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Searching... Gillis Branch Library (Fresno Co.) | Searching... Unknown | Non-fiction Area | 914.4 DOW | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Politi Branch Library (Fresno Co.) | Searching... Unknown | Non-fiction Area | 914.4 DOW | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Part adventure story, part cultural history, this "enjoyably offbeat travelogue" explores the phenomenon of the spiritual pilgrimage ( Booklist ).
Driven by curiosity, wanderlust, and health crises, Downie and his wife walk across Paris on the old pilgrimage route Rue Saint-Jacques then trek about 750 miles south to Roncesvalles, Spain. The eccentric route would take 72 days on Roman roads and The Way of Saint James, the 1,100-year-old pilgrimage network leading to the sanctuary of Saint James the Greater in Spain. It is best known as El Camino de Santiago de Compostela - The Way for short. The object of any pilgrimage is an inward journey manifested in a long, reflective walk. For Downie, the inward journey meets the outer one. More than 20,000 pilgrims take the highly commercialized Spanish route annually, but few cross France. Downie had a goal: to go from Paris to the Pyrenees on age-old trails, making the pilgrimage in his own maverick way.
Author Notes
David Downie has called Paris and the Marais home since 1986. He has written for over 50 publications worldwide including Bon Appétit, The Los Angeles Times, Town & Country Travel, The San Francisco Chronicle , epicurious.com, and Salon.com. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light , three Terroir guides, as well as several cookbooks and crime novels. He lives with his wife, Alison Harris, a photographer, and creates custom tours via his "Paris, Paris Tours" blog site: http://parisparistours.blogspot.com/
Reviews (3)
Kirkus Review
Beset by the crises of middle age, an author and his photographer wife walk from Paris to the Pyrenees along the Way of Saint James. Just before he turned 50, food and travel writer Downie (Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light, 2011, etc.) discovered that his gluttonous ways had finally caught up to him. Doctors told him that he had become "in essence, a walking foie gras" and was in imminent danger of liver failure. Disillusioned as well by "the forced cleverness of corporate magazine writing," Downie decided to take time off to recover his health and rejuvenate his world-wearied spirit. A few days before Easter, he and his wife set off down the Rue Saint-Jacques, which marked the start of the route medieval pilgrims took from Paris to the shrine of St. James in Spain. Downie's desire to trek across France had little to do with any need to find God. "I hadn't escaped the gurus and drug culture of California to wind up Catholic in France," he writes. His journey--most of which would take him along old Roman roads and pilgrim routes that wound through the Burgundy countryside--was one he hoped would re-inspire him to ask the "big questions" that had once fired his imagination. Along the "maverick way" the couple followed (and which he documents with photographs), Downie was drawn to the way Celtic and Roman history intermingled in the landscape, architecture and people. He came to understand that however modern France appeared to be, it lived "simultaneously in the past and present." More profoundly, he realized that he was ultimately no different from the pilgrims who had walked "The Way" before him. His pilgrimage, like theirs, was "both the question and the answer" and a means to heightened awareness. A witty and intelligent spin on the spiritual-journey motif.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
An eclectic author of cookbooks, novels, and tourist guides, Downie embarks here on the genre of travel writing. His journey, which he completed on foot between the titular locations, in general followed the hallowed Christian pilgrimage route to Spain, le Chemin de Saint Jacques. France being France, history accompanied Downie as much as his walking companion, his wife, Alison. Their conversations were sparked by route-side sights, such as a centuries-old chateau that counted as young, and became enmeshed with Downie's interior reflections about his reasons for undertaking the journey. Downie's initial motivation was to improve his health, but after aches and pains suspended the trip, he was sustained by coming to grips with the spiritual auras of the pilgrimage route. Residing in local memory of druids, and in Christian symbols of crosses, churches, and statues of the Virgin Mary, religiosity became a topical constant in Downie's thoughts and discussions, as did Vercingetorix, Julius Caesar, and Francois Mitterand. Astutely ruminative, Downie hovers between past and present in this enjoyably offbeat travelogue.--Taylor, Gilbert Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Here Downie (Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light) details his 750-mile, 72-day trek from the Rue Saint Jacques in Paris to Roncesvalles in northern Spain. With his photographer wife, Alison Harris, he passes along Roman roads and storied pilgrimage trails, stops at hundreds of churches, chats with natives, and justifies his consumption of rich French meals with abundant exercise. Early on, the book is marred by condescending descriptions of people Downie encounters, along with heavy-handed reminders of the author's atheistic views. Fortunately, the author's tone changes as he gets deeper into the journey, growing humbler and more introspective without sacrificing his blunt honesty and occasional dark humor. A seasoned food and travel writer, Downie seamlessly interweaves his personal experience and reflections with a wealth of historical and mythological knowledge. Harris's candid photographs, taken throughout the trip, capture natural and human-made beauty, along with assorted weirdness. VERDICT Though Downie's commentary would appeal most to left-leaning skeptics, many scholars of world cultures, religion, and art history will enjoy and learn from this insightful travel memoir.-Christina Spallone, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Lib. (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.