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Savage Pilgrims: On the Road to Santa Fe
More than seventy years after D. H. Lawrence made his "savage pilgrimage" to New Mexico, British twenty-something Henry Shukman set off on his own journey there, in search of the spirit of Lawrence, the rugged and enigmatic beauty of the American Southwest, and answers to questions of love and life.
His New Mexico quest takes him to dusty roadside gas stations, cheap Mexican restaurants, and ancient Indian pueblos, and he crosses paths with amiable cowboys and lonesome cowgirls, a plane-flying priest, more than one romantically inclined stranger, and a barroom philosopher at every stop. He's not afraid to strip naked to join strange men in an open-air hot tub, nor is he intimidated by salsa dancing at the Red Dog Saloon. As he finds himself in towns called Truth or Consequence, or just driving along the magical New Mexico roads, his journey becomes one of self-discovery - in the end, he finds exactly what he is searching for in the dusty town of Las Vegas, New Mexico.
His New Mexico quest takes him to dusty roadside gas stations, cheap Mexican restaurants, and ancient Indian pueblos, and he crosses paths with amiable cowboys and lonesome cowgirls, a plane-flying priest, more than one romantically inclined stranger, and a barroom philosopher at every stop. He's not afraid to strip naked to join strange men in an open-air hot tub, nor is he intimidated by salsa dancing at the Red Dog Saloon. As he finds himself in towns called Truth or Consequence, or just driving along the magical New Mexico roads, his journey becomes one of self-discovery - in the end, he finds exactly what he is searching for in the dusty town of Las Vegas, New Mexico.
- GenresTravelMemoirNonfiction
226 pages, Hardcover
First published April 25, 1996
28 people want to read
About the author
Henry Shukman
27 books76 followersHenry Shukman (IG: @henryshukman) is an authorized Zen Master in the Sanbo Zen lineage, and is spiritual director emeritus of Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
He is the co-founder and lead meditation teacher for The Way, a meditation app that provides a modern update to the ancient path of meditation training. He also leads meditation courses and retreats.
Henry is an award-winning poet and author, whose memoir One Blade of Grass recounts his own journey through meditation practice. His new book Original Love: The Four Inns on the Path of Awakening is a manual and map describing the four key zones of meditation practice. Original Love is now available for pre-order, and will be published in early July, 2024.
His struggles and traumatic experiences as a youth, combined with a spontaneous awakening experience at 19, and many years of training under several teachers, paved the way for his developing a well-rounded approach to healing and awakening through meditation.
(copied from Amazon Web page
He is the co-founder and lead meditation teacher for The Way, a meditation app that provides a modern update to the ancient path of meditation training. He also leads meditation courses and retreats.
Henry is an award-winning poet and author, whose memoir One Blade of Grass recounts his own journey through meditation practice. His new book Original Love: The Four Inns on the Path of Awakening is a manual and map describing the four key zones of meditation practice. Original Love is now available for pre-order, and will be published in early July, 2024.
His struggles and traumatic experiences as a youth, combined with a spontaneous awakening experience at 19, and many years of training under several teachers, paved the way for his developing a well-rounded approach to healing and awakening through meditation.
(copied from Amazon Web page
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 15, 2019
raw and open. travel writer with nice talent.
July 11, 2013
I'm surprised this book isn't better known in the travel writing community, because it really is a marvellous piece of work. What happens when a young man from gloomy Oxford, the son of a Russian historian, stumbles across the desert writings of DH Lawrence? By slow twists and turns, at the end of a drifting, restless, wandering youth, he converges gradually but inexorably on the one place where Lawrence himself came to rest: New Mexico...
Savage Pilgrims is more an account of that spiritual journey - the young man seeking and finding his true self, in the vast empty spaces of the American Southwest - than it is a straightforward description of travels in the manner of, say, Bill Bryson. I had actually come to the book expecting more of the Bryson-esque stuff, but Shukman has a way of surprising you - with his innocence, his naivete, his gormless searching for something bigger and beyond himself. It is testimony to his skill as a writer that he manages to make the spiritual quest sound so appealing and interesting, instead of being airy-fairy or pompous which would have been all too easy a pitfall for him to fall into. One of the most brilliant passages in the entire book is the description of an early morning visit to the Santa Fe Zen Center, where the author experiences Zen meditation for the first time. By the end of the book, sitting at the back of a church in the other Las Vegas, the once-unhappy youth has found contentment and maybe, just maybe, a higher purpose through a mysterious process of inner transformation that borders on the miraculous.
*
Of course, there is plenty of good descriptive travel stuff too. Shukman spends most of his time in and around the twin centres of Taos and Santa Fe, and he has a gift for describing the easygoing tranquility of these new-age towns that I can still recall from my one memorable visit to New Mexico. He visits the earthship homes of Michael Reynolds, runs across Joel the artist who digs labyrinths into mountains, stays a while with an enormous freak called Ray who once had a bit part in Easy Rider. But it is when Shukman describes the physical texture of the Southwest - the enormous emptiness of that land, the crystalline air, the ever-brilliant sun, the endless blue dome of a sky, the rearing silent mountains, the brown earth and the adobe villages and the chilled-out, friendly locals - it is when he describes all this that Shukman truly comes into his own. In this respect, his gift is no less significant than the usual icons of Southwest writing like old Edward Abbey and young Philip Connors.
Shukman's other life as a poet breaks through repeatedly in the beauty of his imagery, the quality of his prose. This is just one of numerous examples: "I walked along an old railway line out of town till it crossed a bloated grey river wrinkled into elephant hide by the eddies in its swift current." It is not until the last 60 pages that he takes to the highway on a 'classic' road trip, but when he finally does, he does it full justice. The hot springs of Jemez, the towering white satellite discs of the Very Large Array, the quirky town of Truth or Consequences, they all come alive in his hand. Even then, his description of the sights and sounds of an evening spent on the marshes of Bosque del Apache - surrounded by millions of snowy cranes, a veritable 'city of birds' in the dusk - nearly surpasses everything else he describes in the book.
All in all, if you have even the remotest fascination with the American West, this book is for you.
*
(Finally, a digression on the fate of the children of all those legendary Russian scholars at Oxford during the Cold War. Sam Willetts - the son of HT Willetts who was the translator of Solzhenitsyn, no less! - turned into a homeless junkie AND an award-winning poet. Harry Shukman, who ran the Russian Centre at St Antony's (my old college) had two sons. One - Henry, of course - became a poet, novelist, travel writer and zen master living in Santa Fe, while the other David went into science journalism. As for Ronald Hingley, scholar of Chekhov and Dostoyevsky, his son Tom became an alt-rock musician. You have to wonder if there was something about growing up in a Russian-inflected Oxford household during the Cold War that took all these kids into a creative/alternative path...)
*
(PREVIOUSLY)
Sometimes, you don't choose the book. Instead, the book chooses you. Consider the following line:
"Abandoned by a girlfriend who eloped to faraway New Mexico, and inspired by reading the works of DH Lawrence, Henry Shukman determined that he would visit the state himself one day."
I picked this up one cold morning last December from the shelves of a community centre book sale in east London. All I was going by was the name of Henry Shukman whose long pieces on the American West I remembered reading in the NYT a couple of years ago. And all it took was the briefest of glances at the back cover. With a blurb like the above, I stood no chance whatsoever!
My mind goes back now to the spring of 2008 when me and my friend spent 10 days crisscrossing the West, the best road trip of our lives that included a few glorious days in New Mexico itself - from fly-blown Tucumcari just over the Texas border to exquisite Santa Fe, from the Los Alamos plateau of atomic legend to the tiny shrine of Chimayo, the towering splendour of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, the immense mysterious ruins of Chaco, the blinking lights of Albuquerque, the haunting landmark that is Shiprock, and last but not least an enormous platter of mariscada, muy muy delicioso!, that I chowed down one greedy afternoon in Farmington in the far northwest of the state.
All these memories rattling around inside my skull - yet all Shukman's talked about so far is just arriving in Taos! Let's hope he hurries up and gets to see the rest of the state in the next 200 pages...
Savage Pilgrims is more an account of that spiritual journey - the young man seeking and finding his true self, in the vast empty spaces of the American Southwest - than it is a straightforward description of travels in the manner of, say, Bill Bryson. I had actually come to the book expecting more of the Bryson-esque stuff, but Shukman has a way of surprising you - with his innocence, his naivete, his gormless searching for something bigger and beyond himself. It is testimony to his skill as a writer that he manages to make the spiritual quest sound so appealing and interesting, instead of being airy-fairy or pompous which would have been all too easy a pitfall for him to fall into. One of the most brilliant passages in the entire book is the description of an early morning visit to the Santa Fe Zen Center, where the author experiences Zen meditation for the first time. By the end of the book, sitting at the back of a church in the other Las Vegas, the once-unhappy youth has found contentment and maybe, just maybe, a higher purpose through a mysterious process of inner transformation that borders on the miraculous.
*
Of course, there is plenty of good descriptive travel stuff too. Shukman spends most of his time in and around the twin centres of Taos and Santa Fe, and he has a gift for describing the easygoing tranquility of these new-age towns that I can still recall from my one memorable visit to New Mexico. He visits the earthship homes of Michael Reynolds, runs across Joel the artist who digs labyrinths into mountains, stays a while with an enormous freak called Ray who once had a bit part in Easy Rider. But it is when Shukman describes the physical texture of the Southwest - the enormous emptiness of that land, the crystalline air, the ever-brilliant sun, the endless blue dome of a sky, the rearing silent mountains, the brown earth and the adobe villages and the chilled-out, friendly locals - it is when he describes all this that Shukman truly comes into his own. In this respect, his gift is no less significant than the usual icons of Southwest writing like old Edward Abbey and young Philip Connors.
Shukman's other life as a poet breaks through repeatedly in the beauty of his imagery, the quality of his prose. This is just one of numerous examples: "I walked along an old railway line out of town till it crossed a bloated grey river wrinkled into elephant hide by the eddies in its swift current." It is not until the last 60 pages that he takes to the highway on a 'classic' road trip, but when he finally does, he does it full justice. The hot springs of Jemez, the towering white satellite discs of the Very Large Array, the quirky town of Truth or Consequences, they all come alive in his hand. Even then, his description of the sights and sounds of an evening spent on the marshes of Bosque del Apache - surrounded by millions of snowy cranes, a veritable 'city of birds' in the dusk - nearly surpasses everything else he describes in the book.
All in all, if you have even the remotest fascination with the American West, this book is for you.
*
(Finally, a digression on the fate of the children of all those legendary Russian scholars at Oxford during the Cold War. Sam Willetts - the son of HT Willetts who was the translator of Solzhenitsyn, no less! - turned into a homeless junkie AND an award-winning poet. Harry Shukman, who ran the Russian Centre at St Antony's (my old college) had two sons. One - Henry, of course - became a poet, novelist, travel writer and zen master living in Santa Fe, while the other David went into science journalism. As for Ronald Hingley, scholar of Chekhov and Dostoyevsky, his son Tom became an alt-rock musician. You have to wonder if there was something about growing up in a Russian-inflected Oxford household during the Cold War that took all these kids into a creative/alternative path...)
*
(PREVIOUSLY)
Sometimes, you don't choose the book. Instead, the book chooses you. Consider the following line:
"Abandoned by a girlfriend who eloped to faraway New Mexico, and inspired by reading the works of DH Lawrence, Henry Shukman determined that he would visit the state himself one day."
I picked this up one cold morning last December from the shelves of a community centre book sale in east London. All I was going by was the name of Henry Shukman whose long pieces on the American West I remembered reading in the NYT a couple of years ago. And all it took was the briefest of glances at the back cover. With a blurb like the above, I stood no chance whatsoever!
My mind goes back now to the spring of 2008 when me and my friend spent 10 days crisscrossing the West, the best road trip of our lives that included a few glorious days in New Mexico itself - from fly-blown Tucumcari just over the Texas border to exquisite Santa Fe, from the Los Alamos plateau of atomic legend to the tiny shrine of Chimayo, the towering splendour of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, the immense mysterious ruins of Chaco, the blinking lights of Albuquerque, the haunting landmark that is Shiprock, and last but not least an enormous platter of mariscada, muy muy delicioso!, that I chowed down one greedy afternoon in Farmington in the far northwest of the state.
All these memories rattling around inside my skull - yet all Shukman's talked about so far is just arriving in Taos! Let's hope he hurries up and gets to see the rest of the state in the next 200 pages...
April 13, 2014
I'm going to Santa Fe for about the 4th time in the end of June, and I like to read about a place before I go there. I got this book for $4, it was a cast off library book from Charlotte NC, that had been checked out 3 times. The book came out in 1997, 17 years ago.
The book cover says Shaukman is a cross between Brue Chatwin and Jack Kerouac. I guess I can see that, as he has a kind of adventurous spirit and he's British. I heard about the book in a memoir of Sangharakshita, he read it when he went to New Mexico.
He does sit zazen in chapter 13, and there's a spiritual and psychological air to the book. He likes D.H. Lawrence. In enjoyed these parts of the book.
The picture of New Mexico is sympathetic but also sort of narrow in a way. He does include some details of the place, and you get some sense of the place. But it's also who you run into and people are so varied and different. He talks about the red skies and the pinion trees and the vegas in the roof.
I like travel books, and I like people who are descriptive and self aware. This is not a brilliant book, but it's not superficial either. I'm not sure if I need to read any other books of his, but I do think I would like him. He's got a goofy picture on the dust jacket, which I think was a poor choice.
The revelation I had while reading this book, is that through travel you meet your projections and that shapes your journey, but people are also turned around a little bit by reality. You can make a story about anything if you try and be interesting. Nothing really earth shattering happens to him, but he describes some weird and interesting situations in detail. I read the book in a week.
The book cover says Shaukman is a cross between Brue Chatwin and Jack Kerouac. I guess I can see that, as he has a kind of adventurous spirit and he's British. I heard about the book in a memoir of Sangharakshita, he read it when he went to New Mexico.
He does sit zazen in chapter 13, and there's a spiritual and psychological air to the book. He likes D.H. Lawrence. In enjoyed these parts of the book.
The picture of New Mexico is sympathetic but also sort of narrow in a way. He does include some details of the place, and you get some sense of the place. But it's also who you run into and people are so varied and different. He talks about the red skies and the pinion trees and the vegas in the roof.
I like travel books, and I like people who are descriptive and self aware. This is not a brilliant book, but it's not superficial either. I'm not sure if I need to read any other books of his, but I do think I would like him. He's got a goofy picture on the dust jacket, which I think was a poor choice.
The revelation I had while reading this book, is that through travel you meet your projections and that shapes your journey, but people are also turned around a little bit by reality. You can make a story about anything if you try and be interesting. Nothing really earth shattering happens to him, but he describes some weird and interesting situations in detail. I read the book in a week.
February 20, 2021
I was surprised that this book was so good. It gave me an insight into a mans life that I had never really expected and told very candid, funny events. I'm giving it 5 stars because I was surprised at it's quality from unexpected waters.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews