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ISBN:0792237455
Kathryn Harrison History and Criticism English
Author: Kathryn Harrison
ISBN13: 978-0792237457
Title: Road to Santiago (Directions)
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Language: English
Category: History and Criticism
Publisher: National Geographic; First Edition edition (November 1, 2003)
Pages: 176

Road to Santiago (Directions) by Kathryn Harrison



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The Road to Santiago. Displaying her real talent for conjuring far-flung times and places, Kathryn Harrison tells the mesmerizing story of her 200-mile pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. In the spring of 1999, Kathryn Harrison set out to walk the centuries-old pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela. Not a vacation, she calls it, but a time out of time. With a heavy pack, no hotel reservations, and little Spanish, she wanted an experience that would be both physically and psychically demanding. More memoir than travelogue, Harrison’s contribution to National Geographic’s Directions series is reflective and deeply personal, yet still manages to recreate a physical place in all its rugged, peaceful glory. The titular road is a 400-mile path beginning in France and ending in Santiago, in northwestern Spain.

Road to Santiago book. Not a vacation, " she calls it, "but a time out of time. With a heavy pack, no Displaying her "real talent for conjuring far-flung times and places," Kathryn Harrison tells the mesmerizing story of her 200-mile pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Not a vacation, " she calls it, "but a time out of time

Lovely read because Kathryn Harrison possesses writing skills from the gods. Of particular interest to me beyond its Kathryn Harrison-ness, is that she is chronicling her 200-mile pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, one alone and again with her 12 year old daughter. Traveling with Kathryn in such a way is just a delight as she contemplates her daughter, motherhood, religion, her fellow pilgrims and traveling in far-flung places. ) Micalhut Aug 20, 2013. National Geographic Society. Displaying her "real talent for conjuring far-flung times and places," Kathryn Harrison tells the mesmerizing story of her 200-mile pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

The Road to Santiago. 2003) A non fiction book by Kathryn Harrison. Not a vacation," she calls it, "but a time out of time. Used availability for Kathryn Harrison's The Road to Santiago. October 2003 : USA Hardback.

About Road to Santiago.

Displaying her "real talent for conjuring far-flung times and places," Kathryn Harrison tells the mesmerizing story of her 200-mile pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. by: Kathryn Harrison. Publisher: National Geographic (RHP). Print ISBN: 9780792237457, 0792237455. eText ISBN: 9781426209093, 1426209096. Save up to 80% by choosing the eTextbook option for ISBN: 9781426209093, 1426209096. The print version of this textbook is ISBN: 9780792237457, 0792237455.

Books by Kathryn Harrison, The Kiss, Seeking rapture, Seal Wife, The, Thicker than water, The Seal Wife, Exposure, Envy, A Thousand Orange Trees. All Title Author Text Subject Lists Advanced.

Kathryn Harrison's longtime fascination with the Catholic Church finds its ultimate expression, and biggest challenge, in this biography of Joan of Ar. Harrison followed her mother’s religious meanderings, writing in The Road to Santiago of her conversion to Catholicism at age 12: "At least I’m more Catholic than anything else. Harrison’s writing life has plumbed this "more Catholic than anything else" in the Penguin Lives St Thèrése of Lisieux, and an aborted religious pilgrimage in The Road to Santiago, while the deeply revealing essays in Seeking Rapture probe beneath, or perhaps above, dailiness to the places where the transcendental occurs

Kathryn Harrison (born March 20, 1961, in Los Angeles, California) is an American author. Biography more � � less. Harrison's maternal grandparents raised her in Los Angeles. Harrison has published six novels, three memoirs, a travelogue, a biography, and a book of true crime. Her personal essays have been included in many anthologies and have appeared in Bookforum, Harper's Magazine, More Magazine, The New Yorker, The Oprah Magazine, and Vogue, and at Salon. The Road to Santiago (National Geographic, 2003), Saint Therese of Lisieux: Penguin Lives Series (Penguin Books, 2003). The Mother Knot: A Memoir (Random House, 2004). While They Slept: An Inquiry into the Murder of a Family" (Random House, 2008).

Displaying her "real talent for conjuring far-flung times and places," Kathryn Harrison tells the mesmerizing story of her 200-mile pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. In the spring of 1999, Kathryn Harrison set out to walk the centuries-old pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela. "Not a vacation, " she calls it, "but a time out of time." With a heavy pack, no hotel reservations, and little Spanish, she wanted an experience that would be both physically and psychically demanding. No pain, no gain, she thought, and she had some important things to contemplate. But the pilgrim road was spattered with violets and punctuated by medieval churches and alpine views, and, despite the exhaustion, aching knees, and brutal sun, she was unexpectedly flooded with joy and gratitude for life's gifts. "Why do I like this road?" she writes. "Why do I love it? What can be the comfort of understanding my footprint as just one among the millions? ... While I'm walking I feel myself alive, feel my small life burning brightly." Throughout this deeply personal and revealing memoir of her journey, first made alone and later in the company of her daughter, Harrison blends striking images of the route and her fellow pilgrims with reflections on the redemptive power of pilgrimages, mortality, family, the nature of endurance, the past and future, the mystery of friendship. The Road to Santiago is an exquisitely written, courageous, and irresistible portrait of a personal pilgrimage in search of a broader understanding of life and self.
Reviews: 7
Gio
As an inveterate fan of Kathryn Harrison's writing, I began this book several times, put off by the notion of a pilgrimage to a foreign shrine. But a few days ago I forced myself to get to about page nine, and then I was hooked. So hooked that I've underlined and dog-eared and penciled in the margins so I could return to favorite passages again and again.
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! :-)
SadLendy
Working my way through the hefty number of memoirs written about the Camino de Santiago,in preparation for my own pilgrimage, Ms. Harrison's short meditation on her experience was entirely disappointing. I was looking forward to something a bit different from the usual travelogue of quirky characters and difficult conditions. I just did not get the purpose of her trip nor of her writing about it. I felt annoyed at her lack of engagement with her fellow pilgrims and native Spaniards, her silly decisions to walk late in to the night, her endless complaining. She walks SIX days and her knee hurts, I get it already. The insights are worthy of a private journal, not National Geographic standards. My two suggestions: Jack Hitt's, "Off the Road" for humor and history and Catholic priest, Kevin Codd's beautiful account, "To The Field of Stars".
Uranneavo
Really enjoyed this book.
Brariel
There's something about reading the account of another person's journey that reels me in. Harrison as usual is fearless in her writing, but also as she offers a glimpse into the proverbial struggles, discoveries and delights on this adventure.
Mataxe
For my recent compilation of pilgrimage quotations ("Ultreia! Onward! Progress of the Pilgrim") I read all 40 or so contemporary English journal accounts available about the various routes. Harrison's is clearly within the first grouping of 8 or so best such books (i.e. largely those written by established authors and/or academics). There is really little to be learnt about the Camino in this book but much to gleam about the life of one of America's most talented writers of fiction (and one whose past has been so clouded in pain). Consequently I can understand why those looking for a straightforward account of the pilgrim route will be disappointed in this book. However, for those bored to death by the pedestrian prose of the majority of the self-published texts currently available on the subject, the present volume is a much needed attempt at another direction. And Harrison is probably the most skilled wordsmith who has ever written about the Camino; indeed, I used 7 quotations of hers in my review volume Ultreia!
Amhirishes
Having just completed walking the Camino de Santiago, from Roncesvalles to Santiago de Compostela, I was thrilled when my book group found this book and gave it to me upon my return, because I was not yet ready to re-enter my home life fully I hoped the book would be a good antidote for my return.
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.
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