Why does a man head out into the woods, leaving everything behind
him: home, friends, old life, clothes, even his name? No trauma
triggers the decision; it's not preceded by dialogue or even
observed by others.
It
soon becomes clear that the "why" doesn't matter, though there
are intriguing hints along the way. What matters is the journey-both
inward and outward. At first, the issue is survival: how does
an educated product of civilization survive without tools
and clothes? He starts by scavenging the forgotten and discarded
detritus on farms and by the roadside, and discovers that
what he needs can be either found or made-as long as he needs
only essentials. And that raises one of the central questions
of the book: what do we really need?
From this
barest of beginnings, he seeks refuge with the most destitute,
hungers with the penurious, and survives with an ever-growing
array of skills. With him, readers can learn how to live,
eat, make weapons and build shelters in the forest, construct
a raft and escape notice in the night; find a world of geology,
metallurgy, botany, palaeontology, and finally myth, vision,
and community.