The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot
A literature professor and prodigious perambulator, Macfarlane has walked in England, Scotland’s Isle of Lewis, and elsewhere and describes his experiences here. While descriptive observations of trails and vistas inform his presentation, Macfarlane’s animating idea is the construction of a meditative sensibility that involves imagining history, exulting in nature, and interpreting literature. Macfarlane confides that his inspiration for walking-writing is Edward Thomas, author of The Icknield Way (1913), a foot travelogue that Macfarlane’s loosely replicates, routewise; England’s southern hills, the chalk downs, are where Thomas ambled. Macfarlane’s contemporary peregrinations partake of a fine-grained feeling for the pathway, encounters with fellow itinerants, and the occasional ghost-haunted campsite. With a penchant for neologism and literary allusion, Macfarlane seeks out ancient footpaths across an Essex mudflat, on a section of the pilgrim’s way to Spain’s Santiago de Compostela, within a circumambulation of a Chinese mountain sacred to Buddhism, and sea routes around Lewis. Concluding with Thomas’ biography––he was killed in WWI––Macfarlane renders his feelings toward landscapes in ruminative, mysterious hues. --Gilbert Taylor--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.