- Time of past OR future Camino
- 2019
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http://www.lavozdegalicia.es/notici...antiago/00031426769585160919485.htm#viewmedia
Paulo Coelho, probably the most famous pilgrim in current times, has revealed that he didn´t complete his Camino in 1986, He ended in O Cebreiro and arrived in Santiago by bus.
He is now in Santiago celebrating Saint Joseph with 120 friends from all over the world.
I think that walking from SJPP to O Cebreiro in 1986 and writing a book that widely promoted the Camino is anyway very important.
...by the end of the book he hadn't even left America;-)
... he didn't finish either, but did write a book about it.
... I dare say the "world" was aware of the camino before pauloC... (many people I came across when growing up in europe knew of the camino as one of the grand pilgrimages of the world. and until recently i did not know about him at all and haven't read any of his book, only saw video clips about him. i.e. in my experience, people i know knew about the camino long before they heard about pauloC)and made the world aware of the Camino.
Even my own family living in Spain has little knowledge, nor interest, in the Caminos - as most of the people's whose villages we walked throgh. Regaring Coelho, The Pilgrim was one of his first major novel. Since then many works know around the world have been published. Here is a wikin link on his work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Coelho... I dare say the "world" was aware of the camino before pauloC... (many people I came across when growing up in europe knew of the camino as one of the grand pilgrimages of the world. and until recently i did not know about him at all and haven't read any of his book, only saw video clips about him. i.e. in my experience, people i know knew about the camino long before they heard about pauloC)
saluti -
I just read a book Planetwalker and was all excited to read about a man who walked right around the world.....by the end of the book he hadn't even left America;-)
Then there was the Kiwi bloke who set out to walk Te Araroa, NZ's long distance waking trail - he didn't finish either, but did write a book about it.
Along The Templar Trail did somewhat better - one of the two guys who started did actually finish.
I was starting to think writers do not actually achieve long distance walks!
... I dare say the "world" was aware of the camino before pauloC... (many people I came across when growing up in europe knew of the camino as one of the grand pilgrimages of the world. and until recently i did not know about him at all and haven't read any of his book, only saw video clips about him. i.e. in my experience, people i know knew about the camino long before they heard about pauloC)
saluti -
I'll volunteer to start that tour group in the Pyrenees. I know exactly how to walk someone around in circles in Pays Basque, it usually starts with our normal wine infused lunches.Maybe they should establish a Paulo Cuelho Camino, starting in SJPP, spending 5 days getting very lost in the Pyrennes .... etc. and then finishing at O'Ceberrio ... might help eleviate some of the congestion and bring more money into the Camino as he stayed in hotels ... ha ha
Regardless he can certainly assert to the transformative power of the Camino as it kick started his career as an internationally famous best selling author and he still has a connection with at least one albergue, which he supports and is best mates with the owner of Ave Phoenix, one the Camino Characters. He is in Santiago this week, bringing attention to the city which is pretty devoid of pilgrims and tourists ... at the moment.
I saw him in Santiago standing outside the Paradora, holding court among the adoring media etc. I only recognised him because a friend had retweeted one of his messages about being back in Spain. 100m away and in the centre of the square were 30 or so teenages, shouting and dancing in celebration of their Camino completion. They all ran to high five and hug their teacher. So much excitment, joy, love etc but it was ignored by the media. It would have been nice if the media had showed equal interest in both happenings.
Haven't you seen them??? Oh, that's a shame...Was Frodo and Bilbo there, too?
Yeah, I just missed them. They were staying in the albergue in Mordor....Haven't you seen them??? Oh, that's a shame...
Where exactly in Galicia is it?Yeah, I just missed them. They were staying in the albergue in Mordor....
AH yes, that was another one I just read where the writer didn't finish!Bill Bryson didn't walk the entire Appalachian Trail either, but I still laughed at almost every page of "A Walk in the Woods".
Yeah, I read that book. Mildly amusing, but yet another example where the writer finds an activity like the AP, or the CF that is extremely popular and decides that would be a good subject matter that will get them published and sell books. Rather disappointing when you realize the author didn't complete the journey and just experienced enough of it to put on paper. You got to wonder if the author even really enjoyed the experience and just how much of what they wrote is truth? The old "poetic license" bit.AH yes, that was another one I just read where the writer didn't finish!
Yeah, I read that book. Mildly amusing, but yet another example where the writer finds an activity like the AP, or the CF that is extremely popular and decides that would be a good subject matter that will get them published and sell books. Rather disappointing when you realize the author didn't complete the journey and just experienced enough of it to put on paper. You got to wonder if the author even really enjoyed the experience and just how much of what they wrote is truth? The old "poetic license" bit.
I've always believed it's better to go make your own adventures and stories and not live vicariously through some wannabe guru hack, who can spin a good yarn.
Bryson's OK. I bought his book and added to his bank account, but I never assume there is 100% any fact in any book. Books are entertainment. He wasn't who I was referring to as a wannabe guru hack...ha haWhoa, not to go too far off topic, but Bryson did claim to hike most of the AT. Granted it was for the purposes of writing about it but that's what the man does for a living. So he section hiked and took a taxi from TN to VA. This was hardly the book that established him as a best-selling writer and there's enough fact in the book to make it credible.
I don't know about anybody else, but I read a lot of travel books and appreciate a good story. The fact that the author embelishes for the sake of the story isn't going to put me off. Just as each of us walks his own camino, I'll give anyone permission to hike their own Appalachian Trail without feeling the need to criticize it.
Bryson's OK. I bought his book and added to his bank account, but I never assume there is 100% any fact in any book. Books are entertainment. He wasn't who I was referring to as a wannabe guru hack...ha ha
Bill Bryson didn't walk the entire Appalachian Trail either, but I still laughed at almost every page of "A Walk in the Woods".
Paulo Coelho is a living ledgend.
Does this mean that he is not real, or that he is unreal?
In 2011 I choosed to stay in Viloria de la Rioja at Accacio and Orietta's Albergue. There were only me and an Austrian lady (injured - ankle) and at the dinner Accacio told me that P.Coelho never walked the Camino. And he was the "godfather" of this albergue! Accacio is Argentinian and Coelho is his friend, so I guess I have to believe him.
That don't bother me because Coelho's books means nothing at all to me. It would make whole lots of diference in case of some other authors/writers, but surely not Paulo
Where exactly in Galicia is it?
I'm really very eager to take a tourigrino detour...
I just read a book Planetwalker and was all excited to read about a man who walked right around the world.....by the end of the book he hadn't even left America;-)
Then there was the Kiwi bloke who set out to walk Te Araroa, NZ's long distance waking trail - he didn't finish either, but did write a book about it.
Along The Templar Trail did somewhat better - one of the two guys who started did actually finish.
I was starting to think writers do not actually achieve long distance walks!
I just read a book Planetwalker and was all excited to read about a man who walked right around the world.....by the end of the book he hadn't even left America;-)
Then there was the Kiwi bloke who set out to walk Te Araroa, NZ's long distance waking trail - he didn't finish either, but did write a book about it.
Along The Templar Trail did somewhat better - one of the two guys who started did actually finish.
I was starting to think writers do not actually achieve long distance walks!
As a Brazilian, I always get surprised by Paulo Coelho's fame outside of Brazil. He's more of a joke to us, like how English speakers make fun of Fifty Shades and Twilight. I suppose translators are doing a good job when transporting it to another language. In its original language, it's not worth the trees that died for the print.
Try -A Walk in the Woods. , very nice !!I just read a book Planetwalker and was all excited to read about a man who walked right around the world.....by the end of the book he hadn't even left America;-)
Then there was the Kiwi bloke who set out to walk Te Araroa, NZ's long distance waking trail - he didn't finish either, but did write a book about it.
Along The Templar Trail did somewhat better - one of the two guys who started did actually finish.
I was starting to think writers do not actually achieve long distance walks!
Oh, so I made a huge injustice to him because I've met Accacio and Orietta in 2011I met and walked 5km of Camino between Vianna and Logrono with Paulo Coelho in 2014
Oh, so I made a huge injustice to him because I've met Accacio and Orietta in 2011
And? How was it walking with Paulo Coelho?
I don't know what he told journalists before March 2015 when this thread was started but since then, for more than three and a half years at least, journalists have been told by him that he walked from SJPP to O Cebreiro in 1986 and then took a bus to Santiago because he had found the answer to his question (I think it was about which way to turn in his professional life?).What it bothers me is that he lies. In multiple interviews he stated that he walked El Camino
If you read it all the way through, I admire your perseverance, but I suppose that you had nothing else to read on the plane. The Pilgrimage was the first book that I read, or attempted to read, about the camino. After the first chapter, I added it to my short list of books so boring that I could not continue to read them. Fortunately, it did not at all influence my view of the camino. It was not the genre which offended me. About half of my fiction library is fantasy and I have read Lord of the Rings about 17 times. I read many books about the camino later, before walking my first camino. Some were boring, but no others were hopelessly stupid. Thanks to comments on this forum, I have avoided Shirley Maclaine so far. Life is too short and books too many to waste time reading the really bad ones. (My opinion, of course)Worst book I ever read about the Camino. Worse than Shirley's.... Bought a copy in SdeC at the end of one of my CF walks, to read on the airplane.... Threw it in the trash upon landing.
I read "The Alchemist" and that was ok but I knew then that Coelho wasn't the kind of author of fiction books that I would enjoy. So I never read "The Pilgrimage". Some people seem to confuse his fiction with his autobiography.I read Paulo Coelho before I ever heard of the Camino. I have been a fan of his writing for years. He is a fictional writer. I have a friend who writes detective novels and has never been a police officer, much less a detective.
Worst book I ever read about the Camino. Worse than Shirley's.... Bought a copy in SdeC at the end of one of my CF walks, to read on the airplane.... Threw it in the trash upon landing.
@Kathar1naErm ... why is The Alchemist considered a camino book? If my memory does not fail me completely, the hero lives in Andalusia, travels to Morocco and Egypt, goes home again. It's a kind of standard "quest" story about someone who seeks treasure abroad and finds it at home?
@Albertagirl, what do we do now? Do I delete my question and you delete your reply, or do we leave things as they are so that future readers of Paulo Coelho's oeuvre know that there are two famous books and can decide which one - if not both - to read and/or to avoid?I had corrected my post before your post appeared.
@Kathar1na@Albertagirl, what do we do now? Do I delete my question and you delete your reply, or do we leave things as they are so that future readers of Paulo Coelho's oeuvre know that there are two famous books and which one(s) to read and/or avoid?
Nope. But I won't diss it either as many people obviously enjoyed it for various reasons. I read it a really long time ago. I may be totally wrong but I remember it as a page turner that got a bit boring towards the end but that didn't stop me from finishing it. However, one Paulo Coelho was enough for me.@Kathar1na
Are you saying that you are recommending that people read The Alchemist?
Proof, if it's needed, that he hasn't yet completed his camino. Or perhaps even started it.I met him in Puenta La Reina in September 2001.
I say "met him" he physically shoved me and another pilgrim out of the way so his Korean TV crew could enter the Iglesia del Crucifijo
"I hate to meet a man whose work I admire. The man is always so much less than his work."he physically shoved me and another pilgrim out of the way
Right. Sure. Next Shirley is going to proclaim she never traveled back in time.
The writer did finish but his French companion stopped in istanbul I think (can’t remember exactly) but his family came to get him.Along The Templar Trail did somewhat better - one of the two guys who started did actually finish.
I was starting to think writers do not actually achieve long distance walks!
Postscriptum: I've managed to read a bit more of the series of interviews / conversations mentioned earlier that the journalist Juan Arias conducted with Coelho in the 1990s. I think Arias still writes for El Pais. Coelho cites lines from a poem by J.P. Cavafy entitled Ithaca. I had never heard of it before and, obviously, I can't read it in the Greek original. I don't remember having seen a reference to it on the forum. Now that is something I do recommend, in English or another translated version.Are you saying that you are recommending that people read The Alchemist?
https://www.caminodesantiago.me/community/threads/ithaca.50356/Postscriptum: I've managed to read a bit more of the series of interviews / conversations mentioned earlier that the journalist Juan Arias conducted with Coelho in the 1990s. I think Arias still writes for El Pais. Coelho cites lines from a poem by J.P. Cavafy entitled Ithaca. I had never heard of it before and, obviously, I can't read it in the Greek original. I don't remember having seen a reference to it on the forum. Now that is something I do recommend, in English or another translated version.
What it bothers me is that he lies. In multiple interviews he stated that he walked El Camino
Why is there no icon for "thumbs up"
Quite. Not easy when not first language. I am fluent in English (like you!) but even so, sometimes my response is just ‘What?’Perhaps I had not yet made up my mind whether it is Itaca, Ithaca, Itaka or Ithaka in English.
And it's what journalists wrote already in 2008 in several Spanish newspapers: "ya que salió de la localidad francesa de Saint Jean Pied de Port hasta O Cebreiro (Lugo), y que desde allí cogió un autobús hacia Santiago. Which translates as: "[he said and pointed out that he did not do it more than once and that he did not complete it either,] since he started in the French town of Saint Jean Pied de Port and when he had reached O Cebreiro, he took a bus to Santiago.That's what the man himself wrote on his website in 2010. I don't think he made a secret of it!
Thank you for sharing your interpretation and thoughts on this, much appreciated.I leave it to each of you to identify this for yourself.
Some of us doI just read a book Planetwalker and was all excited to read about a man who walked right around the world.....by the end of the book he hadn't even left America;-)
Then there was the Kiwi bloke who set out to walk Te Araroa, NZ's long distance waking trail - he didn't finish either, but did write a book about it.
Along The Templar Trail did somewhat better - one of the two guys who started did actually finish.
I was starting to think writers do not actually achieve long distance walks!
Cheryl Strayed wrote about her hike on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) in Wild and Bill Bryson wrote about his hike on the Appalachian Trail (AT) in A Walk in the Woods. Neither did the whole trail but they said they didn't. Both books have been made into Hollywood films.I was starting to think writers do not actually achieve long distance walks!
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