The Wilderness

This is the story of Jake, 65 year old Jake, whose wife has died, whose son is in prison, whose daughter ..... well, Jake has Alzheimers, and we tumble with him into a tangle of reminiscence, misleading timelines and confusion, as like him, we try to make sense of his new helplessness and puzzlement about the fates of those he holds dear.

This is a wonderfully imagined book, which gave me real insight (and fears) into an existence entirely dominated by unreliable memories, whether of mothers, lovers, or where to store the coffee cups. Here is a man who was once an architect with vision, now reduced to dependency and frustration.

Beautifully written, it had me gripped till the last page.

(7.5)This is a solemn tale. Jake has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and we accompany him through the ensuing days and months as snippets and pockets of memory come and go. In this way we learn of his early years growing up in the English moors, his return with his young wife, his affair, the births and death of a child and what it is to lose all of this, your identity included. However we realise that his recollections are not always accurate. It is well-written in the observation of this debilitating disease but not uplifting.

When this novel begins, Jacob, a 60-ish architect, has just been diagnosed with Alzheimers. Over the next four years, as his cognitive abilities decline, he visits and revisits the significant episodes and people of his life. On this journey with him, we wonder what the real story of his life is:
does he or does he not have a daughter?; what is the story of the 'missing e?'; what does the shot ringing out over the moors mean?; who is this woman who has moved in with him and is telling him what to do?

I had a hard time getting into this book, but once I did, I loved it. When I finished it, I reread the beginning, and found that, despite my difficulties, it was the right way to begin.

My only quibble with the book is that I feel it show more unrealistically depicted the practice of architecture. My husband is an architect, so I have somewhat of an insider's view, and Jacob's professional experiences did not ring true. However, this fault was easy to overlook. show less

Jake is in his 60s, and has Alzheimer's. The Wilderness is told from Jake's point of view, allowing the reader to experience the devastating progression of his disease. At first, Jake has trouble finding the right word to describe an object. It's a mild inconvenience, but he can still hold it together in public -- for example, at his retirement party. Slowly, he begins to lose his short-term memory, putting objects away in the wrong places and forgetting what he is about to do, or what he has just done. However, his memories of the distant past are still clear, and he clings to those stories and images as a drowning man would cling to a lifeline.

Jake married a woman named Helen, and together they left London for "the wilderness" of show more Lincolnshire, Jake's boyhood home. They had two children, and lived near Jake's mother Sara and her second husband, an eccentric man named Rook. Life was not always easy for Jake and Helen: his career fell slightly short of his dreams, and creating a family was not as easy as they'd hoped. Sometimes they were there for each other; at other times they each found solace in someone else. The story of Jake's past is interspersed with moments from the present, in a kind of mishmash intended to reflect the wilderness his brain has become. As Jake's condition deteriorates there are more and more gaps in his short- and long-term memory. There was one scene in which some especially emotional events take place, and at the end it's revealed that this was all a dream, embodying many of Jake's regrets and wishes.

The Wilderness is a sad story, and very well-written, but also quite difficult to read. I found myself taking it slowly, trying to ease the pain. I can't say this was an enjoyable book, but it was definitely worthy of its 2009 Orange Prize nomination. show less

For Jacob Jameson, life has become strange and confusing. His brain is failing him, his ability to recognise his loved ones is slipping away from him, and his memories constantly reshape and rearrange themselves within his consciousness. Jacob has Alzheimer’s disease.

This was a touching, enthralling story, and yet it wasn’t really a story at all. It avoided the possible dangers of tangling itself into dreadful knots, or maintaining a clinical distance. I felt like I shouldn’t be able to read a book in which no character remains the same from one chapter to the next, but I was carried along by the vignettes of Jake’s life, in which more questions seem to be raised than are ever answered. This book is probably a difficult read for show more people who need all of the threads to be neatly tied up at the end of a story.

I don’t know an awful lot about this disease. I have only ever experienced in the context of watching the slow disassembly of elderly relatives’ personalities in a constant spiral of circular conversation and repeating my own name to remind them who I am. Until I read this book, I had never really grasped the devastating extent of this confusion and amnesia. Scary, but immensely thought-provoking. show less

This story is about Jake who is steadily deteriorating from Alzheimers. Rather like a puzzle, we weave in and out of Jake's thoughts, dreams and daydreams as he tries to determine real memory from mis-remembering. Strong female characters feature in this story - from his mother Sara, to his wife Helen, his lover Joy and the woman who cares for him in his illness, a friend from childhood, Eleanor. I have not yet been acquainted with Alzheimers personally thought I have picked up fragments here and there from the press and also through personal accounts from friends who are caring for afflicted relatives. And it is a real affliction - a torment I believe - which is why the book is so very difficult to read!! The author has captured the show more torment beautifully...as a reader we struggle to know what is "real" and what is "fiction" - a clever conceit if you will. So whilst not my preferred choice for the Booker, I can admire the writing, the characterisiation and the concept. For a first novel I think this is a triumph and such a shame that it wasn't shortlisted. show less

While the characters in this novel do in fact spend time in the wilderness. The title is probably more a metaphor from what Alzheimer's has done to Jake, the narrators mind. He wanders here and there, in both time and space, trying to recall the people and events in in his life. Sadly, for both him and the reader, Jake is hopelessly lost. Throughout the novel he wanders farther and farther into the wilderness and in the end there is no escape for the narrator. Thankfully for the reader, the end is an escape from having to muddle along with Jake in his futile attempts at making sense of his life.