Wanderlust: A History of Walking

 

Wanderlust: A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Walking is dead. Long live walking.

I came to this book with admitted biases. One of the goals I keep in my bullet journal is to do at least two "long" walks a month. I define this as a walk of 3+ continuous miles, not on a treadmill, but outdoors. And while I know that this won't seem like much to my European friends (more on that later), for an American to walk three miles straight through and not on a treadmill - well, unfortunately, that is an oddity. Unlike Europe, we're just not built for it here, and Solnit's Wanderlust: A History of Walking addresses that fact from multiple angles.

Solnit traces the strange development of "nature" walks over time. The differences in attitude toward natural paths versus groomed walkways, along with differences among class perceptions of landscape and walking itself, not to mention regional preferences, show a more variegated landscape than the modern reader might expect. You might expect a book on walking to be pretty straightforward, one step after another, right?

It's a bit more complicated than that.

The book begins with anecdotal discussions with anthropologists regarding the very earliest walkers which is, by turns, insightful, funny, irreverent, and which tear through some of the most commonly held misconceptions about early hominids (some of which I held). It's an interesting start and necessary, I guess, but I question the need for it. Is it just a vestigial tale? Perhaps, though later chapters examine the in-body experience of walking in various social and political contexts which also say something about bodies and their physical place in the world, as well as what the exercise of the use of those bodies means (I do not only mean in the sense of physical fitness, as this is just a by-product of walking).

There was a bit of metalepsis in my reading of Wanderlust, though it was purely unintentional. When I am working at the office here in town, I always take some time to go for a walk on the Ice Age Trail, which passes very near to my workplace. I also walk home from work sometimes, after my wife has dropped me off on days when she needs the car (yes, we are one of those rare and elusive one-car American families). On my last long walk home from work (4.2 miles), I was heading down the sidewalk reading this book, and a total stranger, who was mowing her lawn, stopped her lawnmower to ask what I was reading (note: I wish there were more people like this in the world!). I showed her the cover and she just started laughing out loud. We exchanged pleasantries and I was on my way again. I'm kind of worried that she's going to intercept me another time, when I'm reading something far more morbid or controversial.

Speaking of which, Solnit does not shy away from controversy. She has an entire chapter on sex workers and the freedom and limits of such work when related to walking. She also presents a chapter on walking as a revolutionary political act, from the Civil Rights protests to the Argentine mothers of the "disappeared" walking in solidarity against a tyrannical regime.

Earlier, I had mentioned Europe. I was born in Europe and lived over half of my childhood there. So maybe I see the auto-mation of American society with a bit more of a critical eye than most of my American friends. Last month, I had the opportunity to go to Germany for a week for work (I work for a German-based company), followed by a week's vacation in Belgium and The Netherlands. On average, I think we walked about 6 or 7 miles a day. When we weren't walking, we took trains almost everywhere. I had a rental car for my first week in Germany, but really only used it to get from Amsterdam to Oelde and back, then out for dinner for one night. Other than those three trips, we stood on trains and walked and walked and walked. For my American friends, what you need to understand about Europe is that it is BUILT for walking. Some of it has to do with scale (Germany and Wisconsin are almost exactly the same size, for comparison), some of it has to do with history (plazas built around medieval marketplaces or Renaissance and Baroque cathedrals), but much of it has to do with choice: the choice to let pedestrians (and bicycles) predominate. The old medieval streets are simply too small to avoid congestion, but rather than just widening the roads (and destroying several historical buildings in the process), Europe has, by and large, pushed cars to the outskirts. Having a healthy public transportations system makes this more feasible (though some would argue that the amount of strikes and delays that occur is anything but "healthy" - thanks, privatization!) but again, this is a choice made largely by the people who live there, who want walkable, bike-able streets, helped along by the scale of the cities and countries in question.

I could go on and on about third places and the lack thereof in the states, but I will try to bite my tongue a bit after stating that the disappearance of third places in the US has everything to do with the prevalence of automobiles. The one really depressing moment I had while on vacation was looking over a plaza thronged with people mostly just hanging out and eating Italian ice cream (those who know, know) and people-watching, while realizing that there really are no places like that, none, zero, zilch any closer to me than Chicago (an hour and a half and a parking nightmare away).

I didn't take this book with me when I travelled, and I'm glad I didn't. I might have just opted to stay there. Walking, as you can probably guess, is a part of me and a very important part of my life.

When I returned from Europe and got back into the groove of work again, I naturally picked up where I left off. The funny thing is that I was simultaneously reading Walter Benjamin's collection of essays, Illuminations. I discovered that Solnit mentions Benjamin explicitly and particularly his thoughts on Baudelaire, something that had struck me while reading Benjamin's book. It seems all (walking) roads lead to Baudelaire in some way. It was all a very strange synchrony, though the figure of the Flâneur might just be the hinge on which all these synchrony's rotate, at least as far as urban walkers go.

But Solnit is equally at home (or away from home?) in presenting the history of rural walking, as well; something I know a little bit about. Here, also, one finds a long tradition of political protest in the form of voting with one's feet (and sometimes, fists). Protest marches in England, for example, seem to have originated in the country over contested right-of-ways through public and private land. I recall, in fact, when I lived in England, at the base I lived on, there was a "bridal path" we were told was required to allow the Queen to ride her horse on, whenever she wished it. But it actually acted as a public path, at times, with anti-nuclear protesters (this wasn't a nuclear base, but the protesters had no idea) from the CND marching through every few months or so. So long as they stayed on that path, there was really nothing to be done about it. If they strayed from it . . . well, I've seen what British police can do. There's a reason British cops don't have to carry guns, and it's not because they are convincing conversationalists.

I'm guessing, though, that Rebecca Solnit is a convincing conversationalist. I can attest to the fact that she is a convincing writer. If nothing else, I'd love to take a long walk and talk with her.

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Illuminations: Essays and Reflections

 

Illuminations: Essays and Reflections by Walter Benjamin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In a weird and unplanned synchronicity, I read Walter Benjamin's Illuminations at the same time I read Rebecca Solnit's Wanderlust: A History of Walking. I had no idea that these works had any connection with each other, but there is a very strong connection in their analysis of the work of Baudelaire. More on this later.

It took some time to get to Benjamin's excellent and very eclectic collection of essays. Hannah Arendt's introduction is extensive and interesting, laying a foundation for what is to come by examining Benjamin's light in both a historical and intellectual context. I came through it feeling well-equipped to tackle Benjamin's sometimes-abstruse work. Rather than a barrier to getting to the source material, Arendt provides a useful and understandable bridge to Benjamin's core ideas.

We start with "Unpacking My Library," which every book-lover should read, but, more especially, every book collector. I'm admittedly somewhere between the two poles of reader and collector Benjamin presents, but I lean more toward the former than the latter. Benjamin, an admitted book collector (there is an underlying hint of shame in the title as he presents it, as if it is a guilty pleasure), points out the collector's foibles with a great sense of self-deprecating humor.

"The Task of the Translator" presents several thoughts on translation, including the very interesting question of one's linguistic machismo when translating. Should the translator impose his language on the one being translated, or should he allow the language being translated to inform and even form his own? I have always respected "good" translators and their work, but now I question what, really, does "good" mean in this context? I don't have a firm conclusion, but I do have a lot of thinking to do as a result of reading this essay, which was probably Benjamin's intent.

In his essay "The Storyteller," Benjamin parses out the different characteristics, not of structure, but of the worldview of storytelling (as in: around a campfire), the short story, and the novel. He reflects on collective vs individual memory, the impatience of modernity (don't get me started), and how the absence of death and the view of eternity it provides has shaped fiction, in general. The irony of Benjamin's demise is not lost on me. It's a bittersweet read, precisely because of what followed.

As much as I love Kafka, it's apparent that I need to read more of him. I guess The Collected Stories (all of his short stories) and The Trial aren't quite enough. I feel like such a poser . . . Maybe I should read him in German to feed my ego a little. In any case, I found Benjamin's "Franz Kafka" inspiring. Absolutely one of the best summations of the spirit of Kafka's work that threads the needle between analysis of Kafka's psychological state of mind and the more metaphysical/surreal aspects of Kafka's work. I've been a fan of Kafka's work since I was young and this rekindles the fire to dive back in again.

Sadly, I know very little about Brecht's work, having only read (in German) "Der kaukasische Keidekreis". But while I should read more of Brecht's work, I know something about the man himself. I had a professor in college who was a Brecht expert. James K. Lyon, from whom I took my German literature classes as an undergrad, wrote the book
After doing some more research and interviews, Professor Lyon discovered that every Wednesday night, Brecht would have friends and acquaintances over so he could show them what was going on in Germany at the time. They watched (and discussed and mocked) German propaganda films - hence the anthems and salutes. But this poor lady thought Brecht was a communist and a nazi!

Now on to Proust and Baudelaire. The Freudian analysis of Proust and Baudelaire feel flimsy, at best. I get the analysis of memory regarding Proust, and the examination of time might have some basis in psychology, but the Freudian dream-connection just hangs by a weak thread. I found Benjamin's Marxist analysis of Baudelaire much more convincing than his Freudian analysis of the poet. After reading this, I definitely need to read Flowers of Evil yet again. In fact, I should make that a regular practice. I can't stand French as a language (everything is an exception, sorry, but give me German, Swahili, and Latin rules all day long), but if I were ever to attempt to learn it again, it would be for this sole purpose: Reading Baudelaire.

As I said earlier, I was reading Solnit's Wanderlust at the same time as this book. I'll probably save most of the correlations for my review of Solnit's work, but there was an amazing amount of connection, with Solnit quoting Benjamin critiquing Baudelaire, while herself analyzing Baudelaire's work, not only on the figure of the "Flaneur," but also on walking as a socio-political act. Fascinating stuff, especially since my wife and I had recently returned from a vacation in Europe where we figure we clocked in around 90 miles of walking in two weeks.

The book continues with Benjamin's analysis and critique of film in "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," which is not so interesting when addressing the work itself as it is fascinating when one looks at the audience and the change it engenders in them vis-à-vis their appreciation of static art. I might also add that the exploration of strangeness that an actor undergoes when acting in front of the camera and of that same actors dissociation with self led me to think about real and rumored instances of actors who fell too far into their characters and never quite shook the stain to their psyche. Granted, many of these stories are overblown and sensationalized, but I have spoken with some actors who have had to essentially detox from their role to return to normalcy.

The final essay "Theses on the Philosophy of History" is be far the most challenging piece in the collection. It is a somehow timely piece of class history and touches on resistance to fascism in ways that many people now are exploring and re-exploring. Benjamin's arguments might be difficult to understand and sometimes seem to cater to the "party line" a little too cleanly, but they are worth consideration and contemplation.

All-in-all, this is an intellectual/philosophical grab bag on a wide variety of topics. Each is addressed in a different way - you won't find Benjamin pounding the same drum repeatedly - and one will have a variety of emotional and intellectual responses to the whole. But one cannot argue that the work is insignificant. Far from it.



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