthropologist who has studied the Gwich-in people of Alaska and the Even people of the Kamchatka Peninsula. Along with In the Eye of the Wild, she has written Les Âmes sauvages: Face a l'Occident, la resistance d'un peuple d'Alaska, for which she received the Prix Louis Castex of the French Academy.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Brendan on December 08, 2021

A French anthropologist survives a horrific bear attack in Kamchatka and, after undergoing brutal reconstructive surgeries in Russia and France, realizes she's developed a profound attachment to the bear and that she must return. That's the tidy, one-sentence summary for you, but a female version of......more

Goodreads review by Anna Carina on September 18, 2024

Update 2024-05-31 Nach Lektüre von Tod in den Augen: Figuren des Anderen im griechischen Altertum: Artemis und Gorgo von Jean-Pierre Vernant, auf den Martin Bezug nimmt, ergibt sich ein neues Bild. Martin bespielt nicht das Dionysische. Dies wäre nämlich lebensbejahend, transformtiv. Ein orgastisc......more

Goodreads review by Uroš on April 13, 2022

Priča o tome kako ste jedva preživeli napad medveda na Kamčatki neodoljivo podseća na onu čuvenu rubriku iz Zabavnika – „Život piše drame”. Znam i ljude koji su samo to u Zabavniku i čitali. To i, naravno, Hogara i Garfilda. Nije neobično što postoji takvo interesovanje. Takozvane „priče iz života”......more

Goodreads review by Come on January 11, 2022

Un racconto autobiografico, un incontro ravvicinato tra una donna (la scrittrice) e un orso. Siamo nell'agosto del 2015. Nasstasja Martin è un'antropologa specializzata in popolazioni artiche. Durante una delle sue missioni, è stata attaccata da un orso sulle montagne della Kamčatka. Questo attacco......more

Goodreads review by Alexander on May 29, 2024

Sprachlich-inhaltlich eine Wucht, die aber in alle vier Himmelsrichtungen gehaltlos zerplatzt. Inhalt: 3/5 Sterne (monomanische Traumabearbeitung) Form: 4/5 Sterne (mythisch angehauchter Sprachexzess) Komposition: 1/5 Sterne (ungeordnet, wild) Leseerlebnis: 1/5 Sterne (befremdendes Gruseln) An das Wilde......more