Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype (Paperback)

by Clarissa Pinkola Estes (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Folklore, fairy tales and dream symbols are called on to help restore women's neglected intuitive and instinctive abilities in this earthy first book by a Jungian analyst. According to Estes, wolves and women share a psychic bond in their fierceness, grace and devotion to mate and community. This comparison defines the archetype of the Wild Woman, a female in touch with her primitive side and able to rely on gut feelings to make choices. The tales here, from various cultures, are not necessarily about wolves; instead, they illuminate fresh perspectives on relationships, self-image, even addiction. An African tale of twins who baffle a man represents the dual nature of woman; from the Middle East, a story about a threadbare but secretly magic carpet shows society's failure to look beyond appearances. Three brief, ribald stories advocate a playful, open sexuality; other examples suggest ways to deal with anger and jealousy. At times, Estes's commentary--in which she urges readers to draw upon and enjoy their Wild Woman aspects--is hyperbolic, but overall her widely researched study offers usable advice for modern women.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Kirkus Reviews
A feminist counterpart to Iron John--or, how ``a healthy woman is much like a wolf.'' Est‚s, a Jungian analyst, believes that a woman's wholeness depends on her returning to the sources of her repressed instinctual nature. To illustrate the ways of the ``wild woman,'' the author draws on myths, legends, and fairy tales from a vast and eclectic range of traditions. This collection of stories may well be the most valuable element of the book, which otherwise reads like unedited transcripts of the workshops Est‚s leads to encourage women to return to their ``feral'' roots. Each story demonstrates a particular aspect of woman's experience--relationship, creativity, anger, spirituality, etc. Est‚s finds evidence in the most diverse tales of the necessity for women to reclaim their wildness. The precise nature of this wildness is difficult to fathom, but, at best, it seems to include a genuine capacity to access feelings and to accept one's contradictions, while, at worst, it appears to amount to the kind of self-indulgence that prevailed during the ``me'' generation. Est‚s claims that her book is for every woman, ``whether you be spicy or somber, regal or roughshod''; but her underlying assumption that every woman is free to abandon what holds her back seems ignorant of social and economic realities. The author provides few concrete examples that might help women understand what she expects them to do, and her prose abounds in generalizations and oddities (``the ambitious woman...who is heartfelt toward her accomplishments'') that further undermine her credibility and her considerable scholarship. Hortatory, ecstatic, and, ultimately, irritating. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 560 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (August 22, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345396812
• ISBN-13: 978-0345396815
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (117 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #48,976 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #83 in	Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Mythology > Folklore

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

166 of 170 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Inner Wellspring, February 8, 2000

By	Sarah A. Rolph (Carlisle, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Reading the other customer reviews, I find it very interesting to see how different they are, and how different many of them are from my experience.

I was surprised to read the review on this page by the woman who believes we ought to read Jung first (or instead). My experience is the opposite; when I've picked up Jung's original works I've found them tough to follow, but this book I found very accessible and useful. I don't think the comparison between the Bible and a tv evangelist is at all fair. It's more like the difference between Strunk & White and the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED is wonderful, but Strunk & White is the one that is most likely to help you become a better writer.

Although I think of myself as a creative person, I tend to downplay that part of myself and to lead with my left brain, as it were. Reading this book I felt like I was being given a path to my inner wellspring. I felt that I had at last found water for a thirst I hadn't quite been able to identify until now.

This book is about one's inner life. It is not a how-to book, it's not political (except in the sense that the personal is political), and I didn't feel that it over-emphasized "what's wrong with you," as another reader put it. It does continually nudge one to think about what might be wrong: many many women are cut off from their own preferences, their own inner selves, because they feel pressured to conform with societal norms. Many societal norms are, in my opinion, quite damaging and inappropriate. It is very easy in American society to get the impression that women should be seen and not heard. Women are still encouraged to focus on how we look, to be compliant, to act ladylike and be nice even when we are being denigrated, and to stand by our man no matter what. We are encouraged to help others at the expense of our own happiness, and many many of us fall into this trap without even realizing it. We think it is normal to put ourselves last, and we lose touch with the shames and the fears that keep us from being happy, wiping the subject of happiness off the table with a dismissive hand as something that is too indulgent or not important.

This book helped me realize the ways in which I stand in my own way, and it gave me courage and inspiration.

The author is not only a Jungian analyst, but a storyteller. She is steeped in the traditions of storytelling from both the Latin and the Hungarian sides of her family, and I very much enjoyed the ways in which she uses this legacy of the storyteller as healer to make her points. I never thought of storytelling in this way before, but reading this book I found it to be true. (I feel that her stories have helped heal me.) I am a storyteller myself, of a sort, so for me the book was a kind of homecoming. If you have ever wondered why fairy tales seem so cruel and peculiar, you will find the answers in this book. Fairy tales have been mangled in the translation, but this author shows you where they came from and what they are really about.

While I am a huge believer in free-market capitalism, growth, business, and civilization (as opposed to back-to-nature Green-ery), I have tremendous concerns about the increasingly violent and impersonal nature of our society. This book shows you how to cultivate a healing, loving attitude toward the world without becoming a doormat--quite the contrary, it shows how love can give you more strength and power than you'll ever find in a boardroom.

Another review on this page criticized the book for not putting these issues into a broader context of one's life. It took twenty years for this author to distill her wisdom of storytelling and her knowledge of Jungian archetypes into this lovely, readable book. For me, that's quite an accomplishment. I'm more than willing to take it the rest of the way myself.

70 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Share with Your Daughters, October 3, 2002

By	Oceana - See all my reviews

This review is from: Women Who Run with the Wolves (Mass Market Paperback)

I first read "Women Who Run With the Wolves" when I was a teenager. I was struck deeply by all of the stories. At the time, the stories that stood out the most in my mind were Bluebeard, Skeleton Woman, and Sealskin, Soulskin. They lived on, in my mind, as I grew, and I never forgot the messages I learned from the stories. That was an incredible influence on my life. The stories and Clarissa Pinkola Estes' descriptions were the wise women I needed to guide me away from allowing myself to be destructed and instead choosing to be aware. I highly recommend sharing this book with your teenage daughters, and talking with them about the messages. In addition this book helped me to view all the stories that I had enjoyed as a child as commentary on my survival (from sexual abuse).

Now, ten years later, I pick the book up again, just as I have periodically throughout my life. Usually I would just re-read the stories, and not the analysis (I would make my own connections and understandings), but now I want to read the analysis again from my adult perspective. On the verge of motherhood I am longing for the voices of wise women to walk with me into the next phase of my life.

42 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The 15th Read in 2006, January 11, 2006

By	MythDoctor "Myth Doctor" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Women Who Run with the Wolves (Mass Market Paperback)

Since this book was first published in 1992, I have made it my New Year's resolution to re-read Women Who Run with the Wolves every year. I have given more copies of this book away than I can remember - and I am thrilled to do so. I begin again in 2006 for the 15th full reading (though I pick a page throughout the year to journal with and 'wake me up'.)

To begin the wondrous journey of discovery to my wild and intutive self is a gift and a new journey to uncovering the jewel within. New depths of power are accessed with every reading and I am bathed in feminine myth and mystery. This book has inspired me to design, write, accomplish and accept fulfillment at so many levels. Please read this book. Women Who Run with the Wolves is a MUST tool for every female. It's a treasure. Elaine Maginn Sonne, PhD, Author Legends of the Stones.