Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I took a long time to finish this book. While I loved reading and re-reading parts of the book, I found some aspects repeated often enough to make me lose interest.

Ecology and mysticism are too tightly woven together to be teased apart. From the perspective of a wildlife researcher, I found this a little frustrating. Chinese agrarian society is beaten raw and the grassland life of Mongols is highly celebrated. While the author has good reason to chide at how Chinese modern society has destroyed the delicate balance of the grasslands, one can get too romantic about the nomadic life and lose any understanding of why the agrarian society developed in the first place.

The book is a departure from your usual books, here the main character's life takes a backseat and the Mongol life and wolves are on centre stage. It is an eye-opener to Mongolian life, their nomadic culture and livestock breeding way of life. I enjoyed reading about the author's love for everything wild. The heart-rending passages showing the agony the author underwent when the Han Chinese overtake and decimates the wildlife and wildscapes echoed within me. Overall it is a great read.

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