Hungry for the World: A Memoir | 
| Author: Kim Barnes
Publisher: Villard
Category: Book
List Price: $23.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 2020416
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.7 x 6 x 0.9
ISBN: 0375502289
Dewey Decimal Number: 811.54
EAN: 9780375502286
ASIN: 0375502289
Publication Date: March 21, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: hardcover with dust jacket as shown; first white page has sticker residue and a few marked-out words; rest is unmarked. (S)
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Product Description
Kim Barnes's award-winning memoir, In the Wilderness, was called "elegiac" and "eloquent" by the San Francisco Chronicle; Library Journal said it "forces reconsideration of the form." Her new book is a bold and beautiful personal narrative--the story of a young woman's trying to save herself when all she has believed has been stripped away.
On the day of Kim Barnes's 1976 high school graduation in Lewiston, Idaho, after a disagreement with her father--a logger by lifelong trade, and a fervent adherent of the Pentecostal Christian faith in which Kim had been raised--she gathered her few belongings and struck out on her own. Alone for the first time, she sought to make a life for herself--without skills, without funds, with barely a shred of knowledge of the world outside the insulated confines of her family.
Hungry for the World is the story of how an intelligent and passionate young woman, thirsting for experience of what lay out there, rejected the patriarchal domination of family and church and tried to find her way, only to be all but undone at the hands of a man whose dominance was of an altogether different sort. It is a classic story of the search for knowledge and the consequences, both dire and beautiful, of that search. Barnes's story breaks the code of imposed by shame and maps a trail of hope through the swamp of human failure and survival.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
Another good one from Kim September 21, 2008
As lovely as her first memoir, Hungry for the World demonstrates that Kim Barnes writes beautifully. Although Hungry for the World retells some stories from her first memoir, I did not mind reading them again. In poetic fashion, she tells of her experiences beyond her strict Pentecostal upbringing in a world where she falls prey to an extremely controlling and dangerous man. The account is breathtaking.
 Not nearly as good as her first memoir August 30, 2007
I was surprised that this memoir was not nearly as good as her first memoir.
My small gripe. March 15, 2007
I immediately ordered this book after I finished Barnes' first memoir. Imagine my dismay when it appeared that the first 70+ pages were a recap of what I'd just read? When I read closely, I did discover that additional information was included in the first section, especially concerning her teen years. So, all is forgiven!
That gripe aside, Barnes' tells an even more painful story in this book than in her first. She does a convincing job of drawing parallels between the male domination of her early life in the church and her later life as a cherished, debased object used at the pleasure of an older man. She isn't preachy, either. She assumes the reader's intelligence will draw the lines from one set of requirements for female behavior to the other set of requirements. I appreciated that.
Whether trying to please church elders or a sadistic trucker, Barnes is compliant, tireless, self-abnegating and completely, totally, tragically lost. Except...she isn't. She retains, somewhere deep in her core, a sense of the right to exist, to express, to grow. She survives. It's one harrowing tale, even with the care Barnes takes in relating some of the more sensational aspects.
 an short, insightful work that takes a long time to read October 7, 2004
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I read this book as a part of the Utne book club, whose previous fare is either really good or too new-agey for popular consumption. This book is a powerful work about Kim Barnes' life which was no doubt very cathartic to write. It also shows that everyone has a story to tell and meaning to find in their lives, whether real or perceived. The book starts out with such promise, as a young girl coming to grips with the Pentecostal dichotomy between reserved behavior and exuberant expression. This theme ultimately becomes a symbol of her adolescent and young adult years as a quest to make sense of her upbringing. However, the writing overuses metaphors and vague imagery to cause the reader to linger over some descriptions and quickly pass over others. The work also grossly overuses sentence fragments to make the reading at times clipped and other times drag on forever. It is more of a hybrid of average poetry and excellent prose that is difficult to write, and can pass for readers who are engrossed by the content over its execution. Overall, this book is an average story of an above-average struggle for self-enlightenment.
A great book November 13, 2001
i think this book is a good book. i would recommend it to anyone who likes to read about other peoples life and the hard and good times they went through.
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