by Jack Hitt
Hennepin County Library hardcover 255 pages
Published: 1994
Genre: Non-fiction, memoir, history
I got this after reading and enjoying The Promised Land by Elizabeth Musser and watching the movie The Way. They made me curious about the Camino de Santiago and this book seemed to be highly recommended. It was pretty disappointing.
Right from the get-go, he disparages and discounts religion. I read the entire book, hoping that there would be a moment when he had some revelation about life and God. He seems too self-absorbed to be open to faith.
Page 46 - "Despite its literalness, the idea of the pilgrim's journey is a metaphor bonanza. Everything that happens on the road seems to translate itself instantaneously from what it is to what it means. I get lost! Yellow arrows! Fleeing dogs! Metaphor? Friend, I'm slogging through it."
He definitely has great command of language. (He is a professional writer.) My favorite parts were when he was writing about his own experiences rather than the sections were he has researched some of the history of the road, the churches, etc.
Page 83 - "On foot, a pilgrim finds that his mind can get so blurred by the stroke-inducing sunshine that in his reverie he almost believes that he can control these coincidences. Wish hard enough, and that horse will gallop right up. On several occasions I have eaten all the food in my pack, opened it, and found that my stash has reappeared. Empty bottles of water have filled themselves. Money has appeared when I had none. On precisely those occasions when I was out of hard currency and hungry, strangers have offered me meals without prompting. I could go on."
So . . . the sunshine tricks you into believing that you can control coincidences? You can have a firm belief in coincidence but not in Almighty God? It's kind of sad, actually.
Page 115 - "Most are unoccupied, unused, and unwanted." (This is in reference to the churches along the way.)
Sometimes he states his opinions as though they were immutable facts. He is clearly antagonistic toward organized religion, but he also has no time for God or for other pilgrims who believe in God.
Page 154 - "All of us participate in these groupings in some way or another. And in these maneuverings and jostlings, one can feel a kind of low-grade panic. We are trying to assert an approach to the road or an interpretation of it that is in some sense bigger than ourselves. The old vocabulary of the road - that language of suffering, penance, grace, mystery - are terms most of us find uncomfortable in our conversations. There are those who make a show of old-fashioned piety. . . . They are, in short, annoying: they walk the road with an untroubled confidence in what they are doing. The rest of us are anxious."
This guy just rubbed me the wrong way. He is clearly superior to other pilgrims in his own mind, yet acknowledges that he doesn't know why he's making the pilgrimage.
Page 176-7 - I'm not going to quote all of this part, but he's agonizing over his purpose. "While I become less and less confident about being here, the others grow increasingly assured of their enterprise." Yet he is so critical of people whose walk is due to their faith in God. "These few would have no problem describing my free lunch as a miracle. They are an intense lot. One of them saw a statue move. They avoid the rest of us, as we do them."
Pages 190-191 - He makes a list of distinctions between groups on the walk:
all others v. cars
walkers v. bicyclists
mountain bikers v. racing bikers
short-distance walkers v. long-distance walkers
imposing suffering v. accepting suffering
not spending money v. spending money
tradition v. improvisation
past v. present
walking alone v. walking in a group
Catholic absolutism v. non-Catholic relativism
knowledge v. doubt
certainty v. ambiguity
solemnity v. hilarity
Page 248 - When he reaches the portico in Santiago, it almost seems as though he has a breakthrough. He is overwhelmed and goes down on his knees. But then he turns it into a kind of film script and his self-awareness lacks true introspection.
Page 253 - When he talks about the awkwardness of running into people he just spent weeks with, I wonder what this experience would be like for me. "We are strangers again and have little to say." Perhaps if their conversations had been deeper and more personal, there would have been a stronger connection. I don't think I'll ever tackle a walk like this! (But if I did, it would be to seek after God's direction.)
Someone who read this before me marked lots of passages lightly with pencil. Not sure what they were looking for or if they found it.
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