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The Four Men
Belloc’s “travel-farrago” is a whimsical narrative, in which four unforgettable characters walk through their native county of Sussex, to sing its songs, drink its beer, and praise it before Time changes it forever.
The Four Men offers, among other things, inns, saints, cheeses, jokes, stars, arguments, and poetry. Throughout, we find reflections on the impermanence of any earthly homeland and our deepest longing for an eternal Home.
Deacon Nathan Allen’s fascinating annotation provides added richness, helping readers to enter more fully into this unique work, which also contains some of Belloc’s own illustrations.
version
ACS - American Chesterton Society is an imprint of TAN Books
The Four Men offers, among other things, inns, saints, cheeses, jokes, stars, arguments, and poetry. Throughout, we find reflections on the impermanence of any earthly homeland and our deepest longing for an eternal Home.
Deacon Nathan Allen’s fascinating annotation provides added richness, helping readers to enter more fully into this unique work, which also contains some of Belloc’s own illustrations.
version
ACS - American Chesterton Society is an imprint of TAN Books
232 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1912
27 people are currently reading
290 people want to read
About the author
Hilaire Belloc
713 books396 followersPeople considered Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc, French-born British writer, as a master of light English prose and also knew widely his droll verse, especially
The Bad Child's Book of Beasts
in 1896.
Sharp wit of Hilaire Belloc, an historian, poet, and orator, extended across literary output and strong political and religious convictions. Oxford educated this distinguished debater and scholar. Throughout his career, he prolifically across a range of genres and produced histories, essays, travelogues, poetry, and satirical works.
Cautionary Tales for Children collects best humorous yet dark morals, and historical works of Hilaire Belloc often reflected his staunch Catholicism and critique of Protestant interpretations. He led advocates of an economic theory that promotes and championed distribution of small-scale property ownership as a middle ground between capitalism and socialism alongside Gilbert Keith Chesterton, his close friend.
In politics, Hilaire Belloc served as a member of Parliament for the Liberal party, but the establishment disillusioned him. His polemical style and strong opinions made a controversial figure, who particularly viewed modernism, secularism, and financial capitalism as threats to traditional Christian society in his critiques.
Influence and vast literary legacy of Hilaire Belloc extends into historical circles. Erudition, humor, and a forceful rhetorical style characterized intellectual vigor and unique perspective, which people continue to study and to appreciate, on history, society, and human nature.
Sharp wit of Hilaire Belloc, an historian, poet, and orator, extended across literary output and strong political and religious convictions. Oxford educated this distinguished debater and scholar. Throughout his career, he prolifically across a range of genres and produced histories, essays, travelogues, poetry, and satirical works.
Cautionary Tales for Children collects best humorous yet dark morals, and historical works of Hilaire Belloc often reflected his staunch Catholicism and critique of Protestant interpretations. He led advocates of an economic theory that promotes and championed distribution of small-scale property ownership as a middle ground between capitalism and socialism alongside Gilbert Keith Chesterton, his close friend.
In politics, Hilaire Belloc served as a member of Parliament for the Liberal party, but the establishment disillusioned him. His polemical style and strong opinions made a controversial figure, who particularly viewed modernism, secularism, and financial capitalism as threats to traditional Christian society in his critiques.
Influence and vast literary legacy of Hilaire Belloc extends into historical circles. Erudition, humor, and a forceful rhetorical style characterized intellectual vigor and unique perspective, which people continue to study and to appreciate, on history, society, and human nature.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
March 10, 2018
So far, less wanking in Belloc than in Houellebecq. But you never know - not finished yet...
Later that week...
Wonderful Wonderful WonderfulWonderfulWonderfulWonderfulWonderfulWonderfulWonderfulWonderfulWonderful etc
But wait, what's this! I read that one or two reviewers feel that 'The Four Men' is "a bit like Chesterton, but without the wit". Without the wit.
"Wit: the capacity for inventive thought and quick understanding; keen intelligence"
"Wit: a natural aptitude for using words and ideas in a quick and inventive way to create humour"
Belloc is the author of the Cautionary Tales. We therefore know that he is by nature not lacking in wit, as encapsulated by both of the above definitions.
But does Belloc bring "wit" to "The Four Men"? Well of course he does. The book is a deeply affectionate paean to the county of Sussex, Belloc's adoptive home. What surprises me is that, in the direct tradition of Fielding, his affection is communicated so convincingly despite being voiced by four of the most pompous, dogmatic, overblown twerps you could wish to meet. The endless superlatives, the absurd dismissals of all things not of Sussex, the exaggerated claims of extraordinary experiences - and the constant mickey-taking and occasional downright invective directed at each other! Are these things not amusing and, well, witty?
Not witty, indeed.
Here's Grizzlebeard in an early panegyric:
"But it is not so with Sussex, for our name is not a name to be used like a label and tied on to common things, seeing that we were the first place to be created when the world was made, and we shall certainly be the last to remain, regal and at ease when all the rest is very miserably perishing on the Day of Judgment by a horrible great rain of fire from Heaven. Which will fall, if I am not mistaken, upon the whole earth, and strike all round the edges of the county, consuming Tonbridge, and Appledore (but not Rye), and Horley, and Ockley, and Hazelmere, and very certainly Petersfield and Havant, and there shall be an especial woe for Hayling Island; but not one hair of the head of Sussex shall be singed, it has been so ordained from the beginning, and that in spite of Burwash and those who dwell therein."
Is this not witty? Was I wrong to laugh long and loud on reading this passage? Peter Cooke might have written it, with its "if I'm not mistaken". Ever heard Peter Cooke in the "End of the World" sketch? For heaven's sake - he must have read this passage! What on earth does Grizzlebeard have against Hayling Island and Burwash?! And why is Rye spared? We're not told! This is humour.
That passage is immediately followed by the petulance of "Myself", who responds to such grandiose nonsense: "Now you have stopped me in the midst of what I was saying..." Each character, so typical of real people, is concerned only to propagate his own ludicrous view. Small-minded twits convinced of the primacy of their opinions. Funny (witty).
That mickey-taking I mentioned: funny? witty? I think so. The whole section (pp140, 141 in my 1971 Tom Stacey edition) in which The Poet is berated for his tea-drinking activities, which prompt first The Sailor, then the others, to accusations of vegetarianism - clearly an unforgivable state of being for Belloc:
Myself: "Burn me those men who are afraid of the Flesh! Water-drinkers also, and caterwauling outers, and turnip mumblers, enemies of beef, treasonable to the immemorial ox..."
The Sailor: "Hunt me them over the hills with horn and with hound!" "
Grizzlebeard: "Do you not know, Poet, that by all these anti-belly tricks of yours you would canalise mankind into the trench that leads to hell?"
[I'm not sure whom Belloc means by "outers" - presumably this is not some strange foreshadowing of modern-day politics - given that Belloc would have unquestionably not been a Remainer!]
This is nothing, however, compared with the picture Belloc draws of The Sailor, when he (the Sailor) reacts in disgust to the poet's attempt to create verse, having been encouraged to do so by none other than...the Sailor:
First, The Sailor's 'encouragement': "Poet, it is some time since you tried to give us verse, and I would not press you, for I know well enough that it is hard labour to you with that nasty sense of failure all the time. None the less..."
Then a rather feeble attempt by the poet to comply, followed by:
"When the Poet had sung this again (and his voice flattened towards the end of the short thing), the Sailor, clasping his hands behind his back, began to move more slowly, and so compelled us to slacken pace. He cast his eyes upon the ground, and for a while was lost beneath the surface. He then quoted in a deep tone, but to himself: 'Oh God! O Montreal!' "
I used to have a walking companion who adopted the exact same stance when struck by something being discussed that he found utterly incomprehensible (usually something to do with socialism); hands behind the back, a slowing of the pace, eyes fixed vacantly on the ground and a sometimes prolonged vanishing "beneath the surface"; and all this while we walked ON THE VERY SAME ROADS that Belloc's hilarious characters are walking!
The Sailor's reference to Montreal has an explanation which itself is very amusing:
"It is a quotation, Poet," explains Grizzlebeard, "It is a quotation from the poem of an Englishman who went to Montreal one day and found that they had put Discobolos into breeches. Whereupon this Englishman, suffering such an adventure among such Colonials, wrote an ode to celebrate the event..."
Such passages occur frequently, are beautifully constructed, and hilariously funny to anyone blessed with the cerebral equipment necessary to perceive humour. If you love the acid picaresque of Fielding, and the looney divagations of Peter Cooke, you'll find 'The Four Men' laugh-out-loud funny. And yet Belloc's love of Sussex clings to you in sincerely poignant and deeply poetic fashion, as with "Myself" you watch the other three disappear into the morning mist on the last morning of their journey. I'm a little biased because of my Sussex roots - but I think I'm able to be objective in recommending this remarkable book as more than a little known bit of scribbling by an author largely spurned today by a humourless, unforgiving, politically correct readership.
Later that week...
Wonderful Wonderful WonderfulWonderfulWonderfulWonderfulWonderfulWonderfulWonderfulWonderfulWonderful etc
But wait, what's this! I read that one or two reviewers feel that 'The Four Men' is "a bit like Chesterton, but without the wit". Without the wit.
"Wit: the capacity for inventive thought and quick understanding; keen intelligence"
"Wit: a natural aptitude for using words and ideas in a quick and inventive way to create humour"
Belloc is the author of the Cautionary Tales. We therefore know that he is by nature not lacking in wit, as encapsulated by both of the above definitions.
But does Belloc bring "wit" to "The Four Men"? Well of course he does. The book is a deeply affectionate paean to the county of Sussex, Belloc's adoptive home. What surprises me is that, in the direct tradition of Fielding, his affection is communicated so convincingly despite being voiced by four of the most pompous, dogmatic, overblown twerps you could wish to meet. The endless superlatives, the absurd dismissals of all things not of Sussex, the exaggerated claims of extraordinary experiences - and the constant mickey-taking and occasional downright invective directed at each other! Are these things not amusing and, well, witty?
Not witty, indeed.
Here's Grizzlebeard in an early panegyric:
"But it is not so with Sussex, for our name is not a name to be used like a label and tied on to common things, seeing that we were the first place to be created when the world was made, and we shall certainly be the last to remain, regal and at ease when all the rest is very miserably perishing on the Day of Judgment by a horrible great rain of fire from Heaven. Which will fall, if I am not mistaken, upon the whole earth, and strike all round the edges of the county, consuming Tonbridge, and Appledore (but not Rye), and Horley, and Ockley, and Hazelmere, and very certainly Petersfield and Havant, and there shall be an especial woe for Hayling Island; but not one hair of the head of Sussex shall be singed, it has been so ordained from the beginning, and that in spite of Burwash and those who dwell therein."
Is this not witty? Was I wrong to laugh long and loud on reading this passage? Peter Cooke might have written it, with its "if I'm not mistaken". Ever heard Peter Cooke in the "End of the World" sketch? For heaven's sake - he must have read this passage! What on earth does Grizzlebeard have against Hayling Island and Burwash?! And why is Rye spared? We're not told! This is humour.
That passage is immediately followed by the petulance of "Myself", who responds to such grandiose nonsense: "Now you have stopped me in the midst of what I was saying..." Each character, so typical of real people, is concerned only to propagate his own ludicrous view. Small-minded twits convinced of the primacy of their opinions. Funny (witty).
That mickey-taking I mentioned: funny? witty? I think so. The whole section (pp140, 141 in my 1971 Tom Stacey edition) in which The Poet is berated for his tea-drinking activities, which prompt first The Sailor, then the others, to accusations of vegetarianism - clearly an unforgivable state of being for Belloc:
Myself: "Burn me those men who are afraid of the Flesh! Water-drinkers also, and caterwauling outers, and turnip mumblers, enemies of beef, treasonable to the immemorial ox..."
The Sailor: "Hunt me them over the hills with horn and with hound!" "
Grizzlebeard: "Do you not know, Poet, that by all these anti-belly tricks of yours you would canalise mankind into the trench that leads to hell?"
[I'm not sure whom Belloc means by "outers" - presumably this is not some strange foreshadowing of modern-day politics - given that Belloc would have unquestionably not been a Remainer!]
This is nothing, however, compared with the picture Belloc draws of The Sailor, when he (the Sailor) reacts in disgust to the poet's attempt to create verse, having been encouraged to do so by none other than...the Sailor:
First, The Sailor's 'encouragement': "Poet, it is some time since you tried to give us verse, and I would not press you, for I know well enough that it is hard labour to you with that nasty sense of failure all the time. None the less..."
Then a rather feeble attempt by the poet to comply, followed by:
"When the Poet had sung this again (and his voice flattened towards the end of the short thing), the Sailor, clasping his hands behind his back, began to move more slowly, and so compelled us to slacken pace. He cast his eyes upon the ground, and for a while was lost beneath the surface. He then quoted in a deep tone, but to himself: 'Oh God! O Montreal!' "
I used to have a walking companion who adopted the exact same stance when struck by something being discussed that he found utterly incomprehensible (usually something to do with socialism); hands behind the back, a slowing of the pace, eyes fixed vacantly on the ground and a sometimes prolonged vanishing "beneath the surface"; and all this while we walked ON THE VERY SAME ROADS that Belloc's hilarious characters are walking!
The Sailor's reference to Montreal has an explanation which itself is very amusing:
"It is a quotation, Poet," explains Grizzlebeard, "It is a quotation from the poem of an Englishman who went to Montreal one day and found that they had put Discobolos into breeches. Whereupon this Englishman, suffering such an adventure among such Colonials, wrote an ode to celebrate the event..."
Such passages occur frequently, are beautifully constructed, and hilariously funny to anyone blessed with the cerebral equipment necessary to perceive humour. If you love the acid picaresque of Fielding, and the looney divagations of Peter Cooke, you'll find 'The Four Men' laugh-out-loud funny. And yet Belloc's love of Sussex clings to you in sincerely poignant and deeply poetic fashion, as with "Myself" you watch the other three disappear into the morning mist on the last morning of their journey. I'm a little biased because of my Sussex roots - but I think I'm able to be objective in recommending this remarkable book as more than a little known bit of scribbling by an author largely spurned today by a humourless, unforgiving, politically correct readership.
November 15, 2018
ENGLISH: A short novel about four men, native of Sussex, previously unknown to each other, who decide to make together a three-day walking trip through their county. Their trip is seasoned with absurde discussions, invented legends and history, ditties and dirges. A nice book.
ESPAÑOL: Una novela corta sobre cuatro hombres, nativos de Sussex, que no se conocen entre sí y que deciden hacer juntos un viaje de tres días a pie a través de esa provincia. Su viaje está sazonado con discusiones absurdas, leyendas e historias inventadas, cancioncillas y elegías. Un buen libro.
ESPAÑOL: Una novela corta sobre cuatro hombres, nativos de Sussex, que no se conocen entre sí y que deciden hacer juntos un viaje de tres días a pie a través de esa provincia. Su viaje está sazonado con discusiones absurdas, leyendas e historias inventadas, cancioncillas y elegías. Un buen libro.
August 20, 2020
When I read Hemingway’s beautiful, evocative “A Moveable Feast,” I made a point to note all of the authors Hemingway bumps elbows with in 1920s Paris, hoping to sample some of their work. One of those authors is Hilaire Belloc (albeit very briefly).
Loosely, “The Four Men” is a story about four men (shocker) who meet by happenstance and decide to journey together through rural England back to their native Sussex County in the autumn of 1902. Belloc succeeds in his goal of writing a sort of tribute to the culture of rural, pastoral England which he saw disappearing in the early 1900s with the onset of globalization and impending World War.
Reading it today, the book admittedly feels anachronistic and somewhat opaque. As you read it, you’re well aware that scores of provincial references, jokes, and adages are being lost on you. The book is full of obscure folk tales and songs (with the inclusion of actual musical scores). There are some wonderfully human moments tucked in this farrago, though, and Belloc proves to be adept at the sentence level – one of my favorites was: “When I woke it was to the raw world and the sad uncertain beginnings of a little winter day” (156).
Loosely, “The Four Men” is a story about four men (shocker) who meet by happenstance and decide to journey together through rural England back to their native Sussex County in the autumn of 1902. Belloc succeeds in his goal of writing a sort of tribute to the culture of rural, pastoral England which he saw disappearing in the early 1900s with the onset of globalization and impending World War.
Reading it today, the book admittedly feels anachronistic and somewhat opaque. As you read it, you’re well aware that scores of provincial references, jokes, and adages are being lost on you. The book is full of obscure folk tales and songs (with the inclusion of actual musical scores). There are some wonderfully human moments tucked in this farrago, though, and Belloc proves to be adept at the sentence level – one of my favorites was: “When I woke it was to the raw world and the sad uncertain beginnings of a little winter day” (156).
January 22, 2025
Never have I felt such homesickness
March 28, 2023
I like Belloc and he's very clever, but I didn't like this particular book. I found it was boring as the characters droned on.
July 17, 2023
The first of Belloc's books that I have read. I enjoyed the story of the walk across his home county of Sussex. A good story because of the characters, the landscape, and the conversations and song!
March 6, 2018
The book is subtitled 'A Farrago' and, it is. The OED defines 'farrago' as a 'confused mixture' and that's as accurate a one-word description of this book as I could come up with. No wonder then that Belloc, a better writer than I'll ever be, came up with the description himself. But I still don't understand what he was trying to do with this book: part hymn to home (in Belloc's case, the county of Sussex), part debate in four voices, part knockabout philosophy and theological knockabout, part travelogue; trying to shoehorn all these elements, and more, between the covers of a single book has, pretty well inevitably, produced the advertised farrago. Belloc's facility with words and the sheer energy he infuses into them dragged me through to the end - and I particularly enjoyed the delightful line drawings that enriched my edition (I couldn't tell if they were by Belloc himself) - but I can't say I'd recommend The Four Men to anyone other than a real Belloc completist.
November 28, 2019
The second of Belloc's books I've read (the first "The Path to Rome"), and again I'm disappointed. I don't get it, I don't understand the appeal. He seems to me a poseur. And I write this as a great admirer of Chesterton and Schall.
December 18, 2019
"the more one worked, the less one had, and if one did not work at all, one died"
- Hilaire Belloc, The Four Men: A Farrago
"When friendship disappears then there is a space left open to that awful loneliness of the outside which is like the cold of space between the planets. It is an air in which men perish utterly. Absolute dereliction is the death of the soul."
- Hilaire Belloc, The Four Men: A Farrago
"[M]an knows his own nature, and that which he pursues must surely be his satisfaction? Judging by which measure I determine that the best thing in the world is flying at full speed from pursuit, and keeping up hammer and thud and gasp and bleeding till the knees fail and the head grows dizzy, and at last we all fall down and that thing (whatever it is) which pursues us catches us up and eats our carcasses. This way of managing our lives, I think, must be the best thing in the world—for nearly all men choose to live thus."
The "thing" which pursues us, we subsequently learn, is either "a Money-Devil" or "some appetite or lust" and "the advice is given to all in youth that they must make up their minds which of the two sorts of exercise they would choose, and the first [i.e. pursuit by a Money-Devil] is commonly praised and thought worthy; the second blamed."
- Hilaire Belloc, The Four Men: A Farrago
"There is nothing at all that remains: nor any house; nor any castle, however strong; nor any love, however tender and sound; nor any comradeship among men, however hardy. Nothing remains but the things of which I will not speak, because we have spoken enough of them already during these four days. But I who am old will give you advice, which is this—to consider chiefly from now onwards those permanent things which are, as it were, the shores of this age and the harbours of our glittering and pleasant but dangerous and wholly changeful sea."
- Hilaire Belloc, The Four Men: A Farrago << Referring to 'Death'>>
- Hilaire Belloc, The Four Men: A Farrago
"When friendship disappears then there is a space left open to that awful loneliness of the outside which is like the cold of space between the planets. It is an air in which men perish utterly. Absolute dereliction is the death of the soul."
- Hilaire Belloc, The Four Men: A Farrago
"[M]an knows his own nature, and that which he pursues must surely be his satisfaction? Judging by which measure I determine that the best thing in the world is flying at full speed from pursuit, and keeping up hammer and thud and gasp and bleeding till the knees fail and the head grows dizzy, and at last we all fall down and that thing (whatever it is) which pursues us catches us up and eats our carcasses. This way of managing our lives, I think, must be the best thing in the world—for nearly all men choose to live thus."
The "thing" which pursues us, we subsequently learn, is either "a Money-Devil" or "some appetite or lust" and "the advice is given to all in youth that they must make up their minds which of the two sorts of exercise they would choose, and the first [i.e. pursuit by a Money-Devil] is commonly praised and thought worthy; the second blamed."
- Hilaire Belloc, The Four Men: A Farrago
"There is nothing at all that remains: nor any house; nor any castle, however strong; nor any love, however tender and sound; nor any comradeship among men, however hardy. Nothing remains but the things of which I will not speak, because we have spoken enough of them already during these four days. But I who am old will give you advice, which is this—to consider chiefly from now onwards those permanent things which are, as it were, the shores of this age and the harbours of our glittering and pleasant but dangerous and wholly changeful sea."
- Hilaire Belloc, The Four Men: A Farrago << Referring to 'Death'>>
March 22, 2025
The used book I bought to read was addressed on the title page to a godson by his godparents on Christmas some 10 years ago and obviously never read. I know this for a fact because, among other signs, the cover material is coated with an oil-absorbing surface that showed handling after only a few pages of reading.
This made for an appropriately wistful backdrop to Belloc's rather strange, rambling, occasionally incomprehensible but hilarious, and finally very reverent tale of Life and Home while here for the few days we're allotted. I confess I wearied during episodes of rhapsodizing about finite details and almost unpronounceable places in Sussex County, England. But I'm glad I stayed on for the whole of the walk and expect in future to remember passages now and then for no apparent reason other than they set me to thinking.
This made for an appropriately wistful backdrop to Belloc's rather strange, rambling, occasionally incomprehensible but hilarious, and finally very reverent tale of Life and Home while here for the few days we're allotted. I confess I wearied during episodes of rhapsodizing about finite details and almost unpronounceable places in Sussex County, England. But I'm glad I stayed on for the whole of the walk and expect in future to remember passages now and then for no apparent reason other than they set me to thinking.
September 20, 2021
Intriguing story. When it starts off, it seems “just” a story with some special elements. Not everyone starts walking three days with three complete strangers calling each other not by name but “Sailor”, “Poet”, “Grizzlebeard” and “Myself”.
Moving om, it gets interesting, and I started to wonder what the author meant to accomplish with the story. There are lots of English local jokes that I didn’t get, lots of poetry and references I didn’t see, but also lots of symbolic meaning you surely do not get at the first read. Why takes the story place between halloween and all hallows? What are these houses where they stay two nights, of which Grizzlebeard and Myself have a key to? Who *are* these three men accompanying Myself? Is it just a beautiful story, or is it deeply symbolic?
More than any other essay, it makes me want to re-read it.
Moving om, it gets interesting, and I started to wonder what the author meant to accomplish with the story. There are lots of English local jokes that I didn’t get, lots of poetry and references I didn’t see, but also lots of symbolic meaning you surely do not get at the first read. Why takes the story place between halloween and all hallows? What are these houses where they stay two nights, of which Grizzlebeard and Myself have a key to? Who *are* these three men accompanying Myself? Is it just a beautiful story, or is it deeply symbolic?
More than any other essay, it makes me want to re-read it.
June 7, 2018
This was an absolutely charming and engaging tale in the tradition of personal anecdotes amply amplified by the application of alcohol. Four men, natives of Sussex county, meet by happy chance or mystic predestination and agree to undertake a walking journey across the county of Sussex in each other’s company, during which they experience many thoroughly Catholic adventures involving social commentary, piously irreverent hagiographical legends, manly lies about first loves, political diatribe, bad poetry and good alcohol. A delight for the ears, the mind, and the heart, and definitely a book to be enjoyed over and over again.
March 3, 2019
This was an interesting read. I debated between a 3 and 4 start for it, there were sections that I really enjoyed and others that were harder to get through, but over all it was a good book.
The Four Men, follows four men who did not know one another at the start of the book, who journey together through the countryside to Sussex. The pages that follow have a Farrago (or hodgepodge) of stories and thoughts discussed as the men journey together. Belloc does do a good job of telling the story and creating a desire to see the countryside, experience of such a journey, and even return to a time now over a hundred years gone of simplicity in the English countryside.
The Four Men, follows four men who did not know one another at the start of the book, who journey together through the countryside to Sussex. The pages that follow have a Farrago (or hodgepodge) of stories and thoughts discussed as the men journey together. Belloc does do a good job of telling the story and creating a desire to see the countryside, experience of such a journey, and even return to a time now over a hundred years gone of simplicity in the English countryside.
April 22, 2023
fantastic! charming tale. 4 dudes walking around and drinking and that really connected with me. the theology of place. lots of great ideas to ponder, this quote especially comes in handy: "work is noble, and prayer is equal, but drinking good ale is a more renowned and glorious act than any other which man can lend himself." read the version with the introduction by Joseph Pierce, it's phenomenal.
August 27, 2025
A walk through the Sussex countryside in 1902, which I think was a few years before The Path to Rome. The narrator picks up three companions on the way, giving them the names Grizzlebeard, The Sailor, and the Poet, while he goes by the name of Myself. A lot of discussions, about life, religion and poetry, and a hint at the end that his companions were figments of his imagination.
June 26, 2021
There are some fun (and good!) things in this book. It reads like something the author must have enjoyed writing. Having never visited Sussex, I’ll assume it’s generally peopled by those who seem to have come from a dream.
May 12, 2022
Wonderfully poetic tribute to beautiful Sussex merged into an exploration of the journey from birth to death. Highly recommended.
July 23, 2024
Makes me want to spend the rest of my days wandering inn to inn across the English countryside. Enjoyed the way the four men communicated; very blunt and old fashioned turn of phrase. Many rambling anecdotes and interesting lessons. Not a page turner but that’s fine by me.
March 30, 2019
Absolutely wonderful...
July 10, 2022
I didn't get it.
I'm sure this book is deeply profound for people who are educated enough to understand it, but to me it felt like scrolling through TripAdvisor reviews of Sussex pubs while standing at the bar with a retired teacher who has been in Wetherspoons since opening time.
I'm sure this book is deeply profound for people who are educated enough to understand it, but to me it felt like scrolling through TripAdvisor reviews of Sussex pubs while standing at the bar with a retired teacher who has been in Wetherspoons since opening time.
May 18, 2015
This is like Chesterton without the wit and atmosphere. It's OK, but I wish GK had written it. The poetry is a bit Masefield-y......I think the fact that I'm describing this in terms of other writers says a lot. Of course, I've never been to Sussex, perhaps if one knew the countryside then the 'spirit of place' would be more evident.
Want to read
November 16, 2009Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Chapter 12, as one of Ten Books by Hilaire Belloc Well Worth Reading.
October 14, 2014
I liked it very much
June 4, 2016
A disappointing read. Recommended by a friend because it had something to do with male bonding. I missed the point, and did not enjoy the read. I do not recommend this.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews