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A review by rbruehlman
Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children by Michael Newton
1.0
A year and a half later, thanks to my policy of finishing all books I purchase, I finally finished this loathsome book!
A review on the back of this book claims this book is "hugely readable." This is a huge lie.
Firstly, I love the topic at hand, feral children. I first read about Victor of Aveyron in 3rd grade, and I've been obsessed since. You'd think this book would be right up my alley. This book is not about feral children. I mean, it talks some about feral children ... but most of the book is actually spent talking about philosophers and other people peripherally related to a feral child at hand. He goes deep on philosophers' personal lives in a way he doesn't for the feral children! Not what I signed up for at all. The general flow of the book is "introduce feral child A, talk about people who took an interest in them, expound on those people's personal lives, philosophize for pages and draw connections between this philosopher and that philosopher, mention the feral child in passing again, move onto next chapter." This is not what the back of the book makes it sound like at all.
What Newton actually wanted to write, I think, was a book on philosophy, and this book should be billed accordingly. He spends most of his time comparing and contrasting between different philosophers. Complete bait-and-switch of a book.
Lest you think, ah, I love philosophy, so I will like this book anyway--you won't. The prose is painful. Newton is the wordiest, most flowery author I have read post-college. When people make fun of overly verbose, highly academic prose that says nothing with lots of big words and complex sentences, this is the type of writing they're talking about. It's very awkward and stilted, as if Newton was trying overly hard to prove he was smart. The book is full of entire paragraphs that could have been one sentence. I am genuinely surprised that this book got published, because it just doesn't seem like something that anyone would ever read outside of an assigned reading for a college course...
A review on the back of this book claims this book is "hugely readable." This is a huge lie.
Firstly, I love the topic at hand, feral children. I first read about Victor of Aveyron in 3rd grade, and I've been obsessed since. You'd think this book would be right up my alley. This book is not about feral children. I mean, it talks some about feral children ... but most of the book is actually spent talking about philosophers and other people peripherally related to a feral child at hand. He goes deep on philosophers' personal lives in a way he doesn't for the feral children! Not what I signed up for at all. The general flow of the book is "introduce feral child A, talk about people who took an interest in them, expound on those people's personal lives, philosophize for pages and draw connections between this philosopher and that philosopher, mention the feral child in passing again, move onto next chapter." This is not what the back of the book makes it sound like at all.
What Newton actually wanted to write, I think, was a book on philosophy, and this book should be billed accordingly. He spends most of his time comparing and contrasting between different philosophers. Complete bait-and-switch of a book.
Lest you think, ah, I love philosophy, so I will like this book anyway--you won't. The prose is painful. Newton is the wordiest, most flowery author I have read post-college. When people make fun of overly verbose, highly academic prose that says nothing with lots of big words and complex sentences, this is the type of writing they're talking about. It's very awkward and stilted, as if Newton was trying overly hard to prove he was smart. The book is full of entire paragraphs that could have been one sentence. I am genuinely surprised that this book got published, because it just doesn't seem like something that anyone would ever read outside of an assigned reading for a college course...