In the footsteps of medieval pilgrims
David Crossland, Foreign Correspondent
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Last Updated: June 22. 2008 9:51PM UAE / June 22. 2008 5:51PM GMT
BERLIN // A German
television entertainer has scored a surprise bestseller with a book
about how he walked the ancient 1,000km Way of St James, one of the most
sacred routes in Christianity.
His publishing success reflects new European interest in pilgrimages –
with the kind of 21st century problems such interest attracts.
I’m Gone a While by Hape Kerkeling, the German comedian, has sold more
than three million copies since it was published in 2006, making it the
best-selling German non-fiction book since the Second World War. It is
being translated into English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch,
Polish and Korean.
The book is a
diary-style travel memoir recording how Kerkeling, 43, found God by
walking the Way of St James across northern Spain from the French side
of the Pyrenees to the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela in 2001.
He had taken time off after suffering from stress and having his gall
bladder removed.
Commentators say his book struck a chord with the public because of a
new yearning for spirituality in Europe, partly in reaction to the
economic pressures of globalisation but also because the continent’s
ageing society has more time on its hands to think about the meaning of
life.
Kerkeling, a gifted
impersonator who has a strong following in Germany, describes his own
faith as a “mixture of Buddhism with a Christian chassis”. He chronicles
how his outlook on life gradually changes as he faces the physical
challenge of walking 30km a day through the sun-baked fields and uplands
of northern Spain and meets a wide array of fellow pilgrims.
“I think the book has been such a success because it came at the right
time,” said Eva Brenndorfer, a spokesman for Kerkeling’s publishing
house Piper Malik. “Interest in pilgrimage, religion and spirituality
has been growing for a while now. People are asking themselves: what do
I want from life, what am I doing with my life?
“They sometimes
suffer a burnout in their jobs, or they can’t find a job after their
studies. Many people are unsettled and are looking for something to hold
on to.”
The number of people walking the Way of St James has surged to 114,026
pilgrims in 2007 from 2,491 in 1985, according to the Santiago Pilgrim’s
Office. Despite that increase, the number is still dwarfed by the scale
of the hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca undertaken by about
two million people each year.
Part of the growth
in pilgrimage along the Way of St James stems from popular books written
about it by Shirley Maclaine, the US actress, and Paul Coelho, the
Brazilian novelist.
The route leads to the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela where the
remains of one of Christ’s 12 apostles, Saint James the Greater, are
said to be buried. It has existed for more than 1,000 years and was one
of the three main pilgrimage routes in medieval times, along with the
Via Francigena from Canterbury to Rome and the pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
Catholics,
Protestants and even atheists undertake the arduous journey. For many,
it is not about finding God but about recovering from stress or finding
a new direction in their lives. Others see it as a different form of
cultural tourism.
“People have all sorts of different reasons for going on a pilgrimage.
They hope to find an inner freedom on the path; it’s a beautiful route,“
said Robert Plotz, president of the German St James Society.
“If you walk the
Way you get a lot of personal benefit. You learn to reduce yourself, to
see what’s important and what isn’t. Will your feet and shoes stand up
to it, will it rain, do you have enough water: those are the basic needs
and the path is a great teacher. I’ve walked on many stretches of the
Way of St James and I always saw it as a form of mental cleansing.”
Pilgrim societies have also been registering an increased interest in
old pilgrimage routes elsewhere in Europe.
“I think interest
in pilgrimage is growing and a lot more people have a sense of what a
pilgrimage is. It’s something they’re attracted by,” said Marion
Marples, the secretary of the London-based Confraternity of St James,
which assists pilgrims embarking on the route.
“We find that a lot of people who have done that route are permanently
addicted to the idea of going on pilgrimages and they’re seeking out
further routes to explore, routes through France, other routes through
Spain, routes through Portugal.”
Pilgrims get a
credencial, a pilgrim passport, which they have stamped at churches,
monasteries or the spartan pilgrims’ hostels along the way to mark their
progress. Pilgrims who have walked at least the last 100km to Santiago
are eligible for the compostela, a certificate of accomplishment.
Kerkeling, who famously talked his way into the German president’s
palace pretending to be the queen of Holland, astonished readers with
his soul-searching book. “I suddenly feel closely tied with all the
people who have travelled down this path, with their wishes, dreams,
fears, and I feel I’m not walking it alone,” he writes.
His diary also
contains more down-to-earth passages on encounters with an aggressive
German woman, a Brazilian pilgrim looking for a husband, an amorous
Spaniard and a toothless Peruvian who was a fan of Adolf Hitler.
The influential Frankfurt newspaper Allgemeine Zeitung wrote: “It’s a
book about morals that the masses understand. It’s about things so out
of fashion that you almost have to look them up in a dictionary: things
like humility, helpfulness, charity, honesty, modesty, gratitude, even
about faith.”
German newspaper
Die Welt writes that the Way of St James has become so popular partly
because people are afraid to make pilgrimages to Jerusalem because of
security concerns. “Besides, everybody who has ever been in Jerusalem
knows that Christianity shows itself from its most contemptible side in
the form of fanatical and money-grabbing orthodox splinter groups,” the
newspaper writes.
The Way of St James is starting to suffer from its popularity, though.
The success of Kerkeling’s book has led to a 71-per-cent surge in the
number of German pilgrims walking the Way of St James last year, to
13,837, or 12 per cent of the total, which is putting the often-meagre
accommodation facilities under strain.
“Everybody comes
back and says there are German pilgrims everywhere,” said Ms Marples at
the British Confraternity of St James. “I think we’ve reached a critical
mass of pilgrims. The number of German pilgrims unbalances things. I’ve
had reports that the German pilgrims that have been attracted by this
book have unrealistic expectations about how to be a pilgrim.
“It’s not necessarily a very happy relationship. They’re more like
tourists. They say we want this and this. We want hot water showers,
comfortable beds and so on and the whole point of the pilgrimage is that
it’s not necessarily like that.”