Hello, my name is Finn, and I'm going to help you understand this book.
Here it is, explained like you are 10:
Hilaire Belloc made a promise: he would walk all the way from France to Rome, the city in Italy, in a straight line, sleeping rough. This book tells the walk. There are no chapters, just one long story, like a friend talking while you walk beside him. He tells about mountain paths, inns, songs, food and the people he meets. The high mountains nearly beat him, but he keeps going. It is a happy book about walking, looking and wondering.
Hilaire Belloc vows to walk from Toul in Lorraine, where he once served as an artilleryman, to Rome, in as straight a line as he can manage, and to hear Mass there at the end. The walk crosses France, climbs the Alps, descends into Italy and crosses the Apennines, and Belloc narrates every mile himself: the inns, the wine, the people, the weather and his own changing moods.
The book is built as one continuous narrative with no chapters, like a conversation held at walking pace. Belloc digresses freely into songs, history, faith and the nature of Europe, then returns to the road, the next village and the state of his boots.
It works because the voice is the journey. Readers are not following an itinerary so much as keeping company with a mind that notices everything and enjoys nearly all of it. That companionship, mile after patient mile, is why generations of walkers count this among the best loved walking books in English. It rewards slow reading.
Hilaire Belloc made a vow: to walk from Toul in Lorraine, where he had served as an artilleryman, all the way to Rome, in as straight a line as the roads and mountains allowed, and to arrive in time for Mass. Told as one continuous narrative with no chapters, the book is a conversation held at walking pace, digressing on inns and wine, songs, roads and the history under his boots. Generations of walkers have carried it ever since.
Hilaire Belloc made a vow: to walk from Toul in Lorraine, where he had served as an artilleryman, all the way to Rome, in as straight a line as the roads and mountains allowed, and to arrive in time for Mass. This book is the walk itself, told as one continuous narrative with no chapters, and it is less a travel guide than a conversation held at walking pace. Belloc digresses constantly and gloriously: on inns and wine, on the faith of Europe, on songs, roads, peasants, mountains and the history under his boots, sketching as he goes.
The Alps nearly defeat him, the Apennines test his rules, and the voice never flags. Generations of walkers have carried this book in spirit if not in the pack, and it is one of the best loved walking books in English. Starvard closes this run of the shelf with it deliberately: a book about going somewhere slowly, on foot, paying attention. Walkers, pilgrims and armchair travellers will all find a friend and a companion here, and be better company for the walk.
Edition: One continuous narrative without chapters; shown here in twelve parts. Text: Project Gutenberg ebook 7373.
The first chapter
The Path to Rome
Title: The Path to Rome
Author: Hilaire Belloc
Release date: January 1, 2005 [eBook #7373]
Most recently updated: February 1, 2013
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7373
Credits: Produced by Eric Eldred, and David Widger
path-1.jpg
'... and as to what may be in this book, do not feel timid nor hesitate to enter. There are more mountains than mole-hills ...'
Source: Project Gutenberg. Published 1902. Author died 1953. Public domain. Share this book: WhatsApp
Starvard