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Yes, I agree.He’s humble, so it wasn’t all ‘look at me’, and he writes well.
I think this was one of the first Camino memoirs I acquired and read so, although I've read it completely, it has been a while. I've started reading it again but still have a ways to go. That schedule for the first four books is intense!So, I look forward to all other comments and questions about this book. Here are a couple of questions:
- Why did Codd think he was "old" when he was only in his 50s? (I don't really expect an answer. "Old" is always 10 years older than one is, and it is a moving target.) He referred to his advanced age several times.
- What makes some camino memoirs (e.g. this one) much more readable than many other first-person accounts written by non-professional writers?
I finished it last night. While I still agree the book was well written, humble and interesting, I did not "enjoy" the last part so much. As a more experienced pilgrim now, I found the description of the pilgrim family dynamics and pressure, the August heat, the crowds and urgency to reach Santiago, to be disturbing. The family and the celebratory highs were too stressful and exhausting. Perhaps a new pilgrim who hasn't walked, will find this compelling in a positive way - perhaps I would have - but now that I've been through the trade-offs, I just wanted Codd to ditch the "pilgrim family" and walk into Santiago on his own or with just one or 2 other people.I'll need to wait until I finish (I'm only 80% along) before I can make a generalized assessment.
Yes, and I think we old people tend to spend too much time looking at ourselves, how we conform, and how others see us. I know I do, and probably that was part of Codd's process of discovery. (Now that I think about it, this is something we tend to do at all stages of life.)There are a lot of elements of the modern Camino travelling style that we associate with a younger travelling crowd.
Yes, maybe this is what many amateur authors neglect. They are busy telling their story, without recognizing and nourishing the reader.no story is experienced as a one-way interaction.
Yes, and I think we old people tend to spend too much time looking at ourselves, how we conform, and how others see us.
We had the best of all ages - the freedom and curiosity of youth, and the credit cards of old age.
Yes - me too. But when we do something different from "usual", I think it comes back a bit, and we need to squash it!Funny ... I find I spend far less time doing this as I get older
I am so glad as I already have that book.Here is the book chosen from our list to be the next one for discussion - To the Field of Stars: A pilgrim's journey to Santiago de Compostela, by Kevin A. Codd.
Kevin Codd is a Roman Catholic priest who describes his 2003 Camino from SJPP to Santiago. He is an American, but resident in Belgium at that time. Although I am neither a believer nor a Catholic, I do find it interesting to read about those who approach life and the Camino from a different perspective. This is an articulate and intelligent account of his experience. There is no focus on religion - that is just background information - and I am enjoying reading it. He describes his encounters and frustrations with other pilgrims very well, and the need to adjust his own attitudes.
I'll need to wait until I finish (I'm only 80% along) before I can make a generalized assessment.
Once I finish the book, I am intrigued enough to read his follow-up actions and thoughts. His blog at kcodd.blogspot.com apparently describes his subsequent two journeys to complete the journey from his home in Belgium to Santiago. He has also published another book, which is mentioned on that blog.
So, I look forward to all other comments and questions about this book. Here are a couple of questions:
- Why did Codd think he was "old" when he was only in his 50s? (I don't really expect an answer. "Old" is always 10 years older than one is, and it is a moving target.) He referred to his advanced age several times.
- What makes some camino memoirs (e.g. this one) much more readable than many other first-person accounts written by non-professional writers?
When and how do we meet to discuss this book_Here is the book chosen from our list to be the next one for discussion - To the Field of Stars: A pilgrim's journey to Santiago de Compostela, by Kevin A. Codd.
Kevin Codd is a Roman Catholic priest who describes his 2003 Camino from SJPP to Santiago. He is an American, but resident in Belgium at that time. Although I am neither a believer nor a Catholic, I do find it interesting to read about those who approach life and the Camino from a different perspective. This is an articulate and intelligent account of his experience. There is no focus on religion - that is just background information - and I am enjoying reading it. He describes his encounters and frustrations with other pilgrims very well, and the need to adjust his own attitudes.
I'll need to wait until I finish (I'm only 80% along) before I can make a generalized assessment.
Once I finish the book, I am intrigued enough to read his follow-up actions and thoughts. His blog at kcodd.blogspot.com apparently describes his subsequent two journeys to complete the journey from his home in Belgium to Santiago. He has also published another book, which is mentioned on that blog.
So, I look forward to all other comments and questions about this book. Here are a couple of questions:
- Why did Codd think he was "old" when he was only in his 50s? (I don't really expect an answer. "Old" is always 10 years older than one is, and it is a moving target.) He referred to his advanced age several times.
- What makes some camino memoirs (e.g. this one) much more readable than many other first-person accounts written by non-professional writers?
We just write our comments and questions here on this thread, like some of us have done above!When and how do we meet to discuss this book_
I have just finished reading this in the kindle edition.Here is the book chosen from our list to be the next one for discussion - To the Field of Stars: A pilgrim's journey to Santiago de Compostela, by Kevin A. Codd.
Kevin Codd is a Roman Catholic priest who describes his 2003 Camino from SJPP to Santiago. He is an American, but resident in Belgium at that time. Although I am neither a believer nor a Catholic, I do find it interesting to read about those who approach life and the Camino from a different perspective. This is an articulate and intelligent account of his experience. There is no focus on religion - that is just background information - and I am enjoying reading it. He describes his encounters and frustrations with other pilgrims very well, and the need to adjust his own attitudes.
I'll need to wait until I finish (I'm only 80% along) before I can make a generalized assessment.
Once I finish the book, I am intrigued enough to read his follow-up actions and thoughts. His blog at kcodd.blogspot.com apparently describes his subsequent two journeys to complete the journey from his home in Belgium to Santiago. He has also published another book, which is mentioned on that blog.
So, I look forward to all other comments and questions about this book. Here are a couple of questions:
- Why did Codd think he was "old" when he was only in his 50s? (I don't really expect an answer. "Old" is always 10 years older than one is, and it is a moving target.) He referred to his advanced age several times.
- What makes some camino memoirs (e.g. this one) much more readable than many other first-person accounts written by non-professional writers?
When we walk the Camino, most of us individuals do reflect on our past errors and failures (as well as our successes and joys). But that reflection is not the same as being "haunted" by them. I expect (without much first-hand experience) that priests - especially on pilgrimage - would engage in a lot of self-reflection and even criticism. Again, that does not mean self-loathing, and I did not see Codd as such a person.this aspect of the book did feel close to self-loathing at times.
his anxiety
resentment
He is also haunted by a sense of his own failures,
There is NO type of person that would surprise me on the camino!the peregrino... I found it impossible to believe that such a person would be undertaking the Camino.
I will have to go back to find evidence of this dislike. I have no problem with him preferring the company of like-minded people, though.(he decidedly does not like pilgrims who do not evidence any sensibility to the spiritual nature of the way)
No one work can possible tell the (universal) story of walking the camino. His camino represented my camino in only superficial ways, but his story was interesting, nevertheless.It is not a simple travelogue and I think that there are probably better works out there if you want story of walking the camino.
Thanks for taking the time to read and reply. I didn't realise that my views were that negative.Thanks for the detailed review, @gns, and your contrary opinions. That is what can make the Book Club interesting! I will argue with you, but cheerfully, and hope others will be similarly open.
I can see where your points are coming from, but I think you are overly critical of Codd's motives and expression. The following words, in the context you presented, seemed negative exaggerations of what I observed.
When we walk the Camino, most of us individuals do reflect on our past errors and failures (as well as our successes and joys). But that reflection is not the same as being "haunted" by them. I expect (without much first-hand experience) that priests - especially on pilgrimage - would engage in a lot of self-reflection and even criticism. Again, that does not mean self-loathing, and I did not see Codd as such a person.
There is NO type of person that would surprise me on the camino!
I will have to go back to find evidence of this dislike. I have no problem with him preferring the company of like-minded people, though.
No one work can possible tell the (universal) story of walking the camino. His camino representing my camino in only superficial ways, but his story was interesting, nevertheless.
Perhaps my interpretation of your words was overly negative!I didn't realise that my views were that negative.
I'm with you on that! I don't particularly feel a sense of great "celebration" at the end of my caminos, which is one of the reasons I don't like walking into Santiago in a family party. Maybe it is because I don't experience my caminos as grueling hardship that I've overcome with them.I give notice that if anyone starts dancing at the end of one of my Caminos there will be trouble.
I seriously lack that too. (But we need to be careful about trying to develop such insight on the forum.)I do accept that l lack insight into the Catholic world
I have to agree with everything you wrote @C clearly . This was the second book I ever read about the camino (after Gitlitz). A Lutheran pastor friend of mine knows Kevin Codd and gave the book to me as a gift. It made me laugh and also helped me believe I could actually do the camino. It gave me insight into the albergues and what each day would be like. But in the end, and especially in hindsight, I thought the book was unsatisfactory. And, frankly, I have not really enjoyed another camino memoir until I read A Furnace full of God by Rebekah Scott (which is much more than a camino memoir).I did not "enjoy" the last part so much. As a more experienced pilgrim now, I found the description of the pilgrim family dynamics and pressure, the August heat, the crowds and urgency to reach Santiago, to be disturbing. The family and the celebratory highs were too stressful and exhausting.
Let us know what you think of it!I have just purchased the book and will be sitting down to start reading it this evening. It has been a long time since I have read any persona accounts of the pilgrimage to Santiago, and I do mean a long time. the handful of books of this type I have were published between 1987 and 1994, before I made my first pilgrimage in 1995. It was a different experience then, to be sure.
Based on C clearly's suggestion in the thread starter, and the positive reactions above, I decided to give this one a try in the hopes of having some lighter, Camino-centered, spiritual reading to contrast the weightier books on my Lenten reading plan.
Thanks for sharing your opinions. I wish I could say that I, too, believe that no one with those opinions on the Middle Easy might be found on the Camino but, while I really believe that the Camino tends to bring out the best in us pilgrims, I also recognize that there are all sorts walking the path. I don't think he made up the incident.I have just finished reading this in the kindle edition.
Having walked the Camino Frances last Summer I was able to follow the narrative of the Camino comfortably and it generally made sense.
One feature which I found interesting was the expression of his inner religious life through observance whilst walking and in relation to the various statues and icons (do Catholics use this term?) he encounters in churches along the way. As someone who has never believed it was interesting to have this articulated. This paralleled what I took to be one of the main motivations for the author's camino which was his anxiety at the loss of Catholic vocation in the modern world, reflected in the uncertain future of his seminary (which I infer is due to a lack of new ordinands leading to pressure from the USA). He sees this uncertainty replicated in the various religious houses supporting peregrinos with their devoted but aging members. His concerns for the church also express themselves in resentment towards some priests along the way who he finds either indifferent or cynical.
He is also haunted by a sense of his own failures, contrasting a failed episode of missionary work in Latin America with courageous martyrdom of other priests he learns about along the way. We luckily do not have to endure an actual crisis of faith but this aspect of the book did feel close to self-loathing at times.
The peregrinos and the Spain they cross seem in many ways to belong to another age, even though it is less than 20 years ago. The modern commercial infrastructure along the way seems almost absent and the country seems somnolent. Encounters with traffic seem to serve mainly as narrative devices as do many of the encounters with his fellow pilgrims.
In an afterword Father Codd sets out how he has constructed the narrative, saying it is based on his own memory and journals which are naturally incomplete. I think he is being mildly disingenuous here as I felt the narrative was at least partly organised to allow expression of his own concerns and also more positively the message which he wishes to convey to his fellow Catholics.
Whether this simply involves reordering encounters into a more coherent whole or their actually invention is impossible to tell. In only one instance did I think that total invention was definitely the case (the peregrino he encounters who disgorges some very extreme views contrary to the author's own concerning the Middle East) as I found it impossible to believe that such a person would be undertaking the Camino.
The narrative also takes place at a certain moment in time and I will say no more than that this adds more stress to the author, as he worries the impact of the actions of his own country whilst experiencing distress at the one dimensional and occasionally hostile views of some people he meets on the way.
Another incident seems to have been ordered into what the author would have wanted to say is the episode where he seeks to expound a humanistic Catholic doctrine to his Camino friends. It was reading this part of the book that coalesced my views of it. It is not a simple travelogue and I think that there are probably better works out there if you want story of walking the camino. In my view this is more of modern allegory that tries to express how faith can still have meaning in the modern world. Like many religious people the author seems to see in the growth of the Camino as a source of hope in the long retreat of Christianity in Europe (he decidedly does not like pilgrims who do not evidence any sensibility to the spiritual nature of the way). He wants his church to be less institutional and more humane whilst holding on to the gospel story as something factual.
The outcome is an interesting and relatively enjoyable book that too often falls between two stools. Father Codd is regrettably neither John Bunyan nor Bill Bryson. It is when he tries too hard to be either that the book is least enjoyable. Nonetheless I am glad to have read it and hope my views do not upset anyone. The trends in the world that are highlighted have of anything accelerated since it was written and I am not sure he would find the Camino as it now is quite to his taste.
Father Codd is a likeable enough travelling companion just don't ask him about his feet.
I think you explained it quite well! I find that I am usually bored by the straightforward accounts from first-time pilgrims. I was less bored by Codd's book than most.I have a hard time explaining why I don't enjoy these accounts...
I want to be trasnported back to one of my caminos. But the magic was unique to my moment and really is never going to be captured by another person.
Thanks for the response.Thanks for sharing your opinions. I wish I could say that I, too, believe that no one with those opinions on the Middle Easy might be found on the Camino but, while I really believe that the Camino tends to bring out the best in us pilgrims, I also recognize that there are all sorts walking the path. I don't think he made up the incident.
I do like the insight you bring about his worries about the Church and how that affected his Camino. I think what the Camino provides to us is, in no small part, a result of what we bring to it. His travelogue is bound to be affected by his priorities, values and concerns.
I actually quite enjoyed the last part. I think he captured both the positive and the negatives of the Camino family (the mutual support and shared experiences vs occasional pettiness and the tendency to "select" or "reject" new members based on "in group" criteria). He also recognised the tendency of long distance pilgrims to disparage those beginning close to SdC (or as we said at Melide joining from the Primitivo - "Wo ist ihr Rucksack. Das ist kein Urlaub!). We are all the same even when we think we are being different.I think you explained it quite well! I find that I am usually bored by the straightforward accounts from first-time pilgrims. I was less bored by Codd's book than most.
Thanks for these interesting and insightful comments. I have watched too many Camino videos in the past year and I do enjoy watching other people's take on it. I was perhaps already a bit washed out on these before I read To the Field of Stars, which may be why it did not create a thirst for more. I am also conscious of all the other things I want to read including a book on Cluny I bought after walking the CF and Berlin Alexanderplatz which is staring accusingly at me as I type this. I think the Camino is best enjoyed as one of many interests not to the exclusion of all else.Since we're discussing a memoir, I thought I'd write a bit about why I like reading Camino memoirs - because it is clear that a number of people in the discussion are not fond of the genre.To me, it is related to the perennial question on the Forums "Why walk the Camino Frances again?" Why relive the same experience?
Of course, it isn't the same experience. You will find that there have been changes in some of the places along the route. You will meet different pilgrims on the way. You may stop in different villages or take different alternatives. It may be a different season and the weather at the various places is likely to be different. At the very least, you will be different. Overall, although the route is much the same, the experience will be different.
On the other hand, there are also those for whom that very difference is a challenge. Anyone returning to the Camino attempting to recreate their previous experience will quickly discover how doomed to failure the attempt is. The most we can hope for is something similar in character: meeting interesting, international people, getting some insights, experiencing once again another culture. If we are walking the same route again, seeing once more familiar landmarks brings with it that happy recognition. For many of us, that is enough and we return again and again.
And that's what I get from Camino memoirs (and Camino videos that I enjoy watching). It isn't the same experience I had, with the same people I knew. But it is the same kind of experience, meeting different people, gaining different insights, but along the way seeing those familiar landmarks once again.
Of course, as with any genre, there will be good books and bad. Writing is an art and a craft and some people are better at it than others. These days, when anyone can publish, there are plenty of both in the marketplace. But a good, well written Camino memoir will have as much to offer me as any other book: interesting characters, personal growth and change for the protagonist, humour, struggle, all the good things. And on top of that, those familiar landmarks of place or experience that bring happy recognition. As I wrote in a post above, I think the Camino is actually structured more than many experiences to provide just these things to an author's narrative.
Or so it seems to me. Your mileage may vary.
I think that the next one after that - The Great Westward Walk - is one that is different from the "typical" Camino Frances walk, so you should buy it, too!I have bought the next book on the list but I think that when I have read that my appetite for pilgrim memoirs may likewise be satisfied.
I know what you mean!The fact it made me cross with them further annoyed me!!
Same for me ! I have no problem in reading the books and the comments but I am struggling to express myself in English sometimes . I think the comments of all the English speakers are interesting and articulate and I just may be will add some bits and pieces in a modest way !!I started reading it a few days ago, but won't be finished for a while since English is a second language, therefore, I read more slowly than in french. Still happy to read you impressions on it.
Me neither! I think we can sometimes be a bit too starry-eyed about the community of pilgrims on the way to Santiago: all sorts and conditions of men and women undertake the journey, but all happy families are not alike, whatever Tolstoy maintained to the contrary.There is NO type of person that would surprise me on the camino!
Yes I liked the sunflowers part !! Yes and how ‘ The mob slowly forms itself in a community ‘I finished the book and really enjoyed it. I liked his way of describing things like the sunflowers, or how he talked to things; the way he talked about the ups and downs of the journey, how you sometimes feel so happy you could fly and the next day, you ask yourself what you are doing there. I also liked that he reminded me how people on the way became one day a person with a name and then a friend.
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