David Downie: Paris to the Pyrenees

[billmclaughlin]

Just finished reading David Downie's Paris to the Pyrenees. I was suckered in by the subtitle: A Skeptic Pilgrim Walks the Way of Saint James.

He's a fine writer with some interesting obsessions (Julius Caesar, Gaul, Mitterand) and a bit cranky in a good way, and his wife is along to gently mock him from time to time. I'm in tune with him on the subject of pilgrims and talking about spirituality, which is somewhat critical and uncomfortable. The problem for me was that he spends 299 pages hiking in Burgundy and rarely on a route headed even vaguely towards Spain. The he heads home to Paris to recover from an injury.

A 13-page epilogue covers Le Puy to Roncesvalles. Seriously, 13 pages.

So it was a good book about walking in France but guilty of false advertising. Not at all what I was led to expect.

Bill

 

[katehawk]

Hi Bill,
I read Downie's book too. Had a similar response to yours-- though I am not put off by the (potential) spiritual nature of the journey. I found Downie a bit too impressed with himself and his own wit; however, the history/political commentary is good, as are the descriptions of the food and the people they met along the way. Being an American, who has lived in France for many years, his perspective was interesting to me-- fluent with the language and the culture, so able to have in-depth conversations with those he met, and pass those conversations along to us. I walked St. Jean to Santiago last Fall and was thinking I wanted to do that again (there was just so much to see that I missed) until I read Downie's book. Now France is at the top my list, as is El Norte. (So many Caminos, so little time.) Yes, it would have been nice if he had focused more attention on the Le Puy to Roncesvalles section. It is definitely not a guidebook, but worth the read.
Katherine

 

[Milepost99]

Yeh, same reaction here. I stopped reading it because the author comes off as really full of himself.

 

[Kitsambler]

I'm halfway through Downie's tome. Having walked the Le Puy route, I am quite jealous of his fluency in french and how that leads to a very different experience in interacting with the locals. It is an interesting page-turner.

As for those who urge putting down a pilgrim memoir because the author is "too full of himself" ... really? and what memoir isn't? Isn't the insight into another's individual and very personal experience the entire reason we read memoirs in the first place?