Rebecca Solnit: Wanderlut, a history of walking

One Word Summary: Space-Time
More Words: Wow! I relied heavily on my dictionary while reading this book. The reading went slow, and even slower during the chapters I didn't fancy. It took about six months to digest. Usually I'm too impatient to tackle longish projects, but this was a very good book. It's an education. Solnit is thorough, thoughtful, and witty. I'm not a poet or a philosopher or any type of mover and shaker but I am a walker. In the last six months I've felt more conscious of the space outdoors- appreciative, protective, and while I've been luxuriating in the freedom of my feet I've also been chaffing at their limitations. I wish people would park their cars. I wish it were easy to fetch groceries with two young children on foot. I wish communities were designed for pedestrians.

Viking (Penguin Group) 2000

Quotes: I've flagged so many passages. Here are three chosen at random.

They have castigated her cross-country walk across
the boundaries of decorum; she is mocking their garden propriety by suggesting
that they have become part of the garden's array of aesthetic objects, objects
that she can contemplate as impersonally as trees and water. That evening Miss
Bingley strolls about the narrower confines of the drawing wroom, where all the
Netherfields characters but Jane are gathered. "Her figure was elegant, and she
walked well," says Austen. The acuity of idle people about each other's conduct
extended to critiques of movent and posture, and a person's walk was
considered an important part of his or her appearance.

The word citizen has to do with cities, and the ideal city is organized around citizenship - around participation in public life.

What exactly is the nature of the transformation in which machines now pump our water but we go to other machines to engage in the act of pumping, not for the sake of water but for the sake of our bodies, bodies theoretically liberated by machine technology?

Geoff Nicholson: The Lost Art of Walking

I really ment to read Wanderlust: A history of walking by Rebecca Solnit. Near the end of Lost Art I started to wonder why my copy of 60 Hikes within 60 miles, would quote this book. I came up with one good idea. Urban Hiking, particularly hiking through parking lots. I bet it's all the rage in major metropolitan areas. Anyhow, I'm glad I made a mistake and got to read this book too.

First, I should say Geoff Nicholson is irreverently funny. The back jacket reads "Nicholson's Books aren't for the faint of heart". It's practically a challenge to all lily livered people out there, including me. Of course the back jacket is all about praise for Bleeding London, but still the quote says 'books'. So don't read this book if you're easily offended, or if you don't know how to laugh.

Ultimately Lost Art is a great reference book. It's full of trivia about walking, historically and culturally. Nicholson wrote a lot about people who walk or walked, which I thought was great. My favorite chapter was THE WALKING PHOTOGRAPH. And Nicholson's opinion of the psychogeographers and the walkers-in-nature made me laugh. It also made walking more accessible to me, since it is possible to walk anywhere and I always sort of thought you had to drive to the mountains first. The chapter about ECCENTRICS, OBSESSIVES, ARTISTS reminded me of my brother. He's probably a compulsive walker, and I'm sure his walks are chemically enhanced. He's also a littel perverse (Nicholson favourite word, I'm tired of it). Walking with him is always an adventure. What I like best is the bibliography, there are two. There's the traditional one at the back, and then there are all the books named through the text. It's a gold mine of great reading.

Quotes:

Speaking of the birth of the antichrist on June 6, 2006: "Even the Antichrist surely wouldn't hit his stride on the very day he was born." p107

"I'm a big fan of walking in parking lots, partly because it's simply a perverse thing to do, but also because it's a small act of reclamation and defiance. Taking a walk, even just a shortcut, through a parking lot is a way of saying that this open space, and sometimes it can be the only open space for miles around, isn't the sole province of cars and drivers. And if there's a chance of being run down by cars maneuvering into or out of parking bays, then so be it." p156

"It's strange what you find yourself seeing when you're ninety years old and have been walking in the desert for nine consecutive days." p173

"In the course of writing this book I've spent time watching children walk, and they're all over the place, no rhythym, no balance, no sense of purpose. Maybe it's because they don't have anywhere to go." p222