Spanish Steps

Author: Moore, Tim

Brand: VINTAGE

Binding: paperback

Number Of Pages: 336

Release Date: 11-07-2005

Details: Product Description
Ludicrous, heart-warming and improbably inspirational, Spanish Steps is the story of what happens when a rather silly man tries to walk all the way across a very large country, with a very large animal who doesn't really want to.Being larger than a cat, the donkey is the kind of animal Tim Moore is slightly scared of. Yet intrigued by epic accounts of a pilgrimage undertaken by one in three medieval Europeans, and committed to historical authenticity, he finds himself leading a Pyrenean ass named Shinto into Spain, headed for Santiago de Compostela.Over 500 miles of extreme weather and agonising bestial sloth, it becomes memorably apparent that for the multinational band of eccentrics who keep the Santiagan flame alive, the pilgrimage has evolved from a purely devotional undertaking into a mobile therapist's couch.'Hailed as the new Bill Bryson, he is in fact a writer of considerably more substance and the jokes come thick and fast' Irish Times
Review
He is a rare comic talent ―
The Times

A very funny writer, oozing with comic ideas ―
Daily Mail

An absolutely cracking idea for a book; it's got history, eccentric characters, personal growth - and plenty of really good jokes ―
Time Out

One of the classier writers of the humorous travel book... A very entertaining read ―
Observer

At last, a travel book that makes you think but also makes you laugh out loud ―
Guardian
About the Author
Tim Moore’s writing has appeared in the
Daily Telegraph, the Observer, the Sunday Times and
Esquire. He is the author of
Gironimo!,
French Revolutions, Do Not Pass Go, Spanish Steps,
Nul Points,
I Believe In Yesterday and
You Are Awful (But I Like You). He lives in London.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
One
It’s 500 miles from St Jean Pied-de-Port on the French side of the Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela near the northwestern coast of Spanish Galicia. From the dawn of the last millennium until its final quarter, countless millions walked this route as the final leg of an epic hike from their own dusty thresholds, partly to stretch their legs in one of Europe’s most scenically appealing regions, and partly for remission of accumulated sins and a consequently more benign afterlife. Their goal was the cathedral in which were housed the crumbly mortal remains of Santiago, the patron saint of Spain: St James, as anyone who recalls Judith Keppel’s progress towards the first top prize on
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? will be aware.

The fourth apostle recruited by Jesus, James was hardly an obvious choice for a thousand-year personality cult: so volubly stroppy his fellow fishermen nicknamed him and his similarly ill-tempered brother John ‘sons of thunder’, so petulantly arrogant he demanded to be placed at the Son of God’s right-hand side in paradise. When he was dispatched westwards by his doomed master on an evangelical mission, these attributes helped ensure that by the time James wound up on the lefthand tip of the Roman Empire, in north-west Spain, he had somehow managed to attract just seven disciples. That mouth clearly did him no favours after his return to the Holy Land: in AD 44 he became the first of the apostles to experience the afterlife, beheaded on the orders of Herod Agrippa.

Still, a martyr is a martyr, and after being sneaked out of Jerusalem, James’s body was taken by sea to Galicia, terminus of his inefficient prophetic crusade. If I reveal that this voyage was made in an unmanned vessel hewn from solid marble, you will begin to understand that we are now on a voyage of our own: a journey beyond the shores of Factland, now gingerly skirting the Cape of Myth, now steaming gaily through the Straits of Arrant Cobblers. (Precisely where this figurative journey of ours set sail is a matter beyond sensitive debate, though for contextual ends I’ll point out the lack of even biblical back-up for James’s previous visit to Spain.)

Washed up on the

EAN: 8601300074139

Package Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.0 x 1.0 inches

Languages: English