The Path to Rome

by Hilaire Belloc

The author describes his experiences walking from France to Rome at the turn of the century

Genres: Travel, Catholic, Biography, History, Nonfiction, Literature, Religion

233 pages, Paperback

First published December 21, 1902

About the author

People considered Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc, French-born British writer, as a master of light English prose and also knew widely his droll verse, especially The Bad Child's Book of Beasts in 1896.

Sharp wit of Hilaire Belloc, an historian, poet, and orator, extended across literary output and strong political and religious convictions. Oxford educated this distinguished debater and scholar. Throughout his career, he prolifically across a range of genres and produced histories, essays, travelogues, poetry, and satirical works.

Cautionary Tales for Children collects best humorous yet dark morals, and historical works of Hilaire Belloc often reflected his staunch Catholicism and critique of Protestant interpretations. He led advocates of an economic theory that promotes and championed distribution of small-scale property ownership as a middle ground between capitalism and socialism alongside Gilbert Keith Chesterton, his close friend.

In politics, Hilaire Belloc served as a member of Parliament for the Liberal party, but the establishment disillusioned him. His polemical style and strong opinions made a controversial figure, who particularly viewed modernism, secularism, and financial capitalism as threats to traditional Christian society in his critiques.

Influence and vast literary legacy of Hilaire Belloc extends into historical circles. Erudition, humor, and a forceful rhetorical style characterized intellectual vigor and unique perspective, which people continue to study and to appreciate, on history, society, and human nature.

Reviews

[Rick Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a travel book; it is a history book; it is a humor book; it is an art book; it is a literary book; it is a theology book. It is a book about the land; it is a book about people; it is a book about God; it is a book about not taking yourself too seriously. I was extremely sad when this book ended because I wanted the pilgrimage with Belloc to go on forever and ever.

[Rozzer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some people might think that a book with this title would necessarily be about converting to Roman Catholicism. It's not. It's quite literally about the physical path to Rome, the hiking trail that Belloc trudged along from eastern France to the City of Rome in 1903.

Hilaire Belloc was a French-English, turn-of-the-19th/20th century writer and a very enthusiastic Catholic indeed. No, not of the Bernanos variety. Not into serious suffering. Back in 1903, as a young man, Belloc felt he needed to carry out a vow he had made by walking from France to Rome. He did this dressed in a suit, a tie and city street shoes. No baggage. No hiking equipment. No knapsack. No. He just up and took off from an eastern French town, walked across the Alps, and walked down to Rome.

Not a change of clothes with him. By the end he did indeed require a new pair of shoes. His wingtips had been worn out. He went on to write a zillion books and articles. He was very well-known and appreciated in his time, though in certain respects he was a dork. But many people think that "The Path to Rome" was his best book. He was a very, very good and entertaining writer.

The Path to Rome is available for free here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7373

[Chris J · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the lion's share of this book while on vacation and the two experiences will forever be inextricable in my mind. The first 200 or so pages of this book are an absolute delight - worthy of a 5-star rating. Belloc peppers his thoughts while walking from north central France to Rome with thoughtful philosophy and hilarious anecdotes the likes of few books I have ever read. However, the final 200 or so pages have fewer of those charming moments of levity as the author seems to have become bogged down by the task of telling his story. Possibly this serves in illustrating how the human mind becomes less philosophical as the body suffers from fatigue.

Anyway, I hate to disparage the book as it was, on the whole, a true source of joy for me. As travel writing it is first-rate. As a directive on the good life for all non-materialists, especially Catholics - likewise. For the easily annoyed - this may not be your book.

This was my introduction to Belloc, and while it has proven to be his most famous work, I would be excited to further plumb his catalog.

[Grace]

If I said that a book was like the Lord of the Rings without any narrative...you might find that off-putting. But I think that's like this book in a way and it is wonderful. I am thinking of the scope and sweep of land—how the hobbits walk from one end of the world to the other and you think often about how it wouldn't be the same story if they had flown in a plane or driven a motorcycle. And that is what Belloc did. I don't know if you could do it now. I'll read this again.

[Chuck Lowry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was introduced to Chesterton, Belloc and Ronald Knox by a freshman English teacher (why yes, he was Catholic). The only fiction in the bunch, as I recall, were some wonderful detective stories by Chesterton and Knox. In fact Msgr. Knox, the first Catholic chaplain at Oxford for four hundred years, supported the University Catholic Chaplaincy by writing a mystery novel each year over the long vacation.

All this merely leads up to saying that this book reads like fiction, and along the way contains nuggets of political philosophy, European history and culture, musings on tradition and some frank sentimentality from an author who was at his best when expressing his outraged longing for a world which was gone but whose return he demanded.

And Belloc is a realist. I thought, in my mushy-headed state at age twenty, that this was to be a beautiful metaphorical musing on Belloc's conversion to Catholicism. Ha. Belloc was a cradle Catholic. This was, as the title would imply to a solid realist, an account of a journey on foot from Provence to Rome.

The ending, simultaneously pious and irreverent, jocular and serious, learned and silly, is pretty typical of the whole book. And Belloc is good enough at it that forty years later I can quote it from memory:

O ye patron saints and angels
That protect the four Evangels
And ye prophets vel majores
Vel incerti vel minores,
Virgines et confessores
Chief of whose peculiar glories
Est in aula regis stare
Atque clamare et conclamare,
Clamantes cum clamoribus Pro nobis peccatoribus.

[Roger Buck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Glorious! Filled with the sheer gusto and pure joie de vivre of the younger Belloc. Not as profound, perhaps, as the older, wiser, grimmer Belloc - but quite simply wonderful.

I hope to review this at more length at the growing Hilaire Belloc section of my blog: http://corjesusacratissimum.org/tag/h... (which I shamelessly plug for any fellow friends of beloved HB who love him like I do ...)

[Jeff Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of Belloc's walking books. His first one, where he describes his journey from England to Rome. Wonderfully funny and insightful as he describes his encounters and difficulties making the trek. Plus it is a bit quirky in how this is all related. I was grinning throughout this read.

I also better understand those who love this book have read it multiple times.

[Mary Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to an audiobook version, narrated by Robert Bethune. Initially, I had an issue with the reader, but then his smartass take worked well for Belloc's tone.

The book was written in the early 20th century by Belloc, recounting his walking pilgrimage to Rome. (Spoiler: you don't get to hear any of Belloc's impressions of Rome. This is about his trip from France through Switzerland into Italy, and he stops the narrative when he arrives at Rome.)

I love Belloc's humor, and, alas, the most interest for the 21st-century reader are Belloc's digressions and not the info on what the geography and cultures were like. The geography is pretty much the same, but I would expect the roads, even the trains, would be a bit different from over a century ago.

Some of the stories told in passing are really funny, and the one relating to the Learned Gentleman and Satan, in which Charles Borromeo intervenes.... I legitimately laughed out loud at the punchline. I was not expecting that specific outcome.

The downside of an audiobook version is you can't see any of the drawings, but unfortunately, most of the current publications of this public domain work have extremely poor scans from old books.

[Eliza Sims · Rating 5 out of 5]

Belloc takes the reader with him on his pilgrimage from Toul, France to Rome with his musings, drawings, and songs. It’s a lovely read for his style; rather than a solitary journey, Belloc makes you feel as if you’re in conversation with a company of voices with ‘lector’ and ‘auctor’ and the unforgettable characters he meets along the way. It’s a celebration of what he loved of old Europe with its bucolic countryside and local wines. Published in 1904, it preserves an eternal image of these towns, soon to o be ravaged by two world wars ,as they would never be again. I was not at all surprised to learnt that this book was the most financially successful of all his works.

[William Schrecengost · Rating 4 out of 5]

An odd yet amusing travelogue of Hillaire Belloc’s pilgrimage to Rome. He tended to be a bit poetic at times as he described the landscape. He had plenty of amusing moments like declaring a man a heretic because he wouldn’t give Belloc coffee and proceeding to sing songs about it as he continued on his way. This was published in 1902, so I laughed pretty hard when he asked some Germans if they had “antisemitism” in their village.
By the end of the book he was talking quite a lot to himself in the terms of “proctor and lector”. Seemed like his journey left him a bit loopy.
Overall this read like a conversation with an aging grandparent who was gradually losing his mind.

[Peter Nguyen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Listened to this book through Hoopla.

I can't help agreeing with Lector, the imaginary reader in the work, who says, "Why on earth did you write this book?" I apologize, Hilaire Belloc, but I really did not enjoy this. I know that Path to Rome is generally considered as Belloc's greatest work (even by Belloc himself), so I must assume that I'm missing something. If someone who loves this book could explain to me why I should give this book a re-read, that would be much appreciated.

[Gail Pool · Rating 5 out of 5]

First published in 1902 and continuously in print ever since, Hillaire Belloc’s The Path to Rome chronicles his journey from his birthplace near Toul in France to Rome, “the centre of the world.” An ardent Catholic, Belloc is decidedly on a pilgrimage. But, a canny writer as well—one of the most prolific writers of his era—he has also crafted a secular tale of adventure.

Like any good pilgrim, Belloc starts off with vows: “I will walk all the way and take advantage of no wheeled thing,” he writes. “I will sleep rough and cover thirty miles a day, and I will hear Mass every morning; and I will be present at high Mass in St. Peter’s on the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul.” He is also determined to walk by night and sleep by day, when it will be too hot to hike, and to travel in a straight line.

One of the humorous threads running through the book is how, one by one, he breaks each of these vows except for the final attendance of Mass in Rome. Sleeping outdoors, he discovers, is not as pleasant to actually do as to contemplate. Geography—notably the Alps (for which he is badly prepared in his thin summer clothes and ragged shoes)—interferes with that straight line. Exhaustion leads him to accept being pulled along by a wagon—a sly way of avoiding actually riding—and finally, in need to reach funds in Milan, he takes a train, and repeats this en route to Siena. As he says, “When one has once fallen, it is easy to fall again (saving always heavy falls from cliffs and high towers, for after these there is no more falling)…

For the most part, though, Belloc does a great deal of walking, trudging through terrible heat, rain, and snow, fording rivers, philosophizing as he goes on everything from the nature of bakers to the shape of windows. These meditations are highly entertaining as are his encounters with people he meets: he captures personalities in quick strokes and recreates the ambience of various settings vividly. This is a self-consciously playful book, opening with a section called “Praise of This Book” and creating from time to time a dialogue with the putative reader—“lector”—who may comment or disagree or get fed up with what he, “auctor,” is saying. This device serves as a clever way to enliven the text, to break up the monotony of a tedious trek, and to self-mockingly defend his text, though over time I felt it grew somewhat cloying.

Belloc’s Christian viewpoint infuses but doesn’t overwhelm his narrative, which offers an exuberant and fascinating portrait of Europe in another age. Reading The Path to Rome, I kept wondering what a ramble through this territory would be like today, and understood the desire of many writers to follow in the footsteps of travelers who went before.

[Nick Padrnos · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never read a book like this. Travelogue, history, rabbit holes, pilgrimage, musings on religion and modernity (but not overdone), experiences of real people and hospitality.

On a whim, Belloc decides to walk from Toul, France, to Rome (approx 760 miles), in a straight line. He vows to only travel by foot, succumbing to the temptation to be carried by wheels on a few humorous occasions. He relies upon the hospitality of strangers and innkeepers, seeming always to have a bottle of wine at hand and just enough sustenance to get to the next waypoint. Along the journey, Belloc offers some histories on European peoples, the Romans, etc., but his commentaries on just ordinary people and the landscape are more charming. I felt like I wanted to walk with him but not disturb his running internal dialogue. At just the right moments, he interjects exchanges between the "Auctor" (himself) and the "Lector" (also himself) to tell a rabbit-hole story or poke fun at himself.

Though called "The Path to Rome," his writing is never proselytizing or stuffy. His pilgrimage is borne out of an abrupt spiritual ache, but he never imposes that his journey is somehow morally superior. It's done in true poverty of spirit and for the spirit of adventure.
I read this book in preparation for Fr. John Nepil's "To Heights and Unto Depths". I'd also like to read Guardini's "Letters from Lake Como" as a kind of "trilogy."

My favorite passage below about the majesty of mountains:

So little are we, we men: so much are we immersed in our muddy and immediate interests that we think, by numbers and recitals, to comprehend distance or time, or any of our limiting infinities. Here were these magnificent creatures of God, I mean the Alps, which now for the first time I saw from the height of the Jura; and because they were fifty or sixty miles away, and because they were a mile or two high, they were become something different from us others, and could strike one motionless with the awe of supernatural things. Up there in the sky, to which only clouds belong and birds and the last trembling colours of pure light, they stood fast and hard; not moving as do the things of the sky. They were as distant as the little upper clouds of summer, as fine and tenuous; but in their reflection and in their quality as it were of weapons (like spears and shields of an unknown array) they occupied the sky with a sublime invasion: and the things proper to the sky were forgotten by me in their presence as I gazed. To what emotion shall I compare this astonishment? So, in first love one finds that this can belong to me. Their sharp steadfastness and their clean uplifted lines compelled my THE ALPS, THEIR PICTURE adoration. Up there, the sky above and below them, part of the sky, but part of us, the great peaks made communion between that homing creeping part of me which loves vineyards and dances and a slow movement among pastures, and that other part which is only properly at home in Heaven. I say that this kind of description is useless, and that it is better to address prayers to such things than to attempt to interpret them for others. These, the great Alps, seen thus, link one in some way to one's immortality. Nor is it possible to convey, or even to suggest, those few fifty miles, and those few thousand feet; there is something more. Let me put it thus: that from the height of Weissenstein I saw, as it were, my religion. I mean, humility, the fear of death, the terror of height and of distance, the glory of God, the infinite potentiality of reception whence springs that divine thirst of the soul; my aspiration also towards completion, and my confidence in the dual destiny. For I know that we laughers have a gross cousinship with the most high, and it is this contrast and perpetual quarrel which feeds a spring of merriment in the soul of a sane man. Since I could now see such a wonder and it could work such things in my mind, therefore, some day I should be part of it. That is what I felt. This it is also which leads some men to climb mountain-tops, but not me, for I am afraid of slipping down.

Another great quote on mountains:

The mountains from their heights reveal to us two truths. They suddenly make us feel our insignificance, and at the same time they free the immortal Mind, and let it feel its greatness, and they release it from the earth.

A fun vignette of St. Michael conversing with God. An annoyed St. Michael is reminding God about Earth and human beings. The most sensible thing, of anything else we could possibly do, is worship. Again, Belloc has a clever, beautiful, non-imposing way to frame it:

'I really beg your pardon,' said the Padre Eterno, when he saw the importance attached to these little creatures. 'I am sure they are worthy of the very fullest attention, and' (he added, for he was sorry to have offended) 'how sensible they seem, Michael! There they go, buying and selling, and sailing, driving, and wiving, and riding, and dancing, and singing, and the rest of it; indeed, they are most practical, business-like, and satisfactory little beings. But I notice one odd thing. Here and there are some not doing as the rest, or attending to their business, but throwing themselves into all manner of attitudes, making the most extraordinary sounds, and clothing themselves in the quaintest of garments. What is the meaning of that?' 'Sire!' cried St Michael, in a voice that shook the architraves of heaven, 'they are worshipping You!' 'Oh! they are worshipping me! Well, that is the most sensible thing I have heard of them yet, and I altogether commend them. Continuez,' said the Padre Eterno, 'continuez!' And since then all has been well with the world; at least where Us continuent.

[Debra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Published in 1902. Belloc, like Patrick Leigh Fermor and a few other daring souls, decided to walk across Europe and his journey to Rome over the Alps is amazing. His account of hiking up a misty mountain near Interlaken and, when the clouds parted, realized that the path had ended and he was on a precipice just about to step out over a drop of thousands of feet into the lake below, is stunning. He vividly describes the mountains, vistas and his fellow travelers make this one of my favorite travel books.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite book in the world. Belloc's walking pilgrimage from France to Rome, over the Alps, singing all the way.

[Daniel Vinzant · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book has been in continual print for over 100 years and I always keep it on my bedside table
love it so much

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stylistically dated, more bombastic than Chesterton, but entertaining nonetheless.

[Bert Bruins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't know Belloc before I was given this account of a hike to Rome from Lorraine in North-Eastern France, somehwere around the turn of the 20th century. This walking diary is insightful of the period, often humorous, but sometimes grumpy and bigoted. With a French father and an English mother, Belloc grew up in England but did military service in France in the period in between the French-Prussian war of 1870 and WWI. A student of Balliol, Oxford, he eventually became an MP for Salford.
Belloc sounded older and more cantakerous than the 30 or so years old he must have been during this self-described pilgrimage to his adored Rome. He is here a Catholic first and foremost and there are many sideswipes at Protestants and scientists/rationalists alike. He does stand up for Jewish people and frowns upon antisemitism he finds along the way, even though he has been accused of this vice himself (probably justified) himself.
The essence of the story is that Belloc has decided that the river Moselle as it flows upstream from Toul (where he was based as a soldier 10 years earlier) points directly to Rome. He draws a straight line on the map of Europe btween both localities and decides to use it has his line of travel. Nevermind that geography gets in the way, he will follow this line, even though wiser travellers would have followed the contour of the land. So he nearly dies in a blizzard on a high point in the Alps (and has to go back down the way he came, with the help of a guide), just because said high point is on that straight line to Rome.
Belloc hates the heat, and prefers walking at night to prevent him getting overheated. But he gets there in the end...
Belloc as stated, is quite a bigoted Catholic and his pilgrimage is an attempt to revive the ancient Medieval practice. What struck me, as a little aside, was his use (half in jest?) of cursing a place when he felt he had been badly treated in a roadside inn or restaurant. Hardly the behaviour of a sincerely religious man I felt, but Belloc several times on his journey, when feeling sore, turns round to "curse the place". It made me reflect that phrases like "Go to the Devil", or "May you rot in hell" (my words) were once (in a pre-scientific age) serious things thrown at people. To me it sounds to me more like something associated with witchcraft than serious Catholicism. Debate.

But all in all this is a dlightful and interesting account of a hike through Europe around the year 1900. Belloc did much more than this in his his life, but there is no space for that here.

[S · Rating 5 out of 5]

9/10

This novel is briefly mentioned in Waughs Labels. Loving to dig into something completely foreign, I went into it with no foreknowledge at all. I picked it off internet database, with all the authors illustrations. Plan was to give it a chance, then abandon it with no hard feelings after a few pages, if It was not to my liking. I'm glad that I did not stop at the first hurdle.

It is a travel book. It is about a pilgrimage to Rome. It is religious a tinny bit, but I can safely advise it on everyone, as it's not preachy at all. It is something quite unique. A mesh of some philosophy, travel writing, comedy, religion, some short stories, anecdotes, jokes, geography, politics, and what not. It is wholly unique, as far as I know.

The first, and only, struggle was language. Though published in 1902, prose feels dated and much older than it is. What's not helping is casually thrown in French, Latin and one hilarious instance of ancient Geek. Added to that, the novel is very Avant-garde and unusually structured. No ordinary chapters. Author converses with his 'lector', with his readers, he discusses maps and his illustrations. For the first part of the journey I was thus on the verge of leaving him, then he entered Switzerland, and he saw the Alps! He described them in one of the most powerful passages that I've ever read, and I was sold. I had to go with him to the end of his journey. What helped is that he manages to be always entertaining. Also refreshing is that his work feels truthful, he never goes into absurdly hard to believe tales as Patrick Leigh Fermor does in his, otherwise, brilliant A Time of Gifts. Belloc stays down to earth, if he thinks that he's on a dull stretch, he just inserts a short story, or an anecdote, into the mix. And when he's telling of his journey, it feels real. As someone that loves to hike, I can relate to his experiences, his descriptions of land opening and closing around him, of vistas, of mindless treks where mind wander off to other things. Heart breaks at his wild and foolish attempt to cross the Alps through the blizzard, at his vertigo as fog clears around him, at his pain and hardship. And you laugh, and you remember forever his short wordless play, his path, and his comedy. He's rarely Waugh hilarious, but he manages to be extremely endearing and amusing.

[Bert van der Vaart · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful paean to the wanderings--a pilgrimage in Belloc's words-of a young man just graduated from Oxford. Belloc decides to walk from the Alsace/Mosel Valley to Rome, in as straight a line as possible. This vow leads to various privations and difficulties--notably crossing the Alps into Italy--but also the melancholy that comes from seeing sights and meeting people which one is likely never to see again, and which provides a kind of youthful nostalgia very resonant with those of us who have wandered across continents as young and financially challenged young persons as well.

While Belloc becomes a little mixed up between his drawings, occasional poems and songs, and relatively unrelated stories that come to his mind, his wonder at the beauty of the countryside, at the (mostly) honest efforts of the peasants and small town innkeepers, and the pull of the glory and past of Italy and Rome make this book well worth reading.

Among the many beautiful passages is one that describes the passage of a cold dismal night in the rough into the present glory of a new day:

"Then suddenly he sky grew lighter upon every side. That cheating gloom...lifted from the valley as though a slow order given by some calm and good influence that was marshalling the day. Their colours came back to things; the trees recovered their shape, life and trembling; here and there, on the face of the mountain opposite, the mists by their movement took part in the new life, and I thought I heard for the first time the tumbling of water far below me in the ravine. That subtle barrier was drawn which marks to-day from yesterday; all the night and its despondency became the past and entered memory. The road before me...had become mixed with the increasing light, that is, into the familiar and invigorating Present which I have always found capable of opening the doors of the future with a gesture of victory."

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like Belloc very much, I truly do.
However, I must admit that when I read him, I always have to take a nap.
His prose, his descriptions of his adventures do not bore me, they drain me.
I suppose it’s that he explains it all so well that I feel exhausted from accompanying him on his journey.

The Path to Rome was a pilgrimage he made at the turn of the 20th century. It was to reaffirm his dedication to Catholicism.
He started his journey in early June in Toul, France where he had served in the military. He traveled (mostly) on foot over 700 miles to Rome usually averaging 30 miles a day. His goal to reach Rome and hear high Mass on the Feast of the Apostles.

“…..Let me put it thus: that from the height of Weissenstein I saw, as it were, my religion. I mean, humility, the fear of death, the terror of height and of distance, the glory of God, the infinite potentiality of reception whence springs that divine thirst of the soul; my aspiration also towards completion, and my confidence in the dual destiny. For I know that we laughers have a gross cousinship with the most high, and it is this contrast and perpetual quarrel which feeds a spring of merriment in the soul of a sane man.”

“Oh, blessed quality of books, that makes them a refuge from living! For in a book everything can be made to fit in, all tedium can be skipped over, and the intense moments can be made timeless and eternal……we, by the art of writing can fix the high elusive hour and stand in things divine.”

“There, from the summit, between the high villa walls on either side—at my very feet I saw the City.”

“Across the valleys and the high-land,
With all the world on either hand.
Drinking when I had a mind to,
Singing when I felt inclined to;
Nor ever turned my face to home
Till I had slaked my heart at Rome.”

[Joseph R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Belloc made a pilgrimage from France to Rome, vowing to travel on foot and live a simple life. This story tells that tale along with lots of asides and other anecdotes thrown in. He made the pilgrimage around 1900, so a long time ago when money and technology and infrastructure were much different. He had language barriers along with the physical barriers of rivers and mountains (like the Alps!). He made some plans, like mailing money to post offices in various cities, but he traveled mostly as a vagabond. He slept in the countryside or at inexpensive inns (or in people's barns), talking with the locals as best he could (he knew French and Latin, but not German and barely Italian).

Belloc has a whimsical and light-hearted style. The narrative meanders a lot as he goes down occasional philosophical or theological rabbit holes. That reminded me of The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, which I like a lot. Occasionally he throws in a second voice, a sort of heckler, that he has mini-dialogues with, usually for humorous purposes. That reminded me of Jim Gaffigan's self-heckling, which I like a lot. He includes some sketches he made of the mountains, trees, and structures he drew along the way, though he says in the text that he's not very good. I found the travel descriptions a little dull and he is right about the pictures. The book is over 400 pages and at the end I felt like it could be edited down to make it tighter and more enjoyable.

Mildly recommended--I don't regret reading it but I will probably never read it again. Lord of the Rings does a much better job wandering through the countryside in an interesting way.

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ein Buch, das so beginnt:
“Jedem ehrlichen Leser, der diese Buch kaufen, ausleihen oder bekommen wird, und ebenso den Rezensenten (für die es von dreifachem Nutzen ist) meinen Gruß – und was immer sonst noch gratis zu haben ist.” kann nicht schlecht sein, und dieses ist brilliant.
Belloc gelobt nach Rom zu pilgern “ohne Nutzen zu ziehen aus irgendeinem Ding, das Räder hat”. Also wandert er zu Fuß von Toul nach Rom. Und einmal fährt er sogar ein paar Kilometer mit der Eisenbahn, da ihm ein Gottesurteil eine Ausnahmegenehmigung erteilt.
Der Mann ist fromm, aber auf eine Chestertonsch-freche Art, dass man sofort in seinen Orden eintreten möchte.
Er wandert, schläft im Freien oder in einfachen Herbergen, wo er sich mit viel Wein “erfrischt”, und er beobachtet. Allerdings lässt er sich auch durch Unbeobachtetes zu Abschweifungen hinreißen. Eigentlich besteht das Buch hauptsächlich aus Abschweifungen. Manchmal in Dialogform mir seinem “Lector”. Z.B. Ich würde gern wissen, was diejenigen, die auf alles eine Antwort haben über das zu sagen haben, was alles zu einem Frühstück notwendig ist?
Leider gelingt es wegen Unwetters nicht die gerade schwierige Passstrecke zu nehmen, und so überquert er den Gotthardt-Pass, über den er nichts sagt, da man die Beschreibung im Baedecker finden könne.
In Italien lässt er sich von Christopherus über die Furten tragen. Dann wandert er wegen der Hitze nachts.
Um es kurz zu machen, wie der alter Seemann zu dem jungen Schafskopf sagte –
Ah, was sagte der Seemann? Das verrate ich nicht.

[Seneca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Getting through this book felt like a similar slog as the author had on his journey to Rome. In his preface he goes about using as much 'clever' language to show you just how smart and nuanced he is as an author. Of course folks like Chesterton and Waugh were able to do this with an effortlessness that makes their work enjoyable.

There were little moments in this journey that were captivating, especially when he was able to focus on the local people and places of his trip, but his endless philosophizing on the march from northern France through the Alps, and down into Italy had me leafing through the pages quicker than I had wished.

The edition I read included his sketches that he made along the way; so in this particular case, I'd say I read the book for the pictures. They were quite nice and really enhanced those moments of the journey where he talked about the natural splendor of an area and captured a quick image of it.

I also thought the whole point was that he was on a pilgrimage to reach a particular church by a particular day to celebrate a mass in honor of Sts. Peter and Paul, and instead it felt like he got to Rome and just quit the tale. It would have been nice if he had carried it through to at least his arrival at the mass which he had set out to attend.

I just had a hard time engaging with this book, and unless you really wanted the philosophical musings of this author I wouldn't really recommend it.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

As with his other magnificent farrago, “The Four Men” this is a tour de force of a truly great mind, I’m afraid to hold opinions on any and every subject under the sun. It is an amazingly Catholic book, full of the joy of living in the hope that comes of knowing that we are redeemed.

“We raced down the hill, clattering and banging and rattling like a piece of ordnance, and he, my brother, and asked began to sing. He sang of Italy, I of four countries: America, France, England, and Ireland. I could not understand his songs nor he mine, but there was wine in common between us, and salami and a merry heart, bread which is the bond of all mankind, and that prime solution of ill-ease — I mean the forgetfulness of money.
That was a good drive, an honest drive, a human aspiring drive, a drive of Christians, a glorifying and uplifted drive, a drive worthy of remembrance forever. The moon has shown on but few like it though she is old...”

If that brief example does not convince you to read the book, then in short, I do not exactly despair of your friendship, however let me tell you it may be a shakier thing than you imagine.

[Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exceptional ride...Belloc (shamefully, really only known as G.K. Chesterton's friend and not in his own right) is a spectacular wit, perhaps more brilliant than Chesterton, and you see it joyously displayed through about 230 pages of rollicking one-liners, fantastic recollection (with sketches!), and the most sublime beauty and reflection. His whole auctor/lector thing kept me rolling (what other author tells his reader to shut up?!). A couple of caveats: 1, this was written in the early 1900s, so he reveals much in his nationalism (which can be heavy at times)--it pays to speak French, Latin, and Italian or have a reliable translator nearby, and he sees the world from his Euro-Catholic faith so that the story is watermarked with his observance of that tradition being the sun around which everything else (esp. German Protestantism) is weird and uncivilized. But it is a moving and very spiritual portrait of a time and place even before the amazing idea of walking from France to Rome as a sacred devotion. And I do so love his wit.

[Jane Mackay · Rating 3 out of 5]

A four-star book with one star removed for the didactic preaching and closed-mindedness (and the whiff of misogyny). The descriptive passages are wonderful, often sublime, and the fact of the journey itself -- to undertake to walk from northeastern France to Rome in a straight line (through the Swiss Alps!) -- is fantastic and marvellous.
Along with the sublime descriptive passages (his description of his first view of the Alps made me catch my breath and mark the passage to copy and save), a treasure of this book is the time in European history in which it takes place. Belloc made this journey at the turn of the 1900s (the first publication in Great Britain was 1902), and it was bittersweet to read of his crossing blithely from one country to another with neither passport nor identification papers, and passing through a Europe peaceful and innocent of the two shattering wars that were just a few years in the future.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely breathtaking, marvelous experience; as others have said, I truly feel like I was walking along, in my hard worn shoes, all those enchanting (and disheartening) miles to Rome with my good friend Hillaire Belloc. We chatted about the past, God, and Europe, while all along the way we encountered quaint hamlets, worn down towers, breathtaking mountain tops, magnificent cathedrals, treacherous river crossings, salt of the earth peasants, and even a run in with the law.

This novel, more than anything else, filled me with the zeitgesit of the early 20th century-- really the vestages of the 19th-- as the soul of Old Europe-- its lonely valleys, hospitable hamlets, communal market days, and Catholic peasants-- took its last gasps before the destruction of the Great War and the march of technocapital.

[Courtney Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a young man Belloc had trekked across 19th century America to woo and win his wife, Elodie. In 1901, he challenged himself to walk from Toul, in eastern France to Rome, Italy—in a straight line, right across the map, more than 500 miles. He very nearly managed to pull off this stunt, hiking straight up over the peaks of the Jura mountains, but a blizzard in the Alps forced him to detour through a pass. The story of his journey, The Path to Rome is part comic epic, part spiritual pilgrimage.... Read the full review at https://catholicreads.com/2019/03/16/...

[Stella · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this together with my husband. The author is the biggest grouch, drinks altogether too much wine, and profoundly despises tourists. He is at the same time laugh-out-loud funny and deeply philosophical. It was fascinating to experience a pilgrimage on foot across a large part of Europe at a time when tourism as we know it today did not exist. We loved following his path on the map, and now want to visit some of the obscure places he passed through we never even knew existed!