A piece by piece review of  the first 11 pieces of “Where my Feet Fall” – an anthology of 20 essays about walking from leading writers compiled by  Duncan Minshull

Publisher: Harper Collins £18.99 . Hardback. (also available as an ebook and Audio book with the writers reading their own essays)

Published 31st March 2022 (Do buy from an independent bookshop if possible)

Images are from a 10 day walk I did with my friend Bob some 10 years ago on The Way of St James in France between Le Puy and Conques –  one of the best walking experiences I have had.

Yep, that’s me

I had not heard of Duncan Minshull before receiving a tweet from his PR asking if I would like to review his new book. This is my bad as apparently he has written extensively about walking for publications including The Times, Financial Times, Daily Telegraph, The Guardian  – all papers that I have read in the past but these days I don’t read any newspapers, my news coming from on-line sources, Twitter and The Spectator.

The flyer for the book tells me that he has been described as “a laureate of walking”.  They don’t say who described him thus but a definition of “laureate” I plucked off the internet gives it as “a person who is honoured with an award for outstanding creative or intellectual achievement.” Well I reckon his publicity people ought to flag up any such award as I do on my blog home page; it doesn’t do to hide ones light under a bushel (why’s it a bushel, and not a bush?). Anyway I gather that there is no such award and its a bit of a joke that his PR latched onto. Incidentally  I googled “laureate of walking” and it came up solidly for Poet Laureate Simon Armitage. He wrote a book about walking the Pennine Way; here’s a link to my review.

Minshull is described as an anthologist and this new book is a collection of essays from twenty writers from around the globe. All very well-established writers, too, though to my shame I had only heard of a handful of them. Between them they seem to have won all the literary prizes going – aside from the Nobel Prize. So, good pedigree here.

The book kicks off on the downbeat with American Richard Ford for whom walking appears to be (I am paraphrasing) a pain in the ass, but he thinks is probably good for him. Clearly a contrarian he declares that “I never walk to figure things out. I’ve tried that. It doesn’t work.” So someone who bucks the trend of writers about walking who seem to agree that thinking on your feet is A very Good Thing.

Tim Parks – a resident of Milan- and his partner Eleonara chose an alibi of history to create his story by following a 50 mile march of Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1859 as his army sought battle above Lake Maggiore against the occupying Austrians. Whereas Garibaldi sensibly chose a reasonably clement May for his campaign, inexplicably Parks  chose 3 blistering days in August for their pilgrimage. Not surprisingly whilst the basic geography was the same the roads in the 21st century were rather busier with cars. “People must think that we’re nuts” they think. Possibly. Still they had the comfort of hotels to stay in and their food was probably better.

Trinidadian Ingrid Persaud persuaded me in her first couple of pages why I am never going to “do” the Camino de Santiago di Compostela; there’s too many fucking people. She was only doing about 70 miles of what can be hundreds of miles depending on where you start but she was annoyingly whiney in her account for most of it. She lost me at the outset when she intentionally had made no preparation for the journey and wore inadequate footwear and clothing. Such foolishness! Anyway she discovered Mindfulness which was a great relief as it temporarily moved her to take in more of her surroundings.

I am sure that I must have heard or read something of scot A.L. Kennedy; I will soon. In her beautifully written piece, nominally about climbing Skiddaw in the Lake District she offers many brilliant vignettes of her travels throughout the world. She weaves into this little masterpiece profound and entertaining thoughts about religion, about endurance and about the sheer physicality of climbing hills. Practically blown away before she reaches the summit, her remark to a passer by on the way down who asked how it was:  “Good. A bit windy. But good” . The book is worth buying for this essay alone.

She’s an Aubrac, by the way, possibly the most beautiful cattle in the world

Pico Iyer is a Brtish born man of Indian parents, living in Japan for the last 28 years. His daily walk through a decidedly un-Japanese suburb ends up at a Shinto shrine. “I climb up to throw coins into a wooden box, bow, clap my hands twice and pull at a worn rope to summon the gods”. He is in no doubt that this daily 40 minute meditation on his surroundings feeds his writing.  “I take this walk every morning, at much the same time and I would gladly take it every day until I expire.” To learn something new take the same path that you took yesterday (paraphrasing American naturalist John Burroughs).

I found Keshava Guha‘s piece confusing. “India is no country for walking” he writes and according to him Delhi, where he bases half his challenging piece, “is inhospitable to walking even by Indian standards”. What follows is is description of a walk from where he lives in South Delhi that I found disorientating in its reference to its colonies and enclaves; his own orientation focuses on structures like balconies. And street signs. And language. And dogs. “Stray dogs polarise Delhi colonies like Boca and River cleave Buenos Aires” (are you following?). I think I would have left out a walk he has in a different part of India (Coonoor). His essay finishes  on a theme of hugs. Specifically from a Husky. “For over a year, during the pandemic…he was the only thing I hugged… to pause on a winter’s day and have warmth hugged into you by a long cone of fur is to feel unthinking happiness”. Bless.

British-Canadian-Taiwanese writer Jessica J Lee lives in London but her drenching 5 mile walk with her dog is a poignant goodbye to the Muhlenbecker Forest in Germany that she had got to know intimately over 6 years. The forest contains Schloss Dammsmuhle – a building that has undergone many transformations in its 200 year history, most notably as the country retreat of Nazi Heinrick Himmler. A touching piece about the concept of place, I thought the dog, who put up with a lot,  should have been named.

Sally Bayley has a childhood story to tell which she subtitles “A child’s lunchtime circuit.” Her Mother made her come home for lunch because “free school meals were for kids on the estate”. She tells it in her child voice and tells it charmingly. Dogs feature in it, too.

Harland Miller is described as a writer and artist and his piece entitled Hard Shoulder is about running out of petrol and leaving his children under a tree (dodgy, he really should have called someone out) for a wet walk to the nearest services. A short storey well told but then I registered that he mentions that he swapped this car – a Bentley- for a print of his. What!!!! Bentleys are prestigious cars whatever their age. He tells us that the print in question is called “The Me I Never Knew”. Google provided this image.

Oil on Canvas and stands nearly 8 feet high

So not just an artist but a hugely successful one.

I am more familiar with Will Self than any of the other writers here. This is mostly through listening to him read his essays on “A point of View” on Radio 4. I read his words and hear his voice; its quite peculiar. I am ambivalent about his voice. I am both drawn to it and at the same time repelled by the always sardonic tone. So perhaps in reading his essay on a walk around the Grain peninsular I should admit to bias. Self has been returning to his “circumambulation” of this marshy land for many years. This is a land which he believes Dickens draws on for the desperate character of Magwitch in Great Expectations. Although he writes in a deeply engaging way – almost intrusively if that doesn’t sound too fanciful, – Self uses words as if they are weapons to cudgel you with and leave you senseless. And, I think, to disarm.

Zoomorphic, ellipis-bedizened, mythopoeic, fulgurations, synedoche, sluaghs; how many of these do you know without recourse to the dictionary.

I am frustrated that this desolate part of the world is on the other side of the country because I am more drawn to want to follow in Self’s footsteps to discover if my own experience would chime with his than any other journey in this book. Is Allhallows-on-sea really “a living death”? Or would I see the people of Grain itself, (a village he describes as “unlovely”) , “walking from their fake Regency uPVC doors to their rusting cars.. (the)..invisible shroud of poverty wrapped around their shoulders”? He asks himself “why not settle here”. I think he’d fit in very well.

Irenosen Okojie writes about her walk with her dog in east London as if she is in the middle of a very bad acid trip. There are moments of clarity and we are then overwhelmed again by incoherent nonsense, shockingly badly written. This is her last paragraph of this awful piece:

“And somewhere between the pink lake, the tents in the sky, the fishing lines dangling like bolstered apparitions, we are still walking. Our bodies vanishing into a sweet mecca that orbits beyond the slippage”. Sorry but I thought you should know what you are letting yourself in for.

She needed a close friend (or the editor, perhaps) to shout at her “What are you talking about?”

I have a sudden realisation that I have a reading disability. Basically I distrust metaphor. And probably simile. I seldom find these tricks of language help me to better understand what is being described. Worse, it makes me disbelieve the sincerity of the writer. I think they are just being clever. Trying to impress rather than illuminate. I am sure that I am inconsistent here (I have just used one, after all). But there it is. 

I am also struck that this post is going to be far too long if I carry on with this approach of writing something about every essay.  At the same time I am enjoying this process so what I am going to do is to split this review into two parts. I hope by now that you will have formed an idea of both what to expect. If you are a walker and like to read then I can’t imagine you wouldn’t enjoy a good many of these essays. And If you do get the book I’d be delighted to hear what you thought of any of the pieces if you’d post a comment. The second half of this review will be published next week.