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A review by sadie_slater
The Santiago Pilgrimage: Walking the Immortal Way by Jean-Christophe Rufin
4.0
Jean-Christophe Rufin is someone I'd never heard of before picking up a colleague's copy of The Santiago Pilgrimage, though I feel I should have done; he's a doctor and novelist, a former French ambassador to Senegal, one of the founders of MSF, and a member of the Académie Française. The Santiago Pilgrimage is the account of his walk along the Camino Norte, the coastal route from Hendaye on the French/Spanish border to Santiago de Compostela. I was a little concerned that the book's focus might be on the religious aspects of the pilgrimage rather than the walk itself, but it's clear from the start that Rufin's journey was prompted less by religious fervour than by a desire for physical challenge, and the decision to walk the Camino rather than heading east through the Pyrenees was a last-minute one.
Rufin's book is much more about the psychological impact of his walk than the external landscapes he moved through; it's short on description and detail of the route, though there are the obligatory amusing anecdotes about the fellow pilgrims he encounters along the way (and I did find his accounts of encounters with women slightly uncomfortable - often unneccessarily sexualised, or generalising about "women" from one woman, and ending with his deciding, instead of being annoyed that when his wife joins him she's brought a heavy make-up bag to carry, to be thankful that she has the means to be beautiful with her). Mostly, though, his focus is on the way his own mental state changed across the course of his 800km walk. I found this absolutely fascinating; in fact, I'd say that of all the books about walking I've read, this one comes closest to expressing the way I, too, feel about long-distance walking. None of my walks have been anything like as long as the Camino, but I absolutely recognise the gradual falling away of all other concerns Rufin describes, the way narrowing life down to the simple need to keep putting one foot in front can be a transcendent experience in and of itself, and the horrible anticlimax of reaching your destination only to find that the walk itself was what mattered, not the place you have arrived in. So many walking books, even the ones which are ostensibly about walking and mental health, seem to focus on the scenery, or the blisters, and despite some things in the book I wasn't wild about, overall I really enjoyed seeing my experience of walking reflected here.
Rufin's book is much more about the psychological impact of his walk than the external landscapes he moved through; it's short on description and detail of the route, though there are the obligatory amusing anecdotes about the fellow pilgrims he encounters along the way (and I did find his accounts of encounters with women slightly uncomfortable - often unneccessarily sexualised, or generalising about "women" from one woman, and ending with his deciding, instead of being annoyed that when his wife joins him she's brought a heavy make-up bag to carry, to be thankful that she has the means to be beautiful with her). Mostly, though, his focus is on the way his own mental state changed across the course of his 800km walk. I found this absolutely fascinating; in fact, I'd say that of all the books about walking I've read, this one comes closest to expressing the way I, too, feel about long-distance walking. None of my walks have been anything like as long as the Camino, but I absolutely recognise the gradual falling away of all other concerns Rufin describes, the way narrowing life down to the simple need to keep putting one foot in front can be a transcendent experience in and of itself, and the horrible anticlimax of reaching your destination only to find that the walk itself was what mattered, not the place you have arrived in. So many walking books, even the ones which are ostensibly about walking and mental health, seem to focus on the scenery, or the blisters, and despite some things in the book I wasn't wild about, overall I really enjoyed seeing my experience of walking reflected here.