Walking to Canterbury: A Modern Journey Through Chaucer's Medieval England [Paperback]

I have to take exception to most of the other reviews. Please hear me out.

The author, a man of Native American and English heritage, wrote an earlier book, Walking the Trail, about a several month walk tracing the infamous Cherokee "Trail of Tears" backward from Oklahoma to his home in northeast Alabama, as well as two other books tracing historic American routes. Mr. Ellis says his trip to England to follow the medieval Christian pilgrims' route from London to Canterbury Cathedral, described most famously by Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, was an effort to connect with his English heritage. I finished the book concluding that Ellis' so-called pilgrimage was just a way to provide his publisher with a sequel to sell based on the reputation and success of Ellis' earlier writing.

For someone supposedly seeking to understand his English roots Mr. Ellis invests minuscule effort in the process. He commits only nine days to his first trip to England: arrives in London, departs the next day a seven-day, 70-odd mile walk, spends the last night in Canterbury, then returns to London by train to catch a flight back to the U.S. Such a short trip can't provide enough material for 295 pages, so Ellis pads the book with flashbacks to his Trail of Tears walk plus a lot of material about medieval English history, customs, daily life and English and non-English Christian practices. Some of the historic material consists of pages-long quotes from other books. Mind you, the historic extracts can be interesting, but there are better sources for such things and the book's subtitle promised "a modern journey through Chaucer's medieval England."

Ellis focuses on some fairly odd people for someone saying he wants to get in touch with his English heritage. His most significant encounters are with unemployed, spike-haired, slackers and their pet iguana (he actually tarries an extra day to party with them), Swedish, French and Dutch tourists, an Iranian immigrant and several bar tenders. No significant encounters with farmers, police officers or teachers. And certainly none with Christians.

Ellis' walk is hardly a religious pilgrimage. His own beliefs are Native American/New Age (i.e., deifying created objects rather than a Creator) and he expresses scant respect for Christianity. On one occasion Ellis hurts his back when he trips in the forest and experiences excruciating pain. That night, seemingly for the first time, in desperation he prays for relief. The next morning he experiences a self-described miraculous healing. Then, rather than credit God for healing him, and perhaps seeing the occurrence as "a sign" to repent and complete the trip as a true pilgrimage of thanksgiving as medieval Christians would have, Ellis quickly explains away his healing as a fluke.

Ellis encounters some New Age tourists from Holland. They are lead by a Dutchman calling himself Geronimo who, for unexplained reasons, came from Amsterdam to England to practice some half-baked version of Native American spirituality in an attempt to relieve urban angst. Ellis writes: "Geronimo's teaching Native American spirituality when he has no such heritage disturbed me." But a few pages later non-Christian Ellis perceives no hypocrisy in himself when he arrives in Canterbury and, among secular visitors there to see the historic building and its art, makes a spectacle of himself by ascending the Cathedral steps on his knees in imitation of a pious Christian pilgrim. Afterward Ellis celebrates the conclusion of his "pilgrimage" at a bar where people mock Christian heritage, then leaves early the next day to rush back to Alabama.

Ellis is a bit of an odd traveler, to boot. He lugs a 40 pound backpack of camping gear and spends a third of his nights in a tent in the semi-rural landscape, sort of like camping in the suburbs while walking from New York City to someplace in Connecticut. And he cooks on campfires several times at historic sites and just off the road in scraps of forest and farmers' fields. I've made walking tours in the British Isles and can tell you people just don't do that sort of thing; most people don't build campfires anymore when they hike in the U.S. One bit of quaintness - the trip occurred in 1999 - is Ellis talking about the great pocket knife he always carries and uses to carve figures in his oak walking stick. Ahhhh, pocket knives.... remember when we were allowed to carry those when we traveled in the good old days before 9-11?

I don't recommend this book. The stories aren't that good and you can easily find better sources about the history of Canterbury or medieval England. I bought it because I enjoy making and reading about both Christian and secular pilgrimages, but this isn't, to my disappointment, really a pilgrimage book.

Walking to Canterbury includes a small scale sketch map of the route, some small black-and-white reproductions of medieval scenes, a three-page bibliography of sources used for the historic extracts and a grainy photo of the author.

I am partial to travel commentaries. The best ones have history and sociology lessons embedded in a moving narrative with rapidly changing settings and characters. The author's role is indispensible for he must impose a theme on his trip and package it engagingly for the reader. Jerry Ellis does this quite well. He treks from London to Canterbury along the 60 mile route established in medieval times. The cathedral where Becket was murdered has been drawing pilgrims for centuries. Ellis is of English as well as Cherokee ancestry and this jaunt was intended to lend symmetry to his work since he had earlier walked and written about the Trail of Tears.

You will not enjoy this book unless you have interest in the lifestyles of twelfth century pilgrims. After a few pages of contemporary narrative, Ellis hears something to remind him of ancient ways and the reader knows he's in for a history lesson. However, they are appropriate, informative and quite interesting. Clearly, more time was spent reading the three dozen books in his bibliography than was frittered away in the south of England.

The author uses the novelty of his trek to positively engage people and his interactions tend to be significant- perhaps too meaningful by intention. (He is on a religious pilgrimage.) Of course, he is of the "big tent" religion, and actively seeks parallels between Christian ways and the Cherokee beliefs. Some unifying observations are quite touching.

I found it remarkable that Ellis could find spots to regularly pitch a tent and build a campfire. Evidently, once you are out of London the city ends and woodlands and wheatfields prevail. I can't imagine a pedestrian being so fortunate around any American city. Our less restrictive zoning extends the city for miles along our routes of egress. If Ellis were to make a pilgrimage out of New York, his campsites would likely be threatened by cranky suburbanites and dozens of state, county, village, environmental and parkway police for 60 miles in any direction. To bad he didn't write a bit about land use...

This only mildly interesting book weaves tales of the author's 1999 walk from London to Canterbury with English history and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

Despite a potentially interesting premise and loads of unusual historical facts to link past and present, the author's ego distracts throughout the book; however it does get to a point where it's almost comical rather than irritating. He's just a bit too dramatic and evidently has had more Very Deep Thoughts and Mystical Life Experiences than the rest of us mere mortals. After a while Professor Lockhart from the 'Harry Potter' books started springing to mind whenever the author's commentary would circle back -- as it always did -- to himself and his mystical insights.

Overall, it's a quick and easy read and I found the historical portions of the book interesting. Frankly, I was rather surprised that one *could* still walk from London to Canterbury on suburban and country roads. However, after reading this, I'd rather walk with someone else.