Wild Animus

I want to say something nice about this book, but I'm having trouble. I will admit that heavy drug-usage and self-centered obsession with finding oneself are not things I can relate to, but that was the least of my complaints. The prose was overwrought with awkward metaphors and obscure adjectives, so bad that I could just see the author congratulating himself on his cleverness and originality. The dialogue was so forced that it made soap operas sound Oscar-worthy. The description was so flowery that it interfered with the story, making the narration clunky and hard to follow. The story itself took leaps and bounds through time, skipping over massive amounts of necessary exposition, transition, and even conversation - I lost count of show more the times two people would say meaningless sentences and then the text would say that they understood exactly what the other meant. That's fine, but I the reader was still completely lost, and after a while I stopped caring.The characters evoked exactly no sympathy whatsoever: they're overemotional and completely irrational. The story revolves around Sam, a disillusioned Berkeley student in the late 1960s who has a strange obsession with rams and little concern for anything or anyone else but his own desires. His wife Lindy is a complete doormat, working a dead-end job to fund her husband's drugs and solo trip to Alaska to research his book, incidentally called Wild Animus. The second she starts standing up for herself and asking, ever so timidly, that Sam (now called Ransom for some reason) make any effort in their relationship whatsoever, she breaks down crying and begs forgiveness for being such a bitch. She breaks down crying almost every scene she's in, come to think of it. Every character is constantly on the verge of an emotional collapse or breakthrough, which usually happens (the first time) very soon after the introduction of the character (then several times again after that). I wonder if everyone in the author's world is of weak emotional character except, of course, Ransom, who shows no emotions whatsoever.It's a train wreck of poor writing. Even the bolded sections, which I guess were supposed to be spiritual chants, were of the literary quality of your average 15-year-old would-be poet. For a few chapters it was funny, then it became tedious, then annoying. I labored on, telling myself I wanted to finish it so I could write a thorough and fair review, but then I realized that the only reason I was still reading was because the prologue strongly implied that Ransom would die by the end of the book. I ultimately decided - about halfway through the book - that such drivel was not worth my time when the only thing I had to look forward to was the offing of the main character, which would doubtless be as poorly written, uninspired, and pointless as the rest of the story. show less

The book that made me quit BookCrossing. I still haven't figured out what about it made BookCrossers so vicious and uncivilized. A seriously flawed book, but an interesting failure, and if the furor at BookCrossing is any indication, a surprisingly powerful one.

The author writes beautifully and has a very deft hand with a turn of phrase, however I didn't really enjoy this and struggled to keep focused on it. I liked the idea of a person seeking divinity by reconnecting with nature, but in the long run the guy is simply batshit crazy. I couldn't sympathize with any character in this book.

Plot:
Ransom Altman is a college student when he meets Lindy. They fall in love, but Ransom grows weary oft he life that seems to be beckoning them. After graduation, instead of settling down like everybody else, Ransom and Lindy head North, into the mountains where Ransom’s spiritual quest and his feeling of kinship with mountain rams combine.

Judging from what I googled about the book, my experience with it is pretty representative of everybody’s experience with it: receiving a free copy, trying to read it, hating and abandoning it soon after.

Read more on my blog: https://kalafudra.com/2025/10/20/wild-animus-rich-shapero-dnf/

Where do I begin? It is hard reviewing a book that has been so well scrutinized by others. There are opinions on this site about Wild Animus that are very much worth reading. So where to begin? Lets see.....

The Story

Rich Shapero tried his best, I guess, to put a new spin on Man's search for meaning in Wild Animus. We get to see the life and death of the main character, Sam Altman (a.k.a. Ransom). I liked the story from the standpoint that it kept you coming back for more to figure out what happens to this loser goatboy and his girlfriend. I could relate to Ransom's drug induced state as this was part of my wild past when I was a teenager and into the college scene. For me it was a form of rebellion against conformity, which I think is a show more point that Rich Shapero wanted to bring out here. Wild Animus does go against the grain as a story and this is a good thing as it challenges the reader to try to guess the next move of the main character. Let's face it, with Ransom, no one was really sure as to what to expect. It was also good from the standpoint that it alerted me that there were, are and could be people as lifeless and as shallow as Ransom and Lindy. Don't believe me? I picture Ransom being the Dave Kuresh of the Branch Dividians type and Lindy as one of his many would be wives. Yes, Ransom is that much of a whacko...I don't call him goatboy for nothin'. People that did not understand the whole issue regarding LSD, don't seem to also want to understand the power that some of these drugs can have regarding creativity. For all those folks who posted, that they "just don't get it", I am willing to bet that they have Jimi Hendrix, Rolling Stones, Doors or even a Beatles album or two, many of which were very creative and recorded under the influence of some hallucinigenic drug. On this topic, I felt that the story had potential but the writing didn't make up for it and it fell kind of flat.

The Cast of Characters
I guess this is what kept me glued to this book. I came to understand, as I have said previously, that there very well could be characters in the world like Ransom and Lindy. I knew to think the worst of Ransom, when he changed his name, from Sam Altman, to Ransom. The character of Lindy was completely baffling to me. I could not really relate to her martyrdom, but I have been told that there are many women in the world that are like that. Weird! The remaining "Normal" Society members were not so normal to me. Either, they understood Ransom's behavior or they were the biggest bunch of "Yes" people I have ever seen. The premise of the collegiate crowd inviting Ransom to dinner and discussing what they found on Mt. Wrangell was quite unbelievable. Yet in the story they seem to want to have Ransom around. Why? Is it Ransom's sense of humor? Is it his Side Show Charisma? Did he put on his "Full Regalia" as the goatboy and the author failed to mention it? I just don't know. But the mere fact that he did capture thier attention and held it throughout the story kept me intrigued. I guess I came off wishing I could do something as incredible as that.

The Writing
All I have to say about this is that it is obvious to me that Rich Shapero wrote this over time. The begining of the book was laced with "sophmoric" analogies and descriptions. The opening chapter describes the crator from the "Human's point of view" and how huge it was, could you imagine how it would appear to a cockroach?(That little side bar for any cockroaches intending on reading this story). He describes viewing his hand through the smoke "Like a flesh colored bird". My personal favorite of Katherine's smile being like "A cracked windshield about to cave in". Yet by the end of the book, these types of descriptions seem to disappear, or if they are there, are barely noticeable. It could have also been that I was too wrapped in goatboy's LSD musings to even notice.

The Bottom Line
I felt that any spiritual significance in this book was lost to the lunacy of the characters in this story. I also felt the only originality in this story was the description of the scenery in Alaska. Lets face it, Ransom's quest of trying to reach Animus is hauntingly familiar to that of Neo trying to reach "The Source" in the Matrix Revolutions. I felt that Matrix Revolutions made more sense however. I did walk away from this story very emotional. Anger, depression and frustration were some of the key emotions I felt. If this was Rich Shapero's goal, he achieved it. Would I recommend reading it? Sure! One needs to read contraversial stuff like this in order to keep one's perspective. Rich Shapero certainly shook the tree with this one. The question we are left with is "Why?" show less

Drugs are bad, mmkay.

This book is an incomprehensible mess. Some people might be able to produce nice art when they're high, but this author is NOT one of them. This stuff might have made sense to him when he was high and being a furry, but there's really nothing funny about this book, and honestly comes across as more sad and desperate than anything else. It seems like this guy needs therapy more than anything else, and I say that in a honest and kind way.

Please note that before you read any more of this review that it does contain a spoiler this is done for a very good reason to save you the effort of reading this book all together. This book is about a man who gets high on drugs then he dresses like a Mountain Goat from head to foot (yes I said Mountain Goat) and goes into the wilderness where he gets eaten by a pack of wolves. From what I can tell the author of this book was trying to portray the power of the wilderness but it was lost in the stupor of a dug induced banter that made no sense at all. Please do not read this book do not recommend it to friends and if you happen upon it walk away quickly so that you are not tempted to even pick it up. I got this book out of a free bin show more and now I know why it was there. show less