A arte de caminhar: O escritor como caminhante

by Merlin Coverley

Merlin Coverley apresenta, em “A Arte de Caminhar”, uma reflexão acerca da atividade de caminhar e sua relação com a criação e a escrita. Para isso, vale-se de dados biográficos e das obras de autores de diversas regiões e épocas que tinham a atividade incorporada em sua rotina, sejam como simples caminhantes, como peregrinos, pedestres ou flanêurs. Em comum, a maioria desses autores tem na caminhada uma fonte inesgotável de inspiração e questionamento, fortemente incorporada em suas criações. Como a caminhada adquiriu esse status? Por que algo tão óbvio - como colocar um pé diante do outro - adquiriu um valor tão elevado? O autor apresenta e analisa algumas respostas possíveis.

Genres: Walking, Writing, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Travel, History

224 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this non-fiction, even though I didn't really read all of it. The chapters on 'Imaginary Walker,' & 'Experimental Walking' left me uninterested but the 'Walker in the Natural World,' 'Walker as Visionary,' & 'Walker as Vagrant' had me totally involved. The notes I took for further reading, since this is such a terrific history, will be utilized in the very near future.

Rousseau, Thoreau, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Whitman, Stevenson, Muir, Wendell-Holmes, Bunyan & Dickens (among others) have all been inspired to put the 54 muscles that are engaged in a basic single step into internal exploration.

Besides wanting to read more of their specific vintage works - I also now want to look into Werner Herzog's 1978 'Walking in Ice,' Geoff Nicholson's 'Theory & Practice of Pedestrianism,' & Joshua Ferris's novel 'The Unnamed' from 2010 about a man stuck in permanent escape mode & unable to stop walking as his life disintegrates around him.

[Roberto Almeida · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bom, mas monótono, repetitivo e eurocêntrico.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Admittedly, I am far better as a writer than as a walker, but both are activities I tend to enjoy, so long as they are not overly strenuous.  My walking, unless I take a cane along, has been a bit limited in recent years but it is certainly an activity I have long enjoyed for its slow pace and the enjoyment of light exercise and beautiful sights.  One the theses of this book, though, is that a great deal of writers don't really write about walking because it is something that is taken for granted, and the author seeks to discuss walking (and other means of transportation) with a great deal of focus on what the authors reveal about their walking, whether the destination or what they saw along the way or what.  Speaking personally, there is an element of walking that I focus on in my writing and that is the painfulness and slowness of my hobbling in the face of my frequent foot pains due to gout [1], and that is, sadly, an element of walking that the author chooses not to discuss for one reason or another, even if it is of course of great interest to me as someone who is both a walker and a writer and who does both activities painfully.

This book of a bit more than 200 pages is divided into nine chapters where the author discusses his love of talking about how writers deal with the subject of walking.  The author begins by talking about the writer as a walker and how walking appears in writings.  After that the author discusses walking as it occurs in philosophy (1) as well as in the writings of various people about pilgrims and pilgrimages (2).  This is followed by a discussion of the imaginary walker, or how people walk in their imagination as a way of staying sane while under confinement (3).  Then there is a discussion about the walker as a vagrant, where writers discuss their own occasional vagrancy (4).  There are then discussions about the writer and his (or her) discussion of the natural world (5) as well as the writer as a visionary (6), and even an entire chapter on the flâneur (7).  After that there is a discussion of experimental walking (8) as well as the return of the walker (9) in more contemporary writings, after which the book closes with a bibliography, online sources, and notes.

It is quite intriguing to see the way that walking has influenced the writing of various people.  Some of the stories told in this book are quite fascinating, like the way that the timing of the writings of Virginia Woolf requires a phantom taxi to work things out right in Mrs. Dalloway, for example, or the way that walking was not quite as fundamental to the development of philosophy as is sometimes argued to be the case.  When it comes to the relationship of great thinkers and writers it turns out that they were not quite as interested in walking as is sometimes argued to be the case, and it is somewhat impressive at times to see the way in which people have managed to obtain graduate degrees based on obscure walking details, and that this research makes for a generally enjoyable if somewhat quirky book.  Admittedly, I do not think that many people are interested in the relationship between walking and writing, whether one deals with philosophy or literature or the naturalistic writings of Muir, but for those who are interested in such matters this book is a worthwhile ramble through the subject.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2019...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2019...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2012...

[Dpdwyer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another book on walking that wasn’t what I had hoped for. Again, too much about walking in cities, not enough about multi-day treks in various settings. It did offer a number of recommendations for further reading and some inspiring quotes:
Kierkegaard: “When you go for a walk, let your thoughts wander aimlessly, snooping about, experimenting with first one thing and then another.”
Kierkegaard again: “I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from.”
Nietzsche: “Only thoughts which come by walking have any value.”
Herzog: “Tourism is a sin, and travel on foot a virtue.”
Will Self: “The only real difference I could see between walking and writing was that engaged in the former my digestion achieved a certain regularity, while when I wrote I became terribly constipated: a stylite typing atop a column of his own shit.”

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was strong on offering examples of different ways [mostly Western European, almost entirely men], writers have written about walking, and those examples were generally compelling. But the book as a whole suffered from something like a lack of ambition: it didn't try to reach any conclusions, or make much connection periods, writers, or ideas about walking — each chapter was themed around walking in nature, the pilgrimage, etc. but there was little tracing out of how one period led to another. There was also little attention to how the actual writing these walkers did was impacted by walking, or how literature overall was impacted. So the book ended up as a list of examples with a lack of argument or conclusions — there isn't even a concluding chapter to wrap it all up, in fact, so the book just ends — so while it's often quite interesting it also quite low in its stakes.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seemed rather a mishmash--an interesting one though which got an extra star for the great bibliography at the end. The subtitle "the writer as walker" is rather unnecessary as for the most part the great walkers we know are writers--otherwise, we would never have heard of them except through other people's accounts. I can understand the metaphoric side of it, though.

[Dawna Perry · Rating 1 out of 5]

Good ideas, but poorly executed. I could barely get through some chapters due to the poor writing style. There was an over-reliance on quotations that were not well-connected to the overall idea (which I could not perceive due to the over-reliance on quotations). All around disappointment.

[Peter Julius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written study of the inspiration which walking, particularly epically long or challenging walks have provided to writers through the centuries.

[Isobel Ely · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of essays I would highly recommend for the philosophical walker. It has given me a new perspective and a spring in my step. Particular takeaways include a new inspiration to connect with surroundings whilst walking, an active removing of music and an impression of the history of walking’s importance (with famous pilgrimages and philosophers for instance). I took this book on various trips, and used the essays as activities for the next day. How can I alter my way of experiencing the world through the means of walking? This is something I will keep with me following this read!

[Céu Isatto · Rating 2 out of 5]

meio repetitivo meio chato meio nada de novo. senti que foi apenas um apanhado de nomes de homens europeus um depois do outro contando exemplos sem se ater a nenhum detalhe interessante. único ponto que me chamou atenção foi do mito de caim e abel mas sinceramente nem nisso o autor se demorou. se esse livro foi uma caminhada com certeza ela foi uma caminhada tediosa. percebi, por fim, que preferia ter escolhido outro livro e trilhado outro caminho de leitura

[isabelreads · Rating 3 out of 5]

i am sure this was really interesting but now my brain feels really small

[Philip Chaston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extraordinary written constitutional of writing about walking from romantic description to the minutiae of deep topography. Recommended.

[Lúcio Humberto · Rating 3 out of 5]

O tema é interessante, bem como o resgate de certos personagens históricos. O excesso de notas de rodapé, por outro lado, trava um pouco a narrativa, prejudicando a experiência da leitura.