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becca_bear_bikes 's review for:
Wolf Totem
by Jiang Rong
This book follows a Chinese student, Chen, as he works with and learns from the Mongols in Inner Mongolia in the 1960s. The action takes place over the course of a year as Chen and his fellow Han Chinese herd sheep and horses. Chen becomes obsessed with wolves, who are both revered and despised by the Mongol herders. He learns as much as he can about the wolves and their relationship with the Mongol herders. In the background, the Chinese government is looking to expand agriculture areas into the grassland pastures of Inner Mongolia. The resulting story is part anthropologic study, part natural history, part history, part memoir, and part slow moving environmental disaster.
The writing was immersive and wonderful, the topics interesting, and the outcome heartbreaking. I rated it 4 ⭐ because sometimes the dialogue, especially between the students, was stilted and a bit too didactic for my tastes. I didn't know anything about Mongols, and the relationship between Mongolia and China, and I learned so much.
In my work, the idea of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), or Indigenous science, comes up pretty often. It's the idea that people who have lived in an area for a long time (100s & 1,000s of years) know the relationships and balance of the natural area through observation and experience over a long time, instead of modern science of testing hypotheses and peer reviewed journal articles. Wolf Totem is a wonderful example of the importance of TEK. The Mongols revered the wolves because they knew the wolves protected the grassland. They understood the predator prey balance and the services that the wolves provided even when they were also hunting the sheep and horses. The book shows in real time the outcomes when this knowledge is ignored in the name of advancement and technology.
This book is semi-autobiographical, and does not contain any elements of magical realism or fantasy--for some reason I originally thought it would, so that's my warning to anyone who also got that impression.
Some other warnings for folks: this book contains a lot of animal cruelty, especially towards wolves and dogs, and it can be pretty heart wrenching to read at times. It also contains a lot of animal on animal violence, particularly wolf on horse, so if you really like horses, consider yourself warned. Finally, the book contains a lot of anthropomorphizing. If that annoys you, be warned.
The writing was immersive and wonderful, the topics interesting, and the outcome heartbreaking. I rated it 4 ⭐ because sometimes the dialogue, especially between the students, was stilted and a bit too didactic for my tastes. I didn't know anything about Mongols, and the relationship between Mongolia and China, and I learned so much.
In my work, the idea of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), or Indigenous science, comes up pretty often. It's the idea that people who have lived in an area for a long time (100s & 1,000s of years) know the relationships and balance of the natural area through observation and experience over a long time, instead of modern science of testing hypotheses and peer reviewed journal articles. Wolf Totem is a wonderful example of the importance of TEK. The Mongols revered the wolves because they knew the wolves protected the grassland. They understood the predator prey balance and the services that the wolves provided even when they were also hunting the sheep and horses. The book shows in real time the outcomes when this knowledge is ignored in the name of advancement and technology.
This book is semi-autobiographical, and does not contain any elements of magical realism or fantasy--for some reason I originally thought it would, so that's my warning to anyone who also got that impression.
Some other warnings for folks: this book contains a lot of animal cruelty, especially towards wolves and dogs, and it can be pretty heart wrenching to read at times. It also contains a lot of animal on animal violence, particularly wolf on horse, so if you really like horses, consider yourself warned. Finally, the book contains a lot of anthropomorphizing. If that annoys you, be warned.