While working on her dissertation, philosopher Stine Jensen developed a ‘walking obsession’. It took her – at least in her fantasy – along ‘the zone of death’, or areas above 8,000 metres, ‘where acclimatization is impossible and the body races with time’. Symbolic of the lack of oxygen she experienced at university, she writes The reward – a new part in the attractive walking series from Van Oorschot publishers.
That was then. Apparently things are improving again, because now she is walking the blue pole walk around the village of De Koog on Texel with her twin sister Lotte (and based on the four seasons). For many years the duo has regularly walked the same route, with apple pie as a reward.
They don’t do much. Or again: Jensen gets upset when a bench or a blue pole is no longer in the same place as before. A visit to Ecomare, a chat on the way: in her story Jensen takes quite a few side paths, with apparently little other purpose than ‘writing a book’.
Publishers have finally discovered walking. Undoubtedly ignited by the success of The Salt Path by Raynor Winn, possibly also due to the walking virus that spread further with corona. Whoever makes his way through the bookshop, propelled by the pedometer, almost stumbles over the walking books. Logical, because entire columns walk a clog path or Pieterpad in their spare time, if they are not ready for a self-cleaning ‘camino’ past Spanish monasteries. In these fast times walking is a symbol of slowing down, deepening and contemplation. Room! Breath! (Insight! The walker has the enviable ability to take life as it comes. That is what the noble art of walking really boils down to,” British travel and walking writer Stephen Graham wrote in 1926 in (just translated) The Hiker’s Happiness†
Joyce Roodnat also went out for Van Oorschot. Her walk is not far from home, and above all a trip down memory lane† In with mother she walks through the streets of her childhood in Betondorp and Amsterdam-Oost, which takes her past memories of her mother (an early divorced, largely single mother at a time when that was unusual) and musings about motherhood.
While the legs of the two Van Oorschot authors only seem to be a vehicle to take the reader past other matters, we have to go to two men for the rougher work. Stephen Graham describes in sometimes rather woolly terms (‘For a long trek we are to a certain extent forced to take our physical needs into account.’) what he believes is all that is needed to get on the road well.
Shoes, clothes, a hat, companionship and much more. In 26 chapters and 238 pages he often kicks in some open doors. As infectious as it may be, his book cannot be called very contemporary, but romantics may not take it too seriously. About ‘the walker as a cook’: ‘The advantage of Chinese tea is that no milk is required’.
Good maps are for Graham ‘an inseparable companion’. He is thus diametrically opposed to the Italian writer (and geographer) Franco Michieli. service How roads find hikers is almost identical in size and (pocket) size to the books by Jensen and Roodnat, but where the two remain light-footed, Michieli does not take a step without a deeper thought about the essence of man and nature.
He can miss Graham’s map like a toothache, let alone a blue pole route around De Koog. Michieli made long trips through vast areas of Scandinavia, the Alps and the Arctic. He makes a passionate plea for ‘the pleasure of getting lost’, without using (unnatural) aids such as GPS or smartphone.
After 20 years, Michieli wanted to escape the ‘vicious circle’ with which clever gadgets are presented on the internet as the only knowledge worthy of the human mind. He prefers to sail on wild nature, which can provide people with insights that are in danger of being lost, he says. Fear of the unknown will not hinder him: by getting lost, man is thrown back to himself and old skills. The sun, the explainable natural direction of slopes in a landscape: with the right knowledge, they can all serve as a compass. In the worst case scenario you get lost, but you come closer than ever to old reflexes and insights. The reward: ‘the most unforgettable adventures’, ‘a much more in-depth knowledge of the areas traveled’ and ‘spiritual discoveries that have touched me deeply’, says Michieli.
In all brevity he goes completely his own way, turning against, among other things, modern mass tourism, in which ‘special natural places are consumed as a beautiful panorama next to McDonalds’.
For those who think that is a step too far, there remains Stephen Graham’s interim solution in large cities: the zigzag walk. In other words: randomly from the first street on the left, to the first right, and so on. In this way, Graham “got to see more of Paris in a single evening than many in a month.”
With the luck of the hiker you can go in all directions.
Franco Michaeli: How roads find hikers† Translated from the Italian by Philip Supèr. Publisher World Library; 111 pages; €18.99.
Stephen Graham: The Hiker’s Happiness† Translated from English by Paul van der Lecq. Publisher Oevers; 238 pages; € 21.00.
Joyce Roodnat’s books (with mother, 82 pages) and Stine Jensen (The reward, 62 pages) were published in the Terloops series of Van Oorschot publishers. Two new parts will appear in that series on June 24: Eyebright by Yolanda Entius and Spring Hunger by Sander Kollaard. Each particle costs € 12.50.