I walk every day for a least an hour in all kinds of weather, always varying my route, so I thought this book might be interesting. Of necessity as my French is limited to some common words and phrases, I read the English translation. In France, this book has apparently been on some best-seller list. I am not sure when the French original was published.
Detailing the musings of Nietzsche, Rimbaud, Rousseau, and Thoreau with eloquently expressed but ethereal generalities about the virtues of walking, I found the first half of the book quite pedantic, bordering on boring. These famous walkers would all now be considered extreme eccentrics if not insane. And for some periods of their lives they did nothing but walk daily, every day, and all day. I have never considered walking as a goal in itself, but as a means of getting somewhere, enjoying nature, enjoying an interesting conversation with other walkers or a easy way to avoid distractions and simply think. The chapter on Emanuel Kant’s very regimented daily walks contains his great quote: “It is during that continuous but automatic effort of the body, that the mind is placed at one’s disposal.”
The second half of this book comes alive in places starting with the Pilgrimage chapter. Detailing the symbolism of sacrifice, spiritual development, repentance, atonement, and forgiveness of the pilgrimages of Christians to various holy sites, the history of these pilgrimages is interesting. Perhaps the most famous nomadic walker of all time was Jesus of Nazareth, with his most famous walk being from Herod’s palace to Golgotha. There is, however, no mention of another famous pilgrimage, that obligatory walk for all devout fit Moslems to Mecca, modelled after the journeys of the Prophet, nor that of pious Hindus to the upper Ganges for purification. For nonreligious walkers, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, a modern novel by Rachael Joyce provides a secular version of pilgrimage, full of similar symbolism and more mystique without the overtly religious connotations, and is a delight to read.
The chapter on the ancient cynics is just as confusing, rambling and incoherent as their rants were. The description of Mahatma Gandhi’s protest walks on behalf of Indian farmers in South Africa and his famous salt tax march to the sea in India provides an historical perspective to the modern era’s proliferation of protest marches as political statements. But there is no mention of long walks associated with evil or ambiguous outcomes, such as Mao’s long march.
One striking feature of this book; all of the famous walkers were men, and all of the pronouns are male. Were there no significant female walkers in history? In my walking group at our complex there are 15 women and two men.
Overall, I have mixed feeling about this little book. There are some great aphorisms, and some interesting history lessons from the great walkers of the past, but rather than reading it, I think I might have benefitted more by going for a long walk.
The Passionate Reader 