Posted by On Foot from Chartres to Santiago de Compostela
HAVE YOU WALKED THE WAY OF ST JAMES in France or Spain? Have relatives or friends done so? Do you hope to make the journey one day? Would you like to experience it, at least vicariously? Here is your ticket!
Historian Laurie Dennett walked the longest route of ‘the Camino’ (some 1,600 kilometres) in the spring of 1986. She headed south on Easter Sunday from Chartres Cathedral, through the Loire Valley with its medieval châteaux, then to Tours, Poitiers, Saintes, and Bordeaux, each so significant in French history, and across the desolate Landes, to the foothills of the Pyrenees. She then trekked over the mountains, via legendary Roncesvalles, into Spanish Navarre, and on past La Rioja’s vineyards, across the vast meseta of León, to the green hills of Celtic Galicia, finally reaching Santiago de Compostela.
The book about her pilgrim journey — A Hug for the Apostle (1987) — sold out in eight months. It became a hard-to-find classic, renowned for its direct style, its cultural and historical insights, and its observations on the hospitality, kindnesses, and simple pleasures of life on the Camino in what seems almost a different world, tho’ not long ago. Laurie remained very involved with the Camino, witnessing its transformation – from fewer than 2,000 pilgrims in 1986 to some 325,000 in 2018.
An updated, lightly revised, lavishly illustrated version of A Hug for the Apostle seemed a natural to Words Indeed. While preparing it, publisher and designer have savoured vicariously the precious joys and happenstances of the Camino, its adventures and occasional mishaps, and its many treasures. Whether or not you ever walk the route (and you’ll be tempted!), these evocative words and images will take you there.
Author Biography
LAURIE DENNETI, the daughter of Jack Dennett, Toronto’s wellknown broadcaster and TV presenter, and Norma Moritz, grew up in Agincourt, Ontario. She studied history at the University of Toronto, McMaster in Hamilton, and St Andrews, Scotland, then for 30 years worked as an independent business historian in the City of London.
In the mid-1980s, Laurie decided to raise consciousness and research funds for MS, the illness which seriously afflicted her mother, by walking the 1,000-mile (1,600-km) medieval pilgrimage route from Chartres in northern France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. A Hug for the Apostle is her evocative, touching memoir of that solo pilgrimage, published in 1987. She went on to make further pilgrimages for MS, from London to Rome in 1989 and Canterbury to Jerusalem in 1992, but remained most closely associated with the Camino, notably as chair 1995-2003 of Britain’s Confraternity of Saint James.
Laurie currently lives near O Cebreiro in Galicia, where she welcomes pilgrims and visitors to Spain’s first and only ‘Quiet Garden,’ with its replica of the Chartres Cathedral labyrinth. Her most recent book, the fruit of nearly a decade of research, was An American Princess: The Remarkable Life of Marguerite Chapin Gaetani (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016).
Praise
LAURIE DENNETT’ OBSERVES OF BURGOS, most splendid structure: “The only way to take in this cathedral is slowly.” So too for her book. Embedded in a lively account of her daily treks, with all their physical and mental exertions, are fascinating vignettes of the past as it still lingers in the present: images of exquisite cathedrals, half-abandoned abbeys, crumbling churches, tombs, and sundry other shrines. Described with a keen eye for architectural detail and exquisite sensitivity to light, shadow, colour, and texture, those monuments then call up – from ages past – scenes of battles, weddings, royal quarrels, saints’ lives, and heroic deeds. Almost every day of her journey is enlivened, rather paradoxically, by encounters with architectural gems by craftspeople now long gone.
The author feels deeply that she shares the pilgrimage experience with pilgrims across the centuries; she seeks out traces of their passage and of the world they passed through. Her account is deeply invested in contemporary life; after all, her pilgrimage was intended to raise funds for the MS Society. But, just as it became for her so much more than a charitable endeavour, so did it reveal how lively and vibrant, how very much alive, the past still is. The book’s graceful, elegant prose is so engrossing that it transports the reader into the timeless present of el Camino. A breathtaking read to savour slowly.
Dr. Zbigniew Izydorczyk, Professor of Medieval Literature, University of Winnipeg; author of A Census of Manuscripts Containing the Evangelium Nicodemi; editor of The Medieval Gospel of Nicodemus: Texts, Intertexts, and Contexts
5.5 x 8.0 – 560 pages
Price $39.95
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