PILGRIM SQUINTS: on the Camino de Santiago reviewed by Wattana Songpetchmongkol

Wattana Songpetchmongkol brings his extensive research on walking to bear on Johnny Rodger’s new book, and asks why do we walk?.. and … Is a walk ever entirely your own walk?

The act of walking in itself is generally seen as a mundane method, a human autonomous function of which a person does not contemplate much about it until losing the ability to do so. People walk in the city—they perform activities and make acquaintances—yet, in thinking about the essence of embarking on a certain journey, some walks are more important (though arguable) or memorable to a person than the others.
What do we walk for? This book—in its twisted narratives— attempts to suggest something about it.

An Inherited Journey
Johnny Rodger’s short monograph Pilgrim Squints paints a deeply moving and intensely personal account of retracing a path forged by his late father. The author, accompanied by his daughter, embarks on the Camino de Santiago—a pilgrimage his father had completed years prior—not long after his passing. Essentially, his journey is immediately steeped in layers of memory and meaning, notably symbolised by the author wearing his father’s old, worn leather boots for the entirety of the trek, stepping on the terrain of Spanish pilgrimage.
Here, the relationship between father and son (and the one between ‘dad’ and his daughter) are portrayed retrospectively (yet, in a way, also prophetically). In a way, this book is not merely a travelogue; it is instead a meditation on grief, legacy, and the complex inheritance of the perceptual understanding of something humdrum and routine—like walking—we gain, lose, and learn along the way. While most paths we walk on a daily basis are transactional, some—like this walk of the in-between, the narrative of the passing by.
Lace up, get moving,

Boots are made for walking; yet, they are the means for communication. The leather boots, as the silent, arguably central character of the narrative, serve as the constant, the tangible reminder of the spacetime the pair embarked on. They are the physical connection to the past, a tangible reminder of the man who walked in them before. The author discusses the evolving states of the boots—from stiff and unfamiliar to soft and conforming—as if being a metaphor for his own process of accepting his grief and settling into the role of both a son and a father. Here, the tool on which one walks on—like those of Johnny’s boots—come into truth when used for special purpose, akin to Heidegger’s Zuhandenheit (ready-to-hand; availableness).
For each step taken, Johnny (the author) jotted down the long, steady peace of the walk mirroring the slow process of healing. For each story stumbled upon, Johnny (the walker) reads the storied (yet unfolding) landscape. The prose shines brightest when describing the physical toll of the walk and how the inherited footwear influences the experience. One poignant passage describes the author feeling the presence (if any) of his late father’s stride as he navigates a particularly challenging stretch of road near the final church where their walk came to an end.

The non-flat landscape & the multidimensional experience.
The inclusion of the author’s daughter adds a vital dimension to the narrative. Her presence provides a perspective unburdened by the direct, immediate sorrow of loss, allowing for moments of lightness and renewed connection. The dynamic between the three generations—the remembered father, the grieving son, and the hopeful granddaughter—is explored with genuine sensitivity. At one point into the read, it is clear this shared experience, documented in this book, serves as a way for the author to pass on his father’s legacy to his own child, effectively extending the pilgrimage beyond a single lifetime. The question one might ask: who owns this walk? Is it one of the fathers or of their child? Is the experience individual or shared? Is this particular walk captured in the book the author’s own walk, or is it the expected journey of the existing path previously achieved by those who came before him? This undoubtedly led the readers to a more profound question:
So, what do you get out of walking Camino de Santiago?
“To find oneself?”
“To discover the Galician landscape?”
“To be part of the shared experience?”

Overall, Pilgrim Squints asks the reader “what do we get out of the walk?”. Well, any walks? Does the walk have to be meaningful? Need it fulfill a certain task? Does it matter if someone else has walked this path before us? Is pilgrimage really the emptiness of the land; is it the fulfillment of people and the story found on such terrain?
While walking the same ancient paths may create a powerful shared journey, one still (consciously or not) pursues individual goals. For some, this phenomenon is of the natural norm, the expected; for others, the ambivalence may have left some walkers unsettled as to the extent of this historic walk which, while extensively documented by those before him, is filled with paths and lines of the unknown. Long and on foot, walking sure brings people of different backgrounds together, akin to the attraction Camino de Santiago has done to the visitors of different faiths. As a walker, Johnny observes the shifting landscape amid his internal thoughts. As a father, this ‘old man’ reflects on the footsteps (and the measures of his journey) he is leaving behind, as it happens. As a university lecturer on a break, Prof. Rodger stepped out from behind the podium and walked the readers onto this retrospective field trip of one’s person yet shared memoir.
Pilgrim Squints is a powerful yet relaxed volume, a descriptive yet critical read that manages to cover immense emotional ground without ever feeling rushed. It resonates with anyone who has grappled with the loss of a parent or sought to understand their place in the timeline of those who come before and those whose walks follow them. This short monograph captures the weight and comfort of walking a mile in another’s shoes. In its being the memento of the flowing river of time, the transient ephemerality of walkscape is sought in what is deemed suitable for a book on a walk, one embarked upon yet perhaps never felt as entirely one’s own.

Simply a recommendable read.

Get a copy of ‘Pilgrim Squints’ here: https://www.thedrouth.org/product/pilgrim-squints/