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To Travel Hopefully
"Travel, in a word, is for people who have nothing better to do." The slanted eyes on the other side of the vodka bottle narrowed. "It seems to me, my friend, that you have nothing better to do." Journeying along the road traveled by Robert Louis Stevenson in his famed travelogue Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, fellow Scot Christopher Rush has written a modern classic. Accompanied by a donkey named Anatole, Rush tries not to make an ass out of himself on his journey from Le Monastier- Sur-Gazelle to St. Jean-Du-Gard. Realizing many of his worst fears, Rush is forced to ford raging streams buck naked, confronted by menacing hunters, lashed by torrential storms, often hungry and always directionally challenged. But with a little help from his friends Philip Larkin, Spanish thinker Miguel de Unamuno, Pablo Neruda and the Bard of Avon, the Scotsman turns these unfortunate events into a spiritual quest that raises the bar on travel writing.
Following the agnostic Stevenson's path to a monastery where one of the monks resembles Buddy Holly, Rush discovers the "romance of those who are abroad in the black hours." A moving tribute to the memory of his late wife Patricia, To Travel Hopefully is Christopher Rush's poetic journey of the spirit through the south of France.
Following the agnostic Stevenson's path to a monastery where one of the monks resembles Buddy Holly, Rush discovers the "romance of those who are abroad in the black hours." A moving tribute to the memory of his late wife Patricia, To Travel Hopefully is Christopher Rush's poetic journey of the spirit through the south of France.
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First published January 27, 2005
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About the author
Christopher Rush
41 books5 followersChristopher Rush is a Scottish writer, for thirty years a teacher of literature in Edinburgh. His books include A Twelvemonth and a Day (1985) (chosen by The List magazine in 2005 as one of the 100 best Scottish books of all time) and the highly acclaimed To Travel Hopefully (2005).
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 12, 2016
The best book I read in 2012 shows bibliotherapy in action. Literary types have often turned to books to help them through grief, as Rick Gekoski noted in this terrific Guardian article. He cites as examples Joan Didion coming to grips with her husband’s death in The Year of Magical Thinking, or John Sutherland facing his alcoholism in The Boy Who Loved Books.
Gekoski admits to being “struck and surprised, both envious and a little chagrined, by how literary their frame of reference is. In the midst of the crisis, or, what is somewhat different, in the midst of the recollecting and recounting of that crisis, a major reflex is to turn, for consolation and understanding, to favourite and esteemed authors.”
Christopher Rush follows in Didion’s footsteps with this memoir of his wife’s death from breast cancer, but with pervasive and haunting literary echoes setting the book’s melancholy tone: chiefly from the Bible and Shakespeare, but his quotations and allusions also range from Homer through Tennyson to Larkin – an English teacher’s treasure trove of consoling authors. His debt to Shakespeare is most evident; his language is infused with the Bard’s creative wordplay and colourful putdowns, as here: “You’re a box of worm-seed, a little crudded milk, fantastical puff-paste. What are you but a corpse waiting to be washed?” or in his description of his comically awful mother-in-law: “Granny Graveclothes” – “that gin-drenched, gibbering old bag of sticks.”
The book falls into two parts: first is his wife’s last illness and death, in all its horrible reality. She’d known for months that she had a massive lump, but by the time she admitted it and they looked together at the breast, it was a hideous black and purple wound; within two months of diagnosis and the start of treatment, she was dead. Rush recounts the awful months that followed, as he and his two children struggled to continue with everyday life – eating, cleaning the house, teaching or attending school – with Patricia gone.
In the second part, nearly a year after her death, Rush sets out to recover himself by recreating Robert Louis Stevenson’s Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes in France, with Anatole the donkey. He attempts to adhere as closely as possible to Stevenson’s own schedule, doing the same number of miles on given days, staying in the same towns and inns, even packing the same items in his panniers. He feels so close to Stevenson’s experience that he imagines himself meeting the fellow Scottish author at various points along the journey.
These unearthly rendezvous have the feeling of hallucinations, yet Rush was not descending into madness but, rather, ascending out of the darkness of grief and into a fresh charge on life. The pilgrimage only took twelve days, but he couldn’t recall a time when he had experienced life more intensely. Rush didn’t write for a full ten years after his wife’s death; since this book he’s written two enjoyable volumes of memoir about his growing-up years in Scotland (Hellfire and Herring: A Childhood Remembered and Sex, Lies and Shakespeare), as well as Will, a clever novel about Shakespeare’s later years.
The book’s title phrase comes from Stevenson, who said that “to travel hopefully is better than to arrive.” I usually find metaphorical generalizations sappy and insincere, but I believe Rush wholeheartedly when he says we each have our own donkey – our burdens, our sources of grief – and our own journey. My hope and expectation is that when tragedy hits close to home for me – because it would surely be naïve and arrogant to assume that it is a question of if rather than when – I will be able to turn to books for healing.
(As well as providing my favorite read of that year, the book happened to contain the most personally meaningful quotation I’ve come across in a long time; this is something a retiring colleague once said to him: “Don’t be afraid of change if you are ever in a position that imprisons the spirit.” That became one of my inspiring mantras as I prepared to leave a job I hated and had been desperate to escape for years. I now have the more fulfilling, though much less financially rewarding, career of freelance writing and book reviewing!)
Gekoski admits to being “struck and surprised, both envious and a little chagrined, by how literary their frame of reference is. In the midst of the crisis, or, what is somewhat different, in the midst of the recollecting and recounting of that crisis, a major reflex is to turn, for consolation and understanding, to favourite and esteemed authors.”
Christopher Rush follows in Didion’s footsteps with this memoir of his wife’s death from breast cancer, but with pervasive and haunting literary echoes setting the book’s melancholy tone: chiefly from the Bible and Shakespeare, but his quotations and allusions also range from Homer through Tennyson to Larkin – an English teacher’s treasure trove of consoling authors. His debt to Shakespeare is most evident; his language is infused with the Bard’s creative wordplay and colourful putdowns, as here: “You’re a box of worm-seed, a little crudded milk, fantastical puff-paste. What are you but a corpse waiting to be washed?” or in his description of his comically awful mother-in-law: “Granny Graveclothes” – “that gin-drenched, gibbering old bag of sticks.”
The book falls into two parts: first is his wife’s last illness and death, in all its horrible reality. She’d known for months that she had a massive lump, but by the time she admitted it and they looked together at the breast, it was a hideous black and purple wound; within two months of diagnosis and the start of treatment, she was dead. Rush recounts the awful months that followed, as he and his two children struggled to continue with everyday life – eating, cleaning the house, teaching or attending school – with Patricia gone.
In the second part, nearly a year after her death, Rush sets out to recover himself by recreating Robert Louis Stevenson’s Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes in France, with Anatole the donkey. He attempts to adhere as closely as possible to Stevenson’s own schedule, doing the same number of miles on given days, staying in the same towns and inns, even packing the same items in his panniers. He feels so close to Stevenson’s experience that he imagines himself meeting the fellow Scottish author at various points along the journey.
These unearthly rendezvous have the feeling of hallucinations, yet Rush was not descending into madness but, rather, ascending out of the darkness of grief and into a fresh charge on life. The pilgrimage only took twelve days, but he couldn’t recall a time when he had experienced life more intensely. Rush didn’t write for a full ten years after his wife’s death; since this book he’s written two enjoyable volumes of memoir about his growing-up years in Scotland (Hellfire and Herring: A Childhood Remembered and Sex, Lies and Shakespeare), as well as Will, a clever novel about Shakespeare’s later years.
The book’s title phrase comes from Stevenson, who said that “to travel hopefully is better than to arrive.” I usually find metaphorical generalizations sappy and insincere, but I believe Rush wholeheartedly when he says we each have our own donkey – our burdens, our sources of grief – and our own journey. My hope and expectation is that when tragedy hits close to home for me – because it would surely be naïve and arrogant to assume that it is a question of if rather than when – I will be able to turn to books for healing.
(As well as providing my favorite read of that year, the book happened to contain the most personally meaningful quotation I’ve come across in a long time; this is something a retiring colleague once said to him: “Don’t be afraid of change if you are ever in a position that imprisons the spirit.” That became one of my inspiring mantras as I prepared to leave a job I hated and had been desperate to escape for years. I now have the more fulfilling, though much less financially rewarding, career of freelance writing and book reviewing!)
August 16, 2018
A book in two parts, the first dealing with the death of his wife from cancer, I felt very sad and very moved by his descriptions. One of the mysteries of this section is why she didn’t seek medical help before it was too late. The author was devastated by her death and in the second half he seeks and finds redemption and recovery by following in the steps of RL Stevenson in the Cevennes. There were a lot of parallels between the author and Stevenson despite their journeys being 100 years apart. I very much enjoyed the descriptions of his adventures and it struck a chord with me as I have done similar long journeys, though without a donkey. The mystery on this section is why he was so ill-prepared, lacking even some of the most basic hillwalking kit like a torch, compass and even waterproofs. The occasionally, unhelpful French people, were also a surprise, surely, they weren’t all Parisians? To be fair he also receives much kindness and help along the way. If his aim was to replicate the RL Stevenson trip then he succeeded admirably, right down to the discomforts of the journey. I fully understand that grief affects everyone differently but on occasions, I felt he should just have got on with life, if only for the sake of his children, who had not only lost their mum but had also almost lost their dad. The passing of the first year was significant, the anniversary made a difference as it did with me. Many of the literary references were literally above my head but this did not detract from the book. Now I must go and read Stevenson’s book after which I will read this one again.
November 25, 2024
Outstanding.
September 15, 2009
A bit too academic/literary for me to have fully appreciated the story.
September 9, 2012
Particularly moving first section.
March 11, 2020
This story of a man coming to terms with the death of his wife left me felling genuine pain and yet roaring with laughter at times as well... I have since read it 3 times.
October 29, 2014
Yay for the written word x
June 13, 2016
An interesting tribute and spiritual quest dedicated to his wife, who suddenly died from cancer, having denied the symptoms that had presented them selves a year previously.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews