"She flew as fast as she could over the mud thinly frozen again in the chill night, into the wild dark woods, because what was behind her was far more deadly than whatever could lie ahead."

A servant girl flees a Jamestown settlement, in colonial America. The wilderness offers even more challenges, as she struggles to survive on her own. I am fan of Groff and I really liked the first half of this adventure story but it began to wear thin, in the second half. It may work better for others. ( )

Een dienstmeisje ontsnapt uit een koloniale nederzetting aan de oostkust van wat later de Verenigde Staten zal worden. Ze heeft niets meer bij zich dan een handvol bezittingen en een rotsvast vertrouwen in de kracht van god. Wat ze aantreft in de wildernis gaat voorbij de grenzen van haar verbeelding, en laat haar
geloof in alles wat haar eigen beschaving haar heeft geleerd wankelen.
De weidse wildernis is een opwindend avonturenverhaal en een indringende vertelling over het zoeken naar nieuwe manieren van leven in een wereld die bezwijkt onder het kolonialisme en religieus fundamentalisme. Het is een profetische roman, die het verhaal van het ontstaan van Amerika in het klein via één meisje op een scharnierpunt in de geschiedenis.
Ik vond het wel mooi, mooie beschrijving van de natuur, maar er staan m.i. ook wel wàt onwaarschijnlijkheden in. In de 17e eeuw, in bittere armoede eet het meisje een sinaasappel…?
Ze maakt vuur in de stam van een boom, ik kan me niet goed voorstellen hoe dat gaat, hoe dat allemaal dan niet in brand vliegt. ( )

I listened to the audiobook version.

This novel follows a teenage girl as she escapes the Jamestown famine into the wilderness. There are frequent flashbacks to her life there as well as in England. As she travels and survives a multitude of challenges her devout Puritan faith evolves into something more inspired by the nature. There is not a riveting plot but the imagery and nature writing is beautiful. There is no romanticism though and the horrors of suffering and daily life in survival mode are told very explicitly and uncut. I enjoyed the book but I don’t think it’s for everyone. ( )

This is the story of a young woman, a foundling, who has no real name but sometimes is called Zed, or names even less complementary, by the people she finds herself working for, essentially as a slave in Jamestown Colony. The colony is starving and we gradually learn the reasons she has to escape into the wild countryside to save herself.

We learn about Zed's difficulties and successes in traveling alone, her determination, and even more about the changes she goes through in understanding her place in the world. Some details were hard for me to understand, just where she was, how she made her camps on the way, found food and slept in the wilderness. But, the details were to show how dangerous and precarious her situation was, both in society and in the wild.

Groff uses a narrator who knows what Zed is thinking and feeling, knows her past history, and tells us also a bit more about what a few of the other characters are doing. This helps us understand what is really happening, and some of the horrible history of early English colonization in North America. The story only gives a few clues as to how it will end. It ends in an unexpected but satisfying way.

Vast Wilds was a slow read for me, because each word, each phrase tells so much, and because I want to savor each part for its language and its meanings. It has a depth not found in many much longer novels. At the end of the book, I spent considerable time rereading many parts of this story. ( )

Compelling, intense, the language! A beautiful book. ( )