Publisher's Note
One of my most magnificent blunders as a publisher was the
initial rejection of this remarkable book. Why did I do that? I was
hurried, engaged in other projects, moving too fast to adequately
focus.
Months passed and I picked up the manuscript again during a
weekend at the farm, well away from the city bustle, where one can
think at leisure. Discovery was at hand. Of course, by then I had
to dive into the book world's equivalent of a feeding frenzy: many
a publisher and agent had already seen what I had failed to.
The Idiot and the Odyssey is much more than another
travel-by-foot book, as good as it is in that less-than-a-category.
No doubt the avid trekker will enjoy the challenges of the walk
itself. Stratte-McClure is no slouch when it comes to scaling hills
and wryly recording the rigours of long walking.
But The Idiot, as I came to
call it, is much more than that. The sub-themes which I awoke to
that weekend are what lift it above and beyond the norm.
As an oblique introduction to Homer's
Odyssey, it probably has no peer - a nonacademic unfolding
of Odyssean tales and quotes inspired by the trek's landscapes and
personal memories. I can see it inspiring many to read or re-visit
this pillar of western culture; it certainly got my copy back on
the nightstand. The young, who think Homer's work a dusty ancient
thing, will be inspired to look anew.
For the armchair traveller, there is a
fine if random series of impressions of historical sites and
architecture and accompanying anecdotes, drawn from years of
tramping this part of the world, constant reading and observation -
the author worked as a journalist for 30 years in the region, and
seems to have met nearly everyone famous or infamous during that
time.
And then there is the continual thread
of contemplation on alcoholism, from the often hilarious
recollections of boozing years to the last decades of sobriety in
its fullest sense, and meaning.
The counterpoint to the extremes of
excessive drinking comes from a steady flow of gentle observations
and quotes on Buddhism, especially the walking meditation
principles of a Zen monk under whom the author practiced, along
with the Dalai Lama and assorted others.
A good part of the walk is solitary and
this brings forth countless ruminations, some profound, others of
deep amusement: the crush of divorce; the value of friends;
parenthood; mortality; bankruptcy; life as an expatriate of over 30
years. And a number which recount life tales of the wild and
debauched in the 60s, 70s and beyond.
But above all there is a comfort here:
we feel as though we are walking alongside the narrator in a
relaxed conversation sharing insights and the delights of the
trail.
So here is a book like a prism - shards
of light glancing off in different directions, different colours
and tones, but always grounded by the challenges and serenity of a
coastal walk over 4400 kilometres from the extremes of Algeria to
Rome, the long way. What unites it all is the author's jubilation
and the partnership one feels; as he considers his own life, he
teaches us things, naturally, undogmatically, and nudges the best
in ourselves to come forth.
J.M.F. Keeney
Chairman and Editor-in-Chief
Fast Thinking Books/ETN Communications
editor@fastthinking.com.au
Sydney, September 2008