Women Who Run with the Wolves
by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

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Book Summary Information

• ISBN13: 9780345409874
• Condition: New
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Book Reviews of Women Who Run with the Wolves

Book Review: "If a story is a seed, then we are its soil."--CPE
Summary: 4 Stars

Certainly, women need the sort of healing that stories can give them--but so does everyone in the world, male or female. Men just didn't happen to be part of Estes' "target audience" when she wrote "Women Who Run with the Wolves", I suppose. Yet it is precisely this book that encouraged me to read "Jack and the Beanstalk" and "The Selfish Giant" to my little brothers.

The wondrous thing about this book is that it is only one person's opinion about the power of certain myths. Anyone is free to agree or disagree with Estes . . . to take or reject her advice . . . to give her chosen stories different meanings . . . to apply her meanings to different stories. For example, Estes used "The Ugly Duckling" to lament how a rigid, uncompromising society can oppress mothers into abandoning "unconventional" children. To that I add that if the ducklings had had a father duck around, then the ugly duckling would have had proper protection from the pond bullies and a lot more backbone.

It is also delightful to recognize the archetypes playing hide-and-seek in the fairytales and myths of many cultures. Russia's "Vasalisa" is uncannily like "Snow White", except that the cottage in the woods houses a witch (Baba Yaga), rather than seven dwarves. Also, the colors white, red and ebony/black are not found in the features of the story's heroine, but are sewn into the dress of her doll. Then there are the striking similarities between "Bluebeard" and the Greek myth of Eros and Psyche. (Of course, the difference is that one ends happily and the other does not.)

Finally, I love the way almost every sentence here rings with the kind of beauty and passion I have come to expect only in poetry, never in prose. For this reason, I can sit with this book and just dip into the paragraphs to be refreshed.

The most potentially disturbing element in "Women Who Run with the Wolves" is Estes' firm faith in the Life/Death/Life cycle--something very pagan. If readers miss the point early in the book, all the references to long-gone goddess-based religions of the ancient world will certainly drive home the fact. Personally, I thought it less bothersome than all the psychological concepts she used--half of which I don't buy at all. I've found that it helps to remind oneself all throughout the story that even though Estes writes of something true and deep, it doesn't follow that all women must identify with wolves (I happen to relate to mice), or feel like wild women, in order to be healthy in spirit.

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