If life is a journey through a wilderness, the writer Bruce Chatwin decided, “the best thing is to walk” — to walk, in the wisdom of Chinese poetry, “in the hardships of travel and the many branchings of the way.” The anatomist of melancholy Robert Burton thought walking was the best cure. The great American walker Thoreau, preached: “You must walk like a camel, which is said to be the only beast which ruminates when walking.”
This was the spirit of the poet Wordsworth, who logged 180,000 miles around England’s Lake District and elsewhere and must have been the most prolific walker of all time. When a visitor asked to see Wordsworth’s study, his servant said: “Here is his library, but his study is out of doors.”
Rebecca Solnit’s reverential history of walking makes it clear: if we’re too deep into car culture to save shank’s mare and the humane art of reflective walking, we’ve really lost something.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
Guests:
Rebecca Solnit, author of Wanderlust.