Road to Santiago [Hardcover]

If this book (or the first 30 pages) has given rise to such strong negative feelings, then it must be addressing something in me. It's probable that it is addressing no more than my excitement about finding a book about the Santiago pilgrimage, which I very much want to take, and being dropped into a hell of boredom. My heart does go out to Kathryn Harrison, honestly. She suffers as much as we all suffer, and there is no humor in suffering. This book's subtext is a call for her suffering to be addresed. And I wish her well. But all that notwithstanding, this book stinks.

The thing about Kathryn Harrison is that she puts words to thoughts, emotions, and viewpoints that are usually soul-secrets we ordinary folks hide, even from ourselves. For instance, she writes of her 12 year old daughter, "I'm afraid of my child: her beauty and her silences, her ability to wound me." Oh yes, yes, I think.....exactly! But I wouldn't have realized that when my daughter was 12.

About friends she writes, "...amazing friends, the profound mystery of friendship: love outside of lust or blood." Yes, yes, exactly! Think about it! Kathryn Harrison forces me into unique, but dead-on, perspectives I so enjoy pondering.

A book from a Travel Series isn't something I would normally buy. But ANY book by Kathryn Harrison is an experience I wouldn't want to miss.....intense, haunting, lyrical, and..........spiritual? All her books are "spiritual", but not in a goody-two-shoes, genuflect, rosary kind of way. It's that you end up feeling spiritually affected by such gorgeous, profound writing. Don't get the idea that it's a HEAVY read, however. It's pure 24-karat pleasure I'm not up to the task of adequately describing. Pages 102 and 103 are my favorite, for their unique insight and ability to soothe my soul.

Try it! You'll like it! :-)

Instead, I found it without joy, with a focus on how much how far, how fast she went, so she could get done

The main focus seemed to be on her fears, her sore feet and legs (which from experience I can say is real) and sexual encounters, which were also fearful experiences, rather than the richness of what the Camino and it's history and process of walking it, can be. It was like an average novel with a predictable plot, and hardly the redemption or fulfillment to make it worth it.

The Camino de Santiago is a pilgrimage route that is rich with over a thousand years of history, with scenically rich countryside, going through village after medieval village, and old historic cities. It is speckled with albergues & refugios where many pilgrims meet, share space for a night, help each other with their feet, and spirits, eat local food and soak in a unique cultural experience, day after day then keep walking, while you like some people and places and not others.

It is a completely unique experience, most of which she removed herself from, and complained about throughout the book, from the local people, hotel owners and the pilgrims she met while walking. The book's negativity was depressing and whiny.
I will be the first to admit, however, how taxing and hard the Camino can be physically, and spiritually, but it is mixed with the beauty of the landscape, negotiating the elements, the day to day coming to terms with yourself and your purpose for walking toward and with your spirituality. It is a beautiful, messy and interesting process to be treasured. The process of untangling yourself from your normal daily routines and thinking patterns, enhanced by what you see and hear and walk through...and by the time you take for yourself to do it.

Since she stays only in hotels and goes out of her way to stay away from anyone after she gets done at night, including meals, she has removed herself from as much of the experience as possible. Maybe that's what you do when you walk too much too fast in order to write a book.
I guess that was her 'Camino'. One way to do it, and who am I to say that it wasn't fulfilling, but that's not the point. I just think the book ought to have remained a private family memoir, which is more what it reads like, not a book that National Geographic Directions (a publication company I respect and expect a higher level from) would produce.
In the end, all I can say is my Camino was different. Yours will be too. I applaud her for walking it, because I know what that is like, not always an easy thing.

If I were to recommend a book on the Camino, it would not be this one. There are other good ones.

In the end, nothing will take the place of walking it yourself, which I recommend most of all, before leaving this planet.