Tag Archives: travel

Pilgrimages in literature

I’ve always loved the idea of a pilgrimage. Whether it’s a spiritual one, or just revisiting old childhood haunts, a pilgrimage is a journey of the heart, mind, and body.

Unlikely pilgrimageI’ve recently read two fictional pilgrimages. “The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry” by Rachel Joyce,  tells the story of Harold, who takes an unintentional pilgrimage to see his old friend Queenie, walking from his small town in Cornwall 600 miles north to the Scottish border. In “The Little Paris Bookshop” by Nina George, Jean Perdu, with little forethought but immersed in his grief for his beloved Manon, pushes his floating “book apothecary” (bookshop) into the waters of the Seine heading to Provence. Both books revolve around men who have allowed themselves to not fully enjoy life because of tragedy, and each book finds the men rediscovering love, often which was right at home. In the meantime, they pick up characters along the way who help them to navigate the matters of the heart.Little paris bookshop

One of my favorite non-fiction books about pilgrimages is Rosemary Mahoney’s “The Singular Pilgrim: Travels on Sacred Ground.” In this beautifully written and lyrical book, Mahoney undertakes six pilgrimages: visiting an Anglican shrine to Saint Mary in Walsingham, England; walking the five-hundred-mile Camino de Santiago in Northern Spain; braving the icy bathwater at Lourdes; rowing alone across the Sea of Galilee to spend a night camped below the Golan Heights; viewing Varanasi, India’s holiest city, from a rubber raft on the Ganges; soldiering barefoot through the three-day penitential Catholic pilgrimage, known as Saint Patrick’s Purgatory, on Ireland’s Station Island. We can all live vicariously through her adventures, until the time comes for us to make any of these pilgrimages ourselves, if we so choose.Singular pilgrim

Finally, in this season of Lent, I’m enjoying “Pilgrim Road: A Benedictine Journey through Lent,” by Albert Holtz. Holtz, a Benedictine monk from Newark, New Jersey, was given a sabbatical year in which he traveled throughout fifteen countries, mostly in Europe. This book is based on the journal he kept during his travels. Holtz intertwines stories from his journeys with lessons for life.Pilgrim Road

 

Tribute to travel books

Not books about traveling, but books to read while traveling! This is my tribute to, and observations about, books to read while traveling. Not one for a Nook or Kindle, I prefer the old fashioned paper copies(which don’t require batteries). I travel most days by boat (some call it commuting) and I carry two books to dip into per voyage – a non-fiction and a fiction book. Preferably paperbacks, for the weight factor. Sometimes this isn’t possible, give that public libraries, where I get many of my books, tend to avoid paperbacks, as they don’t hold up as well as hardcovers. If a hardcover is needed for one book, hopefully the second book is a paperback.

Connie reading

And then there are airplane books. I’ve learned over the years that the best books to bring while flying are not only light in weight, but light in reading – that is, ones you don’t have to think too much about. So when you’re stuck in an airport because of a layover or flight delay, you have a book that absorbs you and provides an escape from the tedium. As well as when you’re on a long flight, you need a great read to really take you away.

suitcase

While traveling it’s also good to have books that are not library books nor belong to someone else – in other words, books that you don’t have to worry about if you lose or damage them. Or, if you don’t like them, you can leave them somewhere along the way, such as at your relative’s house or in the back pocket of the seat in front of you. That will lighten your load during your travels (or allow you room to pick up more books).

Finally, for the many people who vacation/travel end up on beaches (lucky us Long Islanders who can visit the beach much of the year), there are beach books. These are also books you don’t want to have to worry about if they get damaged or sandy, as well as being lightweight as you stretch out on your beach blanket.

beach reading

And then there are the contents of books that you bring on travels, but that’s another topic for another time.

See you on the ferry!