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appelsientjie 's review for:
Women Who Run with the Wolves
by Clarissa Pinkola Estés
For the first time since I can remember, I gave up on a book. I will not finish this one.
To me, there are so many things wrong about this book. First of all: it's feminism. Pinkola Estés makes a very essentialist statement based on a large body of legends and mythology, and I just have a big problem with essentialism. She keeps claiming that I'll be a better, healthier woman if I embrace this archetype, and I think I'm doing pretty well without it.
Her essentialism brings me to my next point: she constantly makes this bold (often spiritual) statements for which she has no argumentation at all. For example: "Babies are born wizened with instinct. They know in their bones what is right and what to do about it" (33). Obviously, Pinkola Estés had never tried putting a baby to sleep that really needs to sleep, but somehow decides that it does not want to.
Last, her writing style seems... arrogant? She references a lot to other cultures (which is good), but she keeps using words in the original language (which, half of the time, is not necessary), and she keeps explaining them (which becomes very annoying). For example, she keeps using the word criatura, and than always followed by the translation of the word: "...criatura, creature...". First of all, there is no added value of not just using the English word in your English text, and if there is, then you can just stop giving us the translation of such a simple word after you've introduced it the first time! She's constantly doing this, with all kinds of different words and it comes across as if she just wants to seem interesting with her multicultural background. The way she uses it has no added value to the text and only makes it unreadable.
To me, there are so many things wrong about this book. First of all: it's feminism. Pinkola Estés makes a very essentialist statement based on a large body of legends and mythology, and I just have a big problem with essentialism. She keeps claiming that I'll be a better, healthier woman if I embrace this archetype, and I think I'm doing pretty well without it.
Her essentialism brings me to my next point: she constantly makes this bold (often spiritual) statements for which she has no argumentation at all. For example: "Babies are born wizened with instinct. They know in their bones what is right and what to do about it" (33). Obviously, Pinkola Estés had never tried putting a baby to sleep that really needs to sleep, but somehow decides that it does not want to.
Last, her writing style seems... arrogant? She references a lot to other cultures (which is good), but she keeps using words in the original language (which, half of the time, is not necessary), and she keeps explaining them (which becomes very annoying). For example, she keeps using the word criatura, and than always followed by the translation of the word: "...criatura, creature...". First of all, there is no added value of not just using the English word in your English text, and if there is, then you can just stop giving us the translation of such a simple word after you've introduced it the first time! She's constantly doing this, with all kinds of different words and it comes across as if she just wants to seem interesting with her multicultural background. The way she uses it has no added value to the text and only makes it unreadable.