Customer Reviews

The Woman Who Walked to Russia: A Writer's Search for a Lost Legend

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Pybus purportedly is writing about a woman who, in the 1920's, set out to walk from British Columbia all the way to Siberia. There isn't much information on this woman and Pybus, with a friend, was going to retrace her steps in an effort to find out more.
That sounds really good. That is why I picked up the book to read it.
What most of this book is about, though, is how mean Cassandra's friend is to her, how too many people are hunting Alaskan moose, how backwards Americans are, how nice Cassandra is. There is finally a resolution to the "woman who walked to Russia" story but it's only thrown in in a halfhearted way before Pybus throws her whole self into telling us how happy she is to be back with her husband, and that's what really matters, right? If she had spent more time being sympathetic the first 3/4 of the book I could have been happier with the ending. As it was, I was completely uninterested in Cassandra's personal life, having been given regular doses of it throughout the book.
There are some good descriptions of Yukon & Alaska in this book; it's an area I've visited before, and her descriptions made me miss it. I can get nostalgic without having to tread through 200 pages of complaining about Pybus's sad lot in life.

The woman of the title is nowhere to be found. If you are looking for wilderness adventure, as I was, you will be disappointed. Pybus has almost no information on Lillian Alling's life or supposed epic hike to Siberia. In fact, she doesn't even know her name. Lillian Alling is largely a guess. In the end, she finds a few tidbits and one first hand account and from that weaves a wispy fairy tale. What the reader finds instead is an often fascinating, if unintended self-portrait of the author -- a woman frightened by wilderness and unable to comprehend anything beyond her own limited and narrow world view. As when she mocks rural Americans or expresses "astonishment" that readers of Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild" see anything more than hubris in Krakauer's protagonist.

The interactions between her, her travel companion, and her thoughts along the way are mesmerizing, if often painful.

The least information supplied in this book is about Lillian (last name uncertain), the woman, whose legend has it, walked to Russia. The author is Australian, and that is probably the market for which this book is intended. She sets off on an investigative journal to uncover information about the mysterious Lillian, and comes up instead with a travelogue about travelling in Northern British Columbia, the Yukon, and Alaska. Along the way, she fills in details of the scenery, the towns, her menu, her disfunctional friendship with her travelling companion, and offers a half dozen book reviews. For someone like myself, with a solid knowledge of North American current events and Arctic history, the narrative offers very little, and in fact, gives away important details some of books still waiting on my reading list. For others, who are looking for an introduction to the region, or enjoys another person's perspective, they may find some merit in the book. The writing style is fine, and the book does have flow to it. However, don't confuse it with investigative journalism.

I have just finished reading this book and really enjoyed it but not for the reasons I bought it!

I have never travelled in these areas but have read a lot about it.I have however travelled a lot independently
in several continents and felt really frustrated with Cassandra's attitude to the trip.Its like she was afraid of anything out of her normal life! Yes I would be afraid of bears too but would still love to have the money to do such a potentially adventurous trip.

Her relationship with her friend Gerry was v interesting, I too have travelled with other females before and sometimes nearly came to blows.Very few people can deal with someone elses idiosyncrasies 24/7 without getting up each others noses. Its just human!!

Gerry actually sounded more adventurous than Cassandra although the bulimia is a bit worrying..I was rather disappointed not more was found about Lillian. Although i think the author is an excellent writer anyone looking for any kind of in depth view of this region will be disappointed.

Regarding her view of " Into the Wild" it is a truly fantastic book whatever you think of his motives &
I think that Ms Pybus is really just not getting it when she doesnt see his appeal to younger people. Or anyone for that matter..

I really enjoyed this book, reading it in just over a day. It is true what the other reviewers say about the actual content being more about the author than the supposed subject, but I found it to be a very accessible history lesson in regards to immigration, and the gold rush in British Colombia, as well as a thorough description of the stunning landscape. It is more a travelog I found. I am amazed someone has such an intense curiosity to unravel a story as to go through all she had to (and that there was a grant to fund it).

I thought that The Woman Who Walked to Russia, by Cassandra Pybus was a good book. The book showed a relationship between Cassandra and her friend Gerry; and how Cassandra never gave up. I felt that it was important that Pybus never gave up because she felt and was so into Lillian Alling and how she supposedly walked through the wilderness to get back where her home was. Pybus said "To follow Lillian's trek from Vancouver would involve a return trip of ten thousand kilometers, allowing for a side trip to Providenija , and to do the trip I would need to hire a four-wheel-drive vehicle for five to six weeks."(p.41) Knowing that all this would have to be done to find how and what Lillian had to do to get back home is remarkable. If I was in Pybus position I do not think that I would go through all that trouble.
The relationship between Pybus and Gerry is a good one for the both of them on this trip. They are both from Australia so they can relate on things, but also can snap at each other. For example when Gerry says, "And I got fat!" and later after they ate dinner, "As if nothing has happened between us, she cheerfully dismantles the Tranjia stove, packs up the food box and locks them into the trunk of the car."(p.111) With it just being them two in a car driving it must get crazy at times. Not having anyone else to talk to or having your own place to just get away must be really challenging.
I liked this book because I never read a book with the people in it being from Australia and looking for someone that they have never met before and them determination just moved me. Also the determination that Lillian had to go back where she was from and here she knew where her home was at.

Natalie San Francisco

I read this book while taking a Refugee and Immigrant Perspectives class. In the first third of the book, Pybus presented a historically strong case for her heroine (statistics, archives, interviews, etc.). Then, Pybus begins to profile her own journey - nearly overshadowing her writers' pursuit of Lillian Alling. While I found the final resolution more realistic but slightly less climatic than I had been expecting, Pybus' travels and observations lend themselves to the wild Alaskan frontier and the dangers of walking/driving/living there. Overall, a good read but perhaps should be renamed: The Woman Who Walked to Russia And The Writer Who Drove to Alaska. Now I'm off to read Into The Wild...

Cassandra Pybus, an Australian writer, heard about the legend of Lillian Alling and decided on a whim to try to follow the path of the great Jewish pioneer and to try to walk from New York to Siberia via Canada and Alaska and the Bering Strait. She and her husband converse about the best way to attack this problem. She is an overweight woman over fifty years old, so she prefers to do things the easy way. She leaves Australia and hooks up with another Australian woman called Gerry, and the two of them start driving through the West Coast of Canada on a "Thelma and Louise" style trip.

Gerry is an unusual character and, if Pybus can be believed, at first she seems like she's charming and quirky, and only later does Pybus realize she has been saddled with the road-trip mate from Hell. And things get really tense when Gerry, the Amazon who lives on horrid junk food, picks up another girl, Lisa, who apparently is bulimic.

Their three-corner adventures make up the heart of the book. It's not so much a travel book but a relationship story about two women not really understanding each other, and the hurt feelings and missed opportunities that result. You want to scream at them, "Get over it!" Meanwhile Pybus finds less and less evidence that Lillian ever did go to Russia. After all these years, there really isn't much trace of her.

It is kind of like Krakauer's INTO THE WILD, except so long ago there are no longer any witnesses.

We are left wondering, why did Lillian make the long trek to Russia? Maybe she was just stupid.

Cassandra Pybus doesn't do herself any favors either, painting a self-portrait of a whimsical, bohemian layabout who can't get along with other women but who loves the Alaskan men she meets. She sounds like she'd be the last person on earth you'd want to take a ride with.

Still, she can write, and if you haven't read INTO THE WILD, Pybus provides a lot of spoilers for that book so it's kind of like two books in one.