★★★★★ 5
Off the couch and on the road
Format: Kindle
Even those who are happy in their circumstance may find themselves discontented with the sameness of their days. An adventure will relieve this, and perhaps we can make the adventure happen, and yet the sameness of our days is the very thing that holds us back. But then we read how someone actually did it, had a true adventure to match the best of our daydreams, and we think, I could do that, too!
Beth Jusino’s Camino memoir is for everyone who has ever considered doing something extraordinary, something beyond everyday life. She freely admits her life was sedentary — as couch-bound as you or I — but then the notion of the Camino grew from daydream to impulse, and then became irresistible, and she was fortunate to have a husband who gladly came along.
It’s a book of astonishing quality, the words well-chosen, each page proof of her craft. She engages us not only with her physical ordeal (which is considerable, until she finds better shoes along the way), but also with her wonderment at the things she sees, the people she meets on the way, and we are compelled along, turning each page to see what happens next. Her story is not only rich in anecdote but also in the wealth of reflection on what she sees and hears along the way. Some particular scenes that stay fixed in memory are her encounters with a flock of sheep she meets at just the point when she needs them — a Camino miracle! — and also her descriptions of the great storks in their huge nests on all the church steeples and other high points along the way. Again and again I marked passages in the text so that I may come back and enjoy them once more.
It’s also a love story, and the measure of this is the way we begin to anticipate her moments of particular challenge when her husband will do whatever needs doing or say whatever she needs to hear. It’s his story as well as hers, and she knows this and sets it down, and in so doing, tells us that perhaps she could not have finished her journey without him.
Those who have walked any part of the road to Santiago will relive moments in familiar places and perhaps see what they missed the first time along the way and gain a new insight, a fresh view of what they overlooked before. And they may think, yes, I’ll go again!
But if you’ve never had an adventure and Santiago is no more than the stuff of your daydreams, if you have so far only imagined such an undertaking, if the sameness of your days holds you back, then read this book.
Then go out and do it. But make sure you buy the right shoes.
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Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2021
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