Book Review: To the Field of Stars

Stats:
Author: Fr. Kevin A. Codd
# of pages: 271 + about 12 pages of introduction and a map
Original Publication Date: 2008
Publisher: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
My Copy: Paperback

Book Review: Camino de Santiago - Practical Preparation and Background

Stats:
Author: Gerald Kelly
# of pages: 144
Original Publication Date: July 4, 2011
Publisher: Createspace (self-published)
My Copy: Second Edition April 2015

My obsession with El Camino de Santiago de Compostela continues with this fantastic little guidebook by Camino veteran Gerald Kelly. I really enjoyed it. Truly.

It should be noted that this book is self-published and has a few typos and a couple of formatting issues. This is inevitable when dealing with a self-published work (a mark of the sad state of the publishing world in my opinion) but honestly they weren't really problematic. Mr. Kelly opens the book stating that it's self-published, and that efforts have been made to correct any and all errors, so the few typos that persist weren't too irritating. The only issue that truly frustrated me consistently was the way the text ran almost all the way into the crease between pages. This made the text in those areas difficult to read and I found myself bending the spine considerably more than I like to with slim paperbacks. Otherwise, the self-publishing thing wasn't an issue.

I really loved the way the book was set up, so that you didn't need to read it cover-to-cover if you didn't want to. It's a short book to begin with, but I think the way the chapters and sections are worked makes it invaluable as a reference guide. The first (very brief) section introduces you to the Camino - what it is and why people walk it. The second section is all about preparation: what to bring, how to pack, how to prepare, and how to get to Europe if, like me, you don't live on that particular continent.

My favorite part of that section was that instead of making a comprehensive list of everything you need, Mr. Kelly broke it up into three: the essentials, things you can bring if you want to, and what to leave at home. He also doesn't really push specific items or brands, but rather offers the pros and cons of a variety of options and allowing the reader to make an educated decision about what might best work for him or her. I found that to be an intelligent and considerate format and I greatly appreciated it both as a reader and as a prospective pilgrim.

The next part was all about walking the Camino itself. Mr. Kelly wrote about what a typical day on the Camino looked like, and what the hostels are like. He wrote about what to eat and where to buy food, when to drink the wine and when to stick to water. He talked about the potential dangers people face (mostly heatstroke and heart attack) and a variety of ways to deal with blisters. It is a lot of information to digest but it's broken up into bite-sized chunks and generally well-written. He covered a lot of topics but again, all of them fit into pretty small sections and sub-categories and it's easy to bookmark the sections I want to go back to.

After the main section on the day-to-day of the Camino there are shorter sections on other pilgrim routes in Europe, nature and architecture, as well as a chapter on the history of Spain. Some people found this section unnecessary or too long and boring. While I skimmed through most of this section myself, I felt that it is important for non-Europeans to understand Spanish history in order to better understand the nature of Spain today. The history lesson is followed by a Spanish phrase guide as well as some explanation of the differences between Castilian, Galician, and Basque Spanish as well as the variety of regional dialects spoken in Spain. The phrase guide is useful and I liked that instead of trying to teach rudimentary grammar Mr. Kelly simply offered a list of common words and phrases that the pilgrim needs. I personally plan to brush up on my conversational Spanish in the next two years anyway but I like that this phrase guide is available.

I loved that this man walks the Camino every year (or close to it at least) so he actually knows what he's talking about. He's also tried and tested a variety of different walking styles and brought a variety of different equipment with him, and he's also talked to other people about their Caminos and what worked for them. Obviously I won't know what will work best for me until I actually go, but having a variety of opinions to draw upon will likely be quite helpful in two years' time.

I don't have any quotes to share because this book wasn't really the quotable kind. There were parts that made me laugh, but out of context they don't make sense.

Recommended Reading Level: Teen+ but mostly Adult. It's all about packing and walking almost 800km and exchange rates and blisters and I wouldn't give this to somebody under 18 just because unless they were getting ready to walk the Camino for their 18th birthday/high school graduation, they'd be bored to tears.

Rating: 4 of 5 stars. I have to deduct because the typos and formatting issue of the type running right into the crease were annoying. Also, while I did enjoy reading it, it didn't completely captivate me like a 5 star read would. Because it's a guidebook. Can't be helped, sorry.

Who Should Read It: People who plan on walking the Camino anytime in the future, people who plan on backpacking through Europe anytime in the near future, people who like practical guidebooks, people who like books about preparing for a very long walk, people who are considering walking the Camino for the first time.

Further reading to consider:
The author has a website where you can download a guide to a variety of Caminos for free (a donation is suggested but if you want it for free it's available but really, make a donation if you do!) at CaminoGuide.net. 

I'm already reading my next book on the Camino, this one written by a Catholic priest. I'm looking forward to a religious perspective on this crazy obsession of mine.

For more of the books I've loved, hated, and reviewed, please check out my Book Reviews tab.

Happy Reading!

Willow 





*Note: I am not now nor have ever been an associate or acquaintance of Mr. Gerald Kelly. This is an unpaid, unsolicited review of a book I genuinely liked and wished to share.*

Book Review: Off the Road

Stats:
Author: Jack Hitt
# of pages: 255
Original Publication Date: 1994
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
My Copy: First Simon & Schuster Paperbacks edition 2005


So I'm currently more than a little obsessed with the whole Camino to Santiago thing (see my post about it HERE) and as such I've taken it upon myself to read as many books on the subject as I can get my hands on (please don't look in my Amazon shopping cart...) I figured I might as well share some of my "research" with you lovely internet-dwellers out there.

Firstly, there are dozens - probably hundreds - of books about the Camino out there. From the Shirley Maclaine experience to the one written by a couple of nonfiction writers to the one written by a priest (which I've started reading!), there's no shortage of travelogues, memoirs, guidebooks and the like on the market. If you want to read an architect's experience of the Camino, or a housewife's experience of the Camino, it's available. My reasons for starting with this particular account of the road to Santiago is because it is this book that loosely inspired the Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez film called, The Way. The author even makes a kind of cameo character appearance as feisty travel writer Jack, from Ireland. This character is much more likeable than the author himself, in my opinion. More on that later.

This book was originally published in 1994, so it's a teensy bit dated and I have a feeling that conditions along the Camino have changed and improved a bit in the last 20 years, especially given the Camino's rise in popularity after the release of Sheen and Estevez's film and the Holy Year in 2010. In any case, the idea of dropping your entire life to go for a very long walk still shines through. Because walking across northern Spain takes you "out of time" in a way, the many years since publication don't really affect the narrative experience.

I didn't care much for the beginning - he talked far too much about architecture and it really didn't feel relevant to beginning his pilgrimage. He also didn't have very positive things to say about religion, let alone Catholicism. Basically, I felt he was incredibly close-minded. He began by talking about authenticity and metaphor and literalism. He seemed to think that pilgrimage is about getting back to the truest sense of the word before religious metaphors got tangled up in politics and journalism and came to mean nothing at all. It honestly felt like a lot of pedantic backpedaling; it was like he was trying to say that he wasn't going on pilgrimage for religious reasons or to "find God," heavens no! He was purely intellectual, strictly going for a very long walk to connect with himself and unplug from CNN and see what his brain did when it wasn't inundated with media and hyper-connectivity. It felt seriously inauthentic. 

At first I didn't like the way the narrative of his walking was broken up. It's split into 11 chapters with an introduction and an afterward. Each of the chapters revolves around his experiences in a particular region or portion of the Camino: Saint-Jean Pied de Port, Torres del Rio, Leon, and Arzua to name a few. I was initially displeased because I wanted more detail, more day-to-day grind of walking the road, not the highlights version. Upon reflection, however, it makes sense. He wrote this book for commercial publication and yes, there's plenty of slogging through wheat fields in a lighting storm and blisters and lack of adequate shower facilities, but if there was much more of that the average reader would be bored to tears. He did a good job of giving you enough of the daily grind without bogging you down in it, and there were the usual small epiphanies and roadside gems described.

What I feel he did best was describing his fellow pilgrims. He painted incredibly vivid pictures of the Flemish film crew and Claudy and the donkey, Jesus the gypsy, the Welsh family, the Spanish girls, and the Italian pilgrim who spoke no language well. He illustrated the pack mentality versus "every man for himself" and how that dynamic changed over different parts of the Camino. Hostel workers, priests, Spanish widows, and Basque shepherds all came to life on the pages and both welcomed and challenged the pilgrims. All of these people were real, engaging, and complex. There were a few times when the author was unkind or reduced people to stereotypes, but more often than not he allowed the characters to develop and the reader got to see the other side of them.

My main problem with the entire book was the lack of real epiphany. All through the book I kept waiting for the author to learn something - about himself, about the world, about religion, about God - but it never happened. He even made this lack of "lesson learning" a  good thing at the end, in the afterword. He acts like St. James isn't the saint to go to if you're looking for epiphany because St. James was so much simpler than that when depicted as a pilgrim. I disagree. I feel like walking almost 500 miles on pilgrimage has to change you or all you've done is taken a really long walk through northern Spain, practically devoid of meaning. Perhaps I'm naive and still dew-eyed with the belief that God speaks to us when we can listen - on a dirt road in the middle of the Spanish Meseta - but what I felt most for this writer was pity that he was so cynical and almost actively avoiding any kind of experience of epiphany. Maybe my impression is incorrect or somehow inaccurate or even biased because of the author's largely negative view of Catholic Christianity (I'm willing to admit I could be wrong about this) but I sincerely hope that when it comes to my turn to make this journey I have a much more positive experience than he did.

I thought his redemptive moment would be when he entered the cathedral before the statue of St. James.  The Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno wrote of that space, "Before this Portico, one must pray in one way or another: one cannot make literature." Here, the author drops to his knees and approaches St. James in gratitude - as is custom for all pilgrims, kings and peasants alike. He seems to be on the verge of the epiphany I waited so long for, but then... 

"Even here, minutes away from completing my pilgrimage, an air of fraudulence lingers. I had expected a purity, a clarifying wind of revelation. Instead the tourists unsheathe their cameras and illuminate my already soiled epiphany with the strobe of flashes.  This clenched face and furrowed brow now bowing before the statue of James - is this mine, a performance, or both?" (238-239)

ARGHHHHH! SO close and then the cop-out and blaming the tourists for ruining his could-be epiphany. Jackass.

His one moment of redemption, however, came on the last page. He had been in Santiago for a week and had been showered, shaved, and changed into new, clean clothes, and returned to the cathedral for the last time. Instead of being lost in his cynicism, he joined the line of people waiting to kneel at the statue of St. James to pray. So many people have placed their hands beneath the saint's feet that the marble has actually developed the indentation of a perfectly shaped human hand. Now, cleaned up and dressed as a normal person - no longer garbed and clearly marked as a pilgrim, he says, "One cannot make literature here. When my time comes, I put my hand into the stone and pray."  Not the religious epiphany or grand conclusion I had hoped for, but it's better than nothing. The closest thing we get to the lesson learned is in the afterword where he says, "In the midst of all that work, wrangling the details of life stripped down to that essence [of bare necessities], some tiny thing appears. It might be a funny line, a moment, a chance encounter, a though that gives you the power to see yourself as you really are, there in that awkward surreal place." He speaks to my dissatisfaction with his conclusions in the afterword, saying that if I want revelations or epiphanies I should read a war journal. Frankly, I think he kind of missed the point.

Some quotes I underlined:

From page 36:

The road itself is... among our oldest tropes. The obvious metaphors click by. The high road and the low, the long and winding, lonesome, royal, open, private, the road to hell, tobacco, crooked, straight and narrow.  There is the road stretching into infinity, bordered by lacy mists, favored by sentimental poets.  There is the more dignified road of Mr. Frost.  There is, every four years, the road to the White House. There is the right road. And then there is the road that concerns me most today, the wrong road.

 Immediately following on page 37:

Then again, maybe I should calm down.

 You think?

From page 43:

What the modern pilgrim is exiled from is not a place but velocity. I haven't left the world of the city; I have left the realm of the car. What distinguishes me is not that I am out of town but that I am on foot.  My predecessors were outcasts because they left the security of the village. I have left the world of technology and speed.

Are you beginning to see what I mean about his obsession with unpacking metaphors and getting back to the truest sense of the meaning of pilgrimage?

From page 182:

Is this pilgrimage a sacred task or is it trumped-up tourism?

From page 244:

A thousand years ago, from this belief [in God] but also from crude political calculation, financial desperation, and military necessity, the pilgrimage emerged as a journey to truth. What one finds on the road may not be what god wrought, but it is what man wrought, and, for a time, it was the best we could do.

So to summarize a long and winding post, there were things about this book that I liked, and plenty of things about it I had problems with. I found the author's voice pedantic, cynical, and generally obnoxious, but every once-in-a-while he had something interesting to say. 

Recommended Reading Level: Adult. Not in an R-rated sense but in the sense that this guy used a lot of big words (unnecessarily, too) that challenged my post-college brain a bit. Also there is talk of sex and drug use and flippant remarks that adolescents may not be able to put into context.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars - I'd like to be able to give this 3 whole stars, but the author's attitude really prohibits it. I didn't find this book difficult to read, but it certainly does not have a place on my "favorite books this year" shelf. It was a good glimpse of what the daily grind on the Camino is like but I don't think I'll be recommending it to people who aren't actively planning to go on pilgrimage. Even then I'll recommend it with heavy caveats.

Who Should Read It: People who actively plan to make pilgrimage to Santiago and are unsure of their religious beliefs. People who like writers from Harper's Magazine and GQ. People who are interested in historical Spanish architecture. People who like travelogues with no particular theme. People who don't look for revelations in their everyday life.

I'm already reading more books about the Camino so hopefully I'll find one or two that are good and will have better recommendations for you.

For more of the books I've loved, hated, and reviewed, look HERE. Or check out the Book Reviews tab at the top of the page.

Happy Reading,

Willow.



*Note: All text used in quotes are from the 2005 Simon&Schuster paperback edition of Off the Road by Jack Hitt and these quotes are copyrighted by him and Simon & Schuster. These quotations are used for review purposes only. I am not now and never have been an agent of Simon & Schuster publishing or any of its imprints or affiliates, nor am I any acquaintance of Mr. Hitt. This is an unpaid, unsolicited review.*

Walking the Way

This may seem a bit random, but with my birthday tomorrow (25 is terrifying) I've been doing some re-evaluating and made some decisions about what I'd like to do with my life by the time I'm 30.  There's the usual suspects like marriage, children, and home ownership, but there's one other thing that's been on my mind in a heavy way for the last few months.

When I was about 12, my dad bought me a book from a used bookstore. He hadn't read it and didn't really know what it was about other than what he read on the back cover but that summary merely told him that his middle school aged daughter would probably like it. At the time I was obsessed with historical fiction (specifically the early English Renaissance/Tudor dynasty but I was also loving ancient Egypt and American Colonial stuff) so he made a good call. 

That was 13 years ago and I still have the book. My copy is worn and tattered and close to falling apart but I still have it. It's the story of a teenaged girl and her betrothed (just returned from the Crusades) whose parents arranged for them to join their estates in order to lend stability to their region (there was also an issue of money). In order to help them bond before their marriage, their priest sends them on Pilgrimage from their home in England, across the English Channel, through France to Paris and then west to Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain. Their journey takes them a few months and (because it is set in the year 1300) they face many obstacles including hunger, injury, injustice, and threatened kidnapping. It's an exciting story about imagining people complexly - especially people we think we know or who we've known a long time - and over the course of the story the two main characters eventually come to view their impending marriage as a way for them to unite their communities and do good for the people they will be responsible for. It's a great story even if - as a Catholic - there are moments that are a teensy bit problematic. Some comments are made that are critical of the Catholic Church which make it obvious that the author does not think highly of Her. (I just reread it and these comments don't feel obvious to me, but I may be biased because I love the story so much.)

Source: Giacomo Cantelli de Vignola, 1696 {{PD-1923}}

In any case, I've read this novel probably close to a dozen times in the years that I've possessed it. I just reread it again about 2 months ago and this is where things get a bit weird.

I finished reading it and was in this kind of book hangover (the kind you get after reading something wherein you're still living and breathing the stories and characters) and I started thinking, I wonder if people still make pilgrimage to Santiago. Spain has been on my bucket list for years anyway, maybe when I finally go someday I'll stop in Santiago... And there the train of thought ended for a while. 

Until it came back when I was babysitting and saw clearly a scallop shell in their seashell collection. This reminded me of the scallop worn by the pilgrims on the road to Santiago. The thought of someday going to Santiago became an internet search that turned into a dream on my Someday-Maybe list.

1896, Author Unknown, Public Domain Image {{PD - 1923}}

There were other little things: scallops for dinner, the feast of St. James the Less (and talk of St. James the Greater) in my Confirmation class, conversations with my mother about the book and how much I still loved it, and so on.

Then. On the drive up the mountain for my sisters' 2nd year Confirmation retreat, I rode with a young man I knew of but didn't know well. We got to talking about our families and family history and it came out that my family ancestry traces back to Spain and that I dream of going there someday. He said Spain is also on his bucket list because of a movie he'd watched recently. The film, he said, was about a man whose son (somewhat estranged) went to Spain and died on his first day there. So the man had to go to Spain to retrieve his son's body and chose to cremate the body. Then he decided to do the walk through Spain that his son had planned, all the way to -- 

Here I interrupted and asked him ecstatically if the movie is about the man walking the Pilgrim's Way to Santiago. We shared a look of awe at God's timing and bringing us together and we got very excited because yes, this film was all about the Camino, and yes, we both had been daydreaming about someday-maybe going on pilgrimage. We spent the next hour of our drive talking about the film and I told him about my book and this shared dream became a strong bonding point for us. 

After the retreat weekend I went home and found the film on Netflix. It's called The Way and stars Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez and I've watched it 3 times since Christian told me about it and I cry every time. The film tells a complicated story about love, loss, redemption, anger, and how sometimes, grief looks like a really long walk. It is secular but shows reverence for the Pilgrimage and the people along it and the Church and isn't sappy at all. I recommend it. I plan on buying the DVD so I can watch it with my mother. The film was actually inspired - in part - by a book by a man who walked the Way, called Off the Road. I'm currently reading it. While I think the author is a pretentious jackass, the book is pretty good so far.

All of this transpired about 2 months ago and since then I've done lots of research. I've been reading lots and lots of travel sites and doing lots of math and I've been praying about it a great deal.

I think I'm going to Spain in 2 years.

Church of Santiago, Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain. By Vasco Roxo.

Source

I've calculated that it will cost me (at a very rough estimate) about $7,200 to get there, complete my pilgrimage, and get home. Airfare is going to be the most costly part of this adventure and there is also the issue of having at least 1 month's worth of rent and things covered ahead of time because walking the Way (all 500 miles of it) takes about 5 weeks. I'm budgeting 6 because I'll want to spend a couple of days in France getting used to the time difference and then I'll need a few days once home to take care of tidying my house and sleeping and generally recovering.  

All in all, I'm going to have to save about $300-$320 each month if I'm going to head to Spain in May of 2017.  That's my goal: 2 years. Two years to save the money, work out the logistics, dream, plan, and train. Yes, train. My intended path goes from St. Jean-Pied-de-Port in France through northern Spain to Santiago in Galicia. That's just shy of 500 miles. To do that in 35 days (with rest days, of course) I will need to practice walking up to 25 miles each day while carrying a 15 pound backpack. It's a lot more likely that I'll be doing 15-20 miles each day but I'd like to get comfortable walking up to 25 miles a day. I imagine the next two years will be good for my health, as well.

So that's my dream as I turn 25: spend the next 2 years saving and preparing so that within days of my 27th birthday I will be on a plane to Spain (more likely to France then a bus and a train to the Franco-Spanish border but you get the idea). I've made out 24 little envelopes which I intend to fill with cash earned babysitting, house sitting, dog walking, and parts of my paychecks and each will be put into a jar. I've used the image below to decorate the jar as a bit of motivation.  24 months, almost $7,500, and 500 miles. 

I think maybe part of not being afraid of getting older involves taking a very, very long walk.

Some European pilgrims on the road to Santiago de Compostela
by Oula Lehtinen (cropped by me)
Source

Happy birthday to me!

See you in Santiago,

*Author's Note: All the images in this post - with the exception of the purple one - are from Wikimedia Commons and are either in the public domain or used under the GNU Free Documentation License. The original authors have been credited as requested and the Wikimedia source page has been linked to. I have no legal claim to them and make no money from them.*