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jason_pym's review
5.0
I love this, this is exactly my kind of travel book. The only thing that would make it better is pen and ink illustrations....
"Monastier is notable for the making of lace, for drunkeness, for freedom of language, and for unparalleled political dissension. There are adherents of each of the four French parties - Legitimists, Orleanists, Imperialists, and Republicans - in this little mountain-town; and they all hate, loathe, decry, and calumniate each other. Except for business purposes, or to give each other the lie in a tavern brawl, they have laid aside even the civility of speech."
"... the Trappist world appeals to me as a model of wisdom...so infitesimally is the day divided among different occupations. The man who keeps rabbits, for example, hurries from his hutches to the chapel, or the chapter-room, or the refectory, all day long: every hour he has an office to sing, a duty to perform; from two, when he rises in the dark, till eight, when he returns to receive the comforting gift of sleep, he is upon his feet and occupied with manifold and changing business. I know many persons, worth several thousands in the year, who are not so fortunate in the disposal of their lives... We speak of hardships, but the true hardship is to be a dull fool, and permitted to mismanage life in our own dull and foolish manner."
"Hard by, in caverns of the mountain, was one of the five arsenals of the Camisards; where they laid up clothes and corn and arms against necessity, forged bayonets and sabres, and made themselves gunpowder with willow charcoal and saltpetre boiled in kettles. To the same caves, amid this multifarious industry, the sick and wounded were brought up to heal; and there they were visited by the two surgeons, Chabrier and Tavan, and secretly nursed by women of the neighbourhood."
"I told him I was not much afraid of such accidents [being attacked by wolves and robbers in the night]; and at any rate judged it unwise to dwell upon alarms or consider small perils in the arrangement of life. Life itself, I submitted, was a far too risky business as a whole to make each additional particular of danger worth regard. "Something," said I, "might burst in your inside any day of the week, and there would be an end of you, if you were locked into your room with three turns of the key."
"Monastier is notable for the making of lace, for drunkeness, for freedom of language, and for unparalleled political dissension. There are adherents of each of the four French parties - Legitimists, Orleanists, Imperialists, and Republicans - in this little mountain-town; and they all hate, loathe, decry, and calumniate each other. Except for business purposes, or to give each other the lie in a tavern brawl, they have laid aside even the civility of speech."
"... the Trappist world appeals to me as a model of wisdom...so infitesimally is the day divided among different occupations. The man who keeps rabbits, for example, hurries from his hutches to the chapel, or the chapter-room, or the refectory, all day long: every hour he has an office to sing, a duty to perform; from two, when he rises in the dark, till eight, when he returns to receive the comforting gift of sleep, he is upon his feet and occupied with manifold and changing business. I know many persons, worth several thousands in the year, who are not so fortunate in the disposal of their lives... We speak of hardships, but the true hardship is to be a dull fool, and permitted to mismanage life in our own dull and foolish manner."
"Hard by, in caverns of the mountain, was one of the five arsenals of the Camisards; where they laid up clothes and corn and arms against necessity, forged bayonets and sabres, and made themselves gunpowder with willow charcoal and saltpetre boiled in kettles. To the same caves, amid this multifarious industry, the sick and wounded were brought up to heal; and there they were visited by the two surgeons, Chabrier and Tavan, and secretly nursed by women of the neighbourhood."
"I told him I was not much afraid of such accidents [being attacked by wolves and robbers in the night]; and at any rate judged it unwise to dwell upon alarms or consider small perils in the arrangement of life. Life itself, I submitted, was a far too risky business as a whole to make each additional particular of danger worth regard. "Something," said I, "might burst in your inside any day of the week, and there would be an end of you, if you were locked into your room with three turns of the key."
lprnana6572's review
5.0
I enjoyed this short book which was written when Robt. Louis Stevenson was 28. He hiked through a little populated area of France with a donkey Modestine. I was just a pleasant little read.
bourelle's review against another edition
Plus drôle et spirituel que je ne pensais, et le plaisir de reconnaître certains des endroits parcourus.
Par contre, de loooongues tangeantes parfois sur les conflits protestants/catholiques (qui ne m'intéressent pas trop). Et un livre bien ancré dans la fin du XIXe siècle quand à sa description des femmes (peu surprenant).
A relire dans quelques années pour le facteur nostalgie :D
Par contre, de loooongues tangeantes parfois sur les conflits protestants/catholiques (qui ne m'intéressent pas trop). Et un livre bien ancré dans la fin du XIXe siècle quand à sa description des femmes (peu surprenant).
A relire dans quelques années pour le facteur nostalgie :D
krobart's review
3.0
See my review here:
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2018/02/20/day-1180-travels-with-a-donkey-in-the-cevennes/
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2018/02/20/day-1180-travels-with-a-donkey-in-the-cevennes/
soniapage's review
3.0
This is a 1905 publication downloaded free from Google ebooks. I enjoyed the simple story of the author's tramp through France with his donkey, Modestine, although there was a little too much religious war history.
idabejder's review against another edition
3.0
Årets første bog er en, jeg spontant greb fra min hylde og smed i kufferten i min hastige pakning til Marrakech. Omend byen er fuld af æsler, og jeg i den grad fik vandret gaderne tynde, er det optimale læsespot for denne lille juvel dog Sydfrankrig, gerne bjergene. Men uanset hvor du nu skal hen, så læs bogen på en rejse. For det er en ægte rejsebog, med overvejelser om mødet med nye steder og mødet mellem fremmede mennesker, kulturer og overbevisninger. Om naturens og ensomhedens skønhed og voldsomhed, og om at have et stædigt æsel som eneste rejsefælle, der langsomt vinder både Stevensons og læserens hjerte.
ehays84's review
4.0
I read this in my ongoing quest to read the classics of travel literature. This one is seen often, I believe, as a sort of precursor to twentieth century travel literature that many modern day travel writers have looked back to as an inspiration. And after reading it, I can certainly see why. This is the book from which the famous quote originates:
"I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move."
I think those of us who love to travel (and I count myself as one of those, although I can't afford to do much, so much of my traveling is done via books) would see this as our motto, and it goes back to this book.
When this book was written, it was seen as kind of crazy to just pick a place and travel through it just to be there. This is evidenced by the fact that many of the people he meets on the way our incredulous when he tells them what he is doing. They can really only envision him as some sort of peddlar. This shows you how important this book is.
Add to that the fact that much of this book ends up being about the religious history of the Cevennes region (mountainous region in southern France I knew almost nothing about), and it was really right up my alley. I knew very little about the Camisards before this book, having known really only generally about Hugenots but not anything specific to the religious wars in the early 1700s. Being a free-thinker from a Protestant upbringing himself, he is a uniquely good position to treat both the Catholics and Protestants he meets in a charitable light. He also makes a compelling case for the uselessness of religious violence, since both Christian groups clearly still persist in the region despite both sides trying to do each other in.
The only thing I'd say, really, is that I wish the book were a bit longer or that he gave us more overall instruction about the geography of the location, which I think is still relatively unknown outside of France because of its close proximity to more famous mountains (the Alps) and more famous parts of southern France like the Riviera or Provence. Another curious fact is that he speaks as if the people there are just speaking French, but I've gotta think at this point that it was still largely Occitan. Maybe he was good enough at French and good enough as a linguist overall to not think much about the difference between the sort of French he would have heard in Paris and what he heard in Cevennes.
"I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move."
I think those of us who love to travel (and I count myself as one of those, although I can't afford to do much, so much of my traveling is done via books) would see this as our motto, and it goes back to this book.
When this book was written, it was seen as kind of crazy to just pick a place and travel through it just to be there. This is evidenced by the fact that many of the people he meets on the way our incredulous when he tells them what he is doing. They can really only envision him as some sort of peddlar. This shows you how important this book is.
Add to that the fact that much of this book ends up being about the religious history of the Cevennes region (mountainous region in southern France I knew almost nothing about), and it was really right up my alley. I knew very little about the Camisards before this book, having known really only generally about Hugenots but not anything specific to the religious wars in the early 1700s. Being a free-thinker from a Protestant upbringing himself, he is a uniquely good position to treat both the Catholics and Protestants he meets in a charitable light. He also makes a compelling case for the uselessness of religious violence, since both Christian groups clearly still persist in the region despite both sides trying to do each other in.
The only thing I'd say, really, is that I wish the book were a bit longer or that he gave us more overall instruction about the geography of the location, which I think is still relatively unknown outside of France because of its close proximity to more famous mountains (the Alps) and more famous parts of southern France like the Riviera or Provence. Another curious fact is that he speaks as if the people there are just speaking French, but I've gotta think at this point that it was still largely Occitan. Maybe he was good enough at French and good enough as a linguist overall to not think much about the difference between the sort of French he would have heard in Paris and what he heard in Cevennes.