Book review: "Spanish Steps" by Tim Moore

Date: 29 April 2012 12:19:27

I got this book from the library a while ago, I knew it would be good as I have read a couple of Tim Moore's travel books before ('Frost on my moustache' and 'Do not pass go') and enjoyed them. This is the tale of Moore's journey doing the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage, accompanied by his donkey Shinto. The other two accounts I have read of the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage were the Ship of Fools Mystery Pilgrim 2002 pilgrimage report (Augustine the Aleut is obviously pretty hardcore, as he's done the pilgrimage several other times since then; must read the more recent reports too) which I had found profound and moving, and Paolo Coelho's execrable 'The Pilgrimage', which in contrast I had found to be pseudospiritual New Age willy-waving of the highest order and is possibly my most loathed book of all time (it even made me stop for a second when I realised, when I first started going out with HD, that it was one of only 4 or 5 books that we had in common in our book collections!). "Spanish Steps" in my experience managed to redeem the pilgrimage for me after Coelho had so spectacularly spoilt it - Moore does not claim to be remotely religious, and this is largely a travelogue and tale of his (usually donkey-related) mishaps, but it manages to be both laugh out loud funny and infused with regular dollops of non-annoying profundity. Absolutely recommended - it almost makes me want to do the Camino myself (if someone that hapless can do it ...), although realistically the tales of dubious facilities, rows of fetid socks hanging up to dry and hills (especially the uphill bits) means it's never going to happen. If like me you're going to be an armchair pilgrim then this is a really good addition to the experience.