We are the pilgrims, master
Oct. 25th, 2012 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustAmong the many fragmentary travelogues in this blog are a sequence of reports from stages along the pilgrim route to Compostela. But I'm always aware that this description is liable to misinterpretation, and try to spell out the many ways in which I am not a pilgrim. If sometimes I seem to be protesting too much, consider this article from Saturday's Guardian Travel: Actor-turned-travel writer Andrew McCarthy explains how he accidentally bought and read a book (this one, though he doesn't name check the author) about the pilgrim route and "something about the author's tale of his modern-day pilgrimage spoke to me. I was looking for something, I just didn't know what it was."
And two weeks later, wearing new hiking boots, he is crossing the border into Spain. Plenty of warning signs here: the new boots (yes, they cause him problems and yes, he abandons them and is happier: but unless I'm missing something, this is presented as evidence of suffering overcome rather than folly learned from), the starting at the Spanish border (sweeping generalisation: people who see the Camino as an interesting historical route start in France, people who see it as a personal challenge start in Spain).
Obviously, then, what followed was going to tell me less about the Camino and more about the author than I really wanted to know. I should have stopped reading. But I couldn't turn away from statements like: "At night I often shunned the refuges where the other walkers gathered, choosing instead small inns or hotels where I could be by myself." This perfectly reasonable choice of the more comfortable but less economical option is presented as if it were evidence of some extreme emotional state.
Fortunately - if unsurprisingly - things get better: "The next two weeks went by in a blaze. Every step took me deeper into the landscape of my own being. I was in sync with the universe." I read this aloud to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
durham_rambler, and we agreed that while every step was no doubt taking him further up his own something, we had never before heard it called "the landscape of my own being".
So far, so irritating. But oddly enough, the phrase that made really cross was the apparently straightforward: "by the time I strode into Santiago in late July..." The feast day of Saint James the Apostle is July 25th: it's a fairly big deal in Spain anyway, and on the pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint James, immeasurably more so. Did he stride into Compostela in time to celebrate the saint's day, or was he too late? We aren't told, we aren't supposed to be interested, what matters is how he felt about himself. This isn't travel writing, this is self-help.
Thank you, I feel better for getting that out of my system.
And two weeks later, wearing new hiking boots, he is crossing the border into Spain. Plenty of warning signs here: the new boots (yes, they cause him problems and yes, he abandons them and is happier: but unless I'm missing something, this is presented as evidence of suffering overcome rather than folly learned from), the starting at the Spanish border (sweeping generalisation: people who see the Camino as an interesting historical route start in France, people who see it as a personal challenge start in Spain).
Obviously, then, what followed was going to tell me less about the Camino and more about the author than I really wanted to know. I should have stopped reading. But I couldn't turn away from statements like: "At night I often shunned the refuges where the other walkers gathered, choosing instead small inns or hotels where I could be by myself." This perfectly reasonable choice of the more comfortable but less economical option is presented as if it were evidence of some extreme emotional state.
Fortunately - if unsurprisingly - things get better: "The next two weeks went by in a blaze. Every step took me deeper into the landscape of my own being. I was in sync with the universe." I read this aloud to
durham_rambler, and we agreed that while every step was no doubt taking him further up his own something, we had never before heard it called "the landscape of my own being".So far, so irritating. But oddly enough, the phrase that made really cross was the apparently straightforward: "by the time I strode into Santiago in late July..." The feast day of Saint James the Apostle is July 25th: it's a fairly big deal in Spain anyway, and on the pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint James, immeasurably more so. Did he stride into Compostela in time to celebrate the saint's day, or was he too late? We aren't told, we aren't supposed to be interested, what matters is how he felt about himself. This isn't travel writing, this is self-help.
Thank you, I feel better for getting that out of my system.
