Once upon a time, long ago, I decided to become a slow reader, instead of the gulper I'd always been, at least for some books. The hard ones, like Damasio and Ulysses and Proust and Stephen Jay Gould's account of the mysteries of the Burgess shale. I had the leisure. After all, I'd just retired and my time was mine to do as I wanted. No more leaping out of bed and heading off, sometimes 200 kilometres to a strange school where I was The Consultant. Slowly the slow read faded, and other enthusiasms took its place.
However, since my novel reading frenzy has slipped away as I criss-cross the world, I've returned to the habit with some pleasure and almost by accident. I picked up Wanderlust: a history of walking by Rebecca Solnit just before I flew to Warsaw, and the irony of reading a book about walking on a long-haul flight amused me. It was perfectly suited to the desultory kind of reading you do at airports and in flight: plenty of anecdotes, lovely turns of phrase and ideas that provoked thought. I could dip into it, read a few paragraphs, and stare into space thinking about what I read. It didn't offer a continuous argument that needed to be followed minutely.
My copy is dotted with small yellow diamonds in the margins, a way of noting without making notes. To write this, I am leafing though these yellow indicators to prompt a recalcitrant memory.
So what were the precise pleasures of this read? Social history. Literature. Diversity of walkers. An articulation of the pleasures of walking. A thesaurus of walking words.
Solnit reflected and inspired what I was doing or could do in my city, Warsaw: “reviews of my own and the city's history” perfectly fitted my rambles between tram stops and the overlaying of new experiences on my old experiences of Warsaw, of walking the Nerrigundah road and of surveying the Eurobodalla beaches. The eye as you walk settles on “small things, small epiphanies”: and you “celebrate the incidental and the inconsequential”. As Warsaw becomes increasingly familiar, my eye is free to do just that: to notice graffiti, and advertisements, and droppings from dog and tree on the footpath, and roadside flowers, and reflections in puddles and men at work. No longer do I have to focus on the practicalities. When she said “cities are forever spawning lists”, I was liberated into my native habitat of list-making as I walked or rode the trams.
One thing that appealed to me at first, and later drove me nuts, was a ribbon of quotations running along the bottom of the page, sometimes over a number of pages so you were flicking forward to finish the quote, and backwards to continue the book.
I enjoyed the chapters about literature: Elizabeth Bennett doubly breaking social protocol by walking, alone, to the neighbour's to visit her sister; William and Dorothy Wordsworth walking solid miles without a second thought; the flaneurs (I've always had a liking for that word) in the streets of Paris; the long string of philosophers and writers who were also walkers (Mill, Bentham, Kant, Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Hobbes – who carried an inkwell in a walking stick ready to jot down ideas – Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Thoreau, Whitman, Lesley Stephen, de Quincey, Coleridge, Robert Louis Stevenson).
There were a few inspirational women striding the pages: notably Peace Pilgrim who walked the world for twenty-eight years, having vowed “to remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace”; and the Argentinian Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who walked around the obelisk in the centre of the plaza every Friday in silent protest against the disappearings.
The most horrifying chapter was the one called “Walking after midnight: women, sex and public space.” Nighttime walking has often been regarded with suspicion: if you walk at night you're up to no good, and if you were a nineteenth century woman you were made to pay by submitting to a medical examination to prove you were “a good girl”.
WARNING
J insists that I add a warning so you don't rush off on my say-so and invest in a read that doesn't pay the dividends I promise. He wasn't charmed by Solnit (Germaine Greer in “White beech” is his current gold standard for charm) but there were chapters so full of interesting facts and theories that he kept reading.
As a lovely addendum to thinking about walking, please read Elissaveta's post, 'There are places only our feet can conquer.'
Sounds like it’s still sl-o-o-w reading weather 🙂 But you’ll hit Spring long before us. Just bringing hugs, Meg 🙂
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And hugs back on a warm mizzly night. Have a pleasant weekend.
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By coincidence in this months library newsletter they review a book called Walking home
Walking home : a poet’s journey
Armitage, Simon, 1963-
and they compare it to Robert Macfarlane’s “the old ways” I read the reviews and I intend to get it out when I have finished “the old ways” which I am reading slowly!!!
Have you heard of this one?
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I heard Armitage talking about this book on the ABC a while back. When you’ve read it, let me know what you think.
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I’m enjoying “the old ways” love how he winds the stories and history of the pathways into the narrative. Having a rainy spell at the moment so it is good book reading and painting and blogging and and and…..
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Enjoy the rain and the pace. It’s damp here, but not seriously raining yet.
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Write a memoir! I sometimes get lost just in the fascination of the comments, let alone the contents of the post. You have a most discerning audience, Meg. 🙂
It definitely sounds like a book for me, going back to our beginnings(i.e the post), don’t you think? What company I find myself in! I’m in love with Hobbes! Now where can I find an inkwell? 🙂 Thank you for this entrancing read, Meg. I need to write some notes and take myself off to Elissaveta. Even her name is delicious! Hugs to you this damp old morning 🙂 You brighten my days.
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And you mine. With your posts, which have inspired me in a number of ways, and now with your lovely comments.
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Sounds a most interesting read…
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Sounds like a brilliant read -slowly of course. The cover is amazing, a real draw you in. Thanks for the link to Elissaveta 🙂
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I wish I could remember the pathway to blogs I love. I know I came to you through Christine, or at least I think I know. But I meander so much, I can’t retrace.
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Are yes slow reading, with blogging, Facebook and all the other social media out there, not to mention texting with all it’s abbreviations, maybe even reading more that the headlines online in a news app is todays standard of reading. I think back to my youth and how I would curl up for hours with a book, trying to ignore my Mother telling me to do my chores!!! Now I find my attention span has narrowed down I regret that I cannot totally lose myself in a book without subliminal pricks of conscience reminding me of dinner to cook, shopping to do and on and on….
But having said that I am slowly, picking up and putting down and enjoying the slow stroll with Robert Macfarlane “the old ways” after you mentioned it in a previous post. I will now make a note of this one as walking has a fascination for me, especially now as I am not as fit to wander for as long as I would like to.
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I’ll be eager to hear what you think of Macfarlane. He was the first in a linked chain of books of which “Wanderlust” is a part.
My problem is that I’m reading about walking, and currently having fun writing a walking memoir, instead of walking. Although I have just come back from a short dog-walk at Undercliffe Falls which are quite spectacular – no camera, and a hesitation about the steep track, so I only caught glimpses, but I could hear them.
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I agree walking is the way to be absorbed in all that is around you. I’m looking forward to having a dog to walk again in September. Your walking memoir sounds interesting. And time consuming?
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It’s not a book. Just a lengthy blog. And I want it to read smoothly, so I’m investing time – one of the Stanthorpe goals. I keep thinking of other possible memoirs, so eventually there’ll be a series of memoirs, mainly for my own entertainment. At least, I think memoir’s the right word.
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I will look forward to reading it. I savour your posts for the voice and choice of words and phrases, and of course the photos
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Thanks for encouragement. No photos. Pre-photography mostly, and they’re all at home anyway. Maybe a separate photo essay back home – if I ever get there and if I can master scanning.
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It is so good to be busy and active, but time passes so quickly and 2015 is more than half over.
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Sssshhhhh!
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Just live in the moment then the date doesn’t matter!!! 🙂
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You’ve no idea how I preen at this comment. Thank you.
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Oh I’m flattered beyond words that you thought of me. Thank you so much.
What a peaceful post. I think the blogosphere and the busy lives we lead have made us the hurried, fast-scrolling readers that we are now. But there are some stories that can only be appreciated slowly.
I, too, mark interesting excerpts and quotes – mine is a little cross. 🙂
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I can’t flatter you. You write like an angel.
I first came across the idea of slow reading in an account by an Australian prisoner of war. There was so little to read in the camp that they savoured and argued over every word. Marking things irritates the next reader, but I bought the book!
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Now you’re being too kind!!
This is fascinating and inevitably very sad. I can’t imagine a world without a constant provision of books although I imagine the very scarcity teaches you to cherish every word. A beautiful lesson.
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My daughter read “The last of the Mohicans” three times cycling through Eastern Europe, because it was all she could find in English that suited her non-existent budget. She shudders whenever you mention it now.
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Oh dear. Was it something she bought along the way or something she’d brought with her?
I must confess I haven’t read it. I don’t suppose it is the lightest of reads…
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She bought it – it would never have been her choice!
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I thought initially, ‘as in angry’ 🙂
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