A woman wild

Growing up on novels with names like Housewife Down, The Playground Mafia, novels which may as well be entitled 'Domesticated', imagine my delight when I was so aptly gifted a female writer, female protagonist, true-story named Wild.

Disclaimer: this is not going to be an onslaught of feminist praise for Strayed, although I could very easily write this like that, but this will include spoilers – so if you haven't read the novel, or watched the film, proceed with caution.

The novel came into my hands by way of a friend who picked it up from a 'leave one take one' shelf in a Croatian hostel. The copy, distinctly American, sports an Oprah Book Club sticker, so by the time it reached my hands, back in a small town in England, even I felt like the book had taken its own title too seriously.

Firstly, I am cautious about addressing it as a "novel". It's been called a 'memoir' to agree with the ever-stricter genre conventions, but I'd rather call it an experience.

For the first time in a long time, I found I couldn't put a book down.

Cheryl's adventure is something anyone who's gone through a great loss, hard time, or a seriously long-ass walk, can appreciate. It's not a journey of one woman, it's the journey of anyone who's ever felt alone.

From the very beginning, and throughout the text, Strayed repeatedly returns to the concept of 'a woman alone'. She is abandoned by her father, left by her siblings, divorced by her husband and, the catalyst of it all, orphaned by her mother. She is a very literal stray. And, after being beaten down by her situation, she does everything in her power to take that appellation back.

I could write an essay on why it is important that Cheryl picks her last name. But who has time for that? The important point is that, by calling herself 'Strayed' she owns the term. It cannot be used against her, instead it defines the positive qualities of 'a woman alone'. It might not have been wholly her choice to become an orphan or a divorcee, but it was her choice to become 'Strayed'. It signifies her independence, individuality, and is more than fitting for her adventure across the country.

Which means it also counteracts any vulnerability associated with the idea of 'a woman alone', something Strayed herself struggles with at the beginning. Women are brought up believing that they're damsels in distress in even the most common of situations. We're told not to go out at night. We can't trust members of our own species. So the idea of a female – and what's more of a young female – on her own, in the wilderness, for over a hundred days, is incomprehensible.

I wouldn't say that she's not vulnerable; in fact, Strayed frequently demonstrates fear and there are a few close calls, but most of the time the dangers she's exposed to are equal for men or women. The Pacific Crest Trail doesn't care about your gender if it's going to kill you from pneumonia, or exhaustion, or by bear. She continually exceeds her fellow hikers', companions and her own expectations to gain the trail name 'Queen of the PCT'.

What's more wonderful, is Strayed's underlying commitment to writing. No matter what else changes about Strayed is the fact that she is a writer. Its evidence lies in her carefully chosen quotes from cultural figures such as Churchill, Shakespeare, Joni Mitchell, and Emily Dickinson, her reluctance to part from The Dream of a Common Language and the 'Books burned on the PCT' epilogue – a 'further reading' bibliography for the literary hiker wanting to follow Strayed's novel footsteps. Meanwhile we are reminded that when she finishes the trail, no matter what happens, she will wait tables in the evening, and write in the day.

And I wonder if, for Strayed, the journey would've never been fully complete until it was written down. As with some writers, the physical journey is just the beginning. The literary version –  amended by memory or by fictional licence – is the real journey. Some things cannot be processed as they happen, and instead, processing by way of writing is the real cathartic experience. It certainly seems that way for Strayed.

So I implore anyone who hasn't read Wild yet, don't watch the film first. It's clear from the text that this was never intended to be adapted for Hollywood, although I'm sure Strayed was chuffed to find out Reese Witherspoon was going to play her. This text really is something to be experienced one of two ways. And, I'm sure Cheryl would suggest that 300 pages are much easier to conquer than the PCT.