Tag: Wild

First published in Daily Life, February 2015 Cheryl Strayed knows that self-discovery is less about giving into endless pleasure than it is about tackling the thing that’s getting in your way. Near the start of Wild – the much-loved memoir that sees the 26-year-old Strayed hike America’s 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail to absolve herself of a grief […]

The answer has almost nothing to do with the writer’s emotional context and everything to do with the fact that quest narratives belong to a Western literary tradition in which “finding yourself” hinges on the presence of a far-flung Other, whose authenticity brings your own truth sharply into focus. The scenery might switch between Kerouac’s […]