This book won it's 4 stars on the second half of the book. The finish might even have tipped 4 and a half so if you are not enjoying the beginning as much as you expected, keep reading. The journey itself was obviously not as satisfying as the author had hoped. I have never walked the Pennine Way but I have done quite a lot of long distance walking. My memories of my own walks hold a freshness and immediacy that seem lacking from this walk - maybe not lacking, but few and far between. I wonder if age has something to do with it as my walks were many years ago (before children) and although I was in my 30s they were bright adventures through mist, rain, sun, wind, hail and snow. Through light and dark, up hill and down dale, vivid companions and the joy of walking ever onward, until returning to home life. The author's journey seems to have had more impact internally and I get the sense that the continuity of the internal life did not allow for that sense of beginning and end and special time in between. But maybe the same would be true for me now. ( )

He is slightly nervous of the challenge, and his wife is not sure that he would be able to complete it either. He has split the walk into manageable sections, and he is joined by others on each stage of the walk. Every day he is joined by some combination of family, friends, local guides and frequently complete strangers who have responded to his promotion of the walk. Even though he undertakes the walk in the summer he has a mixed bag of weather too, gentle sun some days to being soaked and blasted by the wind as he traverses the backbone of England. He is filled with doubt too; he can scarcely believe that anyone will walk with him, let alone pay to hear him read, but they do. Some of his largest reading have nearly 100 people there, and his collections for the event vary from £30 to a huge £500, as well as the oddities such as tickets, foreign coins and other random objects from people pockets.

Really enjoyed this, the way that Armitage writes is open and honest. His humour is self depreciating too, and his humility over his ability and talents means that you warm to him as a person. But he is immensely talented as a poet, and people respond to that and are warm and generous with their time, money and shelter to enable him to fulfil his ambition.

“Prose fills a space, like a liquid poured in from the top”

It is not a book filled with action and adventure, but rather the musings and thoughts of a man at home with nature and humanity. ( )

I liked that this book about a long walk began with "A Preamble." I hope the humor of that was intentional; it does seem in line with the typically dry, self-deprecating, British humor (humour?). Poet Simon Armitage is a pleasant guide along the Pennine Way, the UK version of the Appalachian Trail. He was quite prepared in some ways, under-prepared in others, but the overall idea was that he would walk north to south, giving a poetry reading every evening for free (pass-the-hat). He (and an assistant) worked out ahead of time who he would stay with each night and who (if anyone) would walk with him each day. It mightn't've worked with an unknown poet, but Armitage seems to be well-known enough to have a surprisingly large following, with plenty of people attending his readings, offering a bed for the night, and accompanying him on parts of the walk.

See also: A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Quotes

Can I actually walk the Pennine Way? ...from my father I have inherited a stubborn streak. Some people have interpreted this as 'ambition,' but it isn't, it's just a pig-headed refusal to give up or accept failure, particularly when the chances of success are microscopically small or when defeat would be a far easier and more dignified option. (9-10)

The whole project is based on the kindness of strangers, the entire itinerary held together by nothing more than a loosely connected chain of names and addresses and telephone numbers of people I've never met and who don't know me from Adam...but the weakest link in that chain...is me. (19)

...in some ways, [it's] more essential to know where you've been than where you're heading. (50)

...the only other cartographical features for the foreseeable future are curricks, cairns, sink-holes, shake-holes, hushes and shafts, the first two being piles of stones like unmarked graves, the other four being things you can fall down and die. (116)

...[spare] rooms...are nearly always reliquaries or shrines, museums of past lives or mausoleums devoted to a particular absence...objects which have no function or place in the everyday world...but whose significance to family lore borders on the sacred. I am sleeping in a memory vault, and none of the memories are mine. (174)

...sunlight seems always on the point of breaking through and where brightness and clarity seem always within reach, just beyond the next veil of fog, just a few steps ahead, feeling that at any moment, particularly while ascending, you might emerge....it's a cruel trick. (190)

Distance, I've come to realise, is not the determining factor in terms of travelling time - it's all about terrain. (195)

Be careful what you wish for, especially if that thing is THE END. (264)

In many ways, the Pennine Way is a pointless exercise, leading from nowhere in particular to nowhere in particular, via no particular route, and for no particular reason. (278) ( )

A delightful and enjoyable breath of fresh air sort of book. Simon Armitage appears to give his readers enough honesty about the reality of walking the Pennine Way to feel you are following not far behind. Simon Armitage decides to travel as a troubadour, reading to groups of people every night of the three week walk, when every other walker is putting their feet up and relying on helpful strangers to carry his luggage, rather than a company. This is not a constant wonder at the natural world of the Pennines, although there are glimpses of this. Simon Armitage tells us about the fear of the mist and getting lost, the consistency of the mud and the often horror of the north of England weather. He also tells us about people we meet and the poetry readings, some of which he is more present at than others. I have seen Simon Armitage read and he seemed to be having a lovely time but wonder now whether that was true. He made me laugh out loud in a number of places which is a gift not to be sniffed at and he has a way with words that made me re-frame my views of the countryside at times. An enjoyable and always interesting read. ( )

This is a lovely book - combining the humorous travel book structure of Bill Bryson etc, with the lyrical beauty of Robert Macfarlane. I am sure all its readers will grow to like Simon Armitage as he wends his way south from Kirk Yetholm to Edale [almost]. I learned lots, like the redundancy of Kielder Water; I enjoyed the few poems reprinted [and I have since purchased a collection]. I am too old to know to attempt the Pennine Way but it made me wish I had done it earlier in my life. It brought back memories, particularly of that magnificent waterfall at High Force. I confidently expect to receive "Walking Away" as part of my Christmas present. ( )