Shirley Maclaine's book-And a question

[Preston Pittman]

Mac - Lois mentions what I thought to be a most wonderiful book by not only
a "regular" person, but a regular contributor to this list - Elyn Aviva
"Following the Milky Way: a Pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago".  I think
that may have been one of the first "non-scholarly" books on the Camino I
read.  By non-scholarly I don't mean anything except the focus is not on the
history or architecture (for university types) but on personal and
transformative experiences.  Also - Lois is right about Linda Davidson's
book which is one of the very best factual resources.  James Michener has a
very long and interesting section on the Camino in his book "Iberia", which
again although he gives a lot of history, its also kind of "impressionistic"
if you know what I mean.

-Lois, you might try photocopying some of the important pages you want to
take with you and then discard them as you progress along the Pilgrim Path.

Andrea - sorry if I appeared to come on strong - but I *really* did not like
the book and really got a bad impression of Shirley Maclaine from it.  Its
not so much the concept of past lives that bothered me though - it was more
about her attitude and her very strong belief that her "dreams" while
exhausted and fevered just had to be true visions of her past lives.  It
struck me as very arrogant.  Her attitude towards the one female reporter
whom she made cry I thought was very cruel and she felt not only no remorse
afterwards but proud of what she had done.  Shirley wanted to be a rich
famous movie star and now she doesn't want to take responsibility for the
notoriety that goes with it.  (The one thing that annoyed me about her past
lives though was that she insisted she was a gypsy riding by horseback along
the Camino when she met and became Charlemagne's lover.  Charlemagne was in
the later part of the 700s and early 800s.  The gypsies did not come to
Spain until the 1200s.  Also horses were not in common ownership - ever - in
the middle ages.  The nobles owned horses not young gypsy maidens.)

Howard - its funny because even as I was reading Coehlo's book and *not*
minding it so much, I had the feeling that a lot of people would really find
him annoying.  I can't explain why I didn't find it more annoying - maybe if
only that he did seem to be a little more factual about his pilgrimage and
he did give those "spiritual exercises" which made it a little interactive.


>From: Mac Quart <macsquartaYAHOO.COM>
>Reply-To: Road to Santiago Pilgrimage <GOCAMINOaPETE.URI.EDU>
>To: GOCAMINOaPETE.URI.EDU
>Subject: Re: Shirley Maclaine's book-And a question
>Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2002 10:21:00 -0800
>
>I have not read the book.  I must say though that I heard of the camino
>because
>of the People magazine article about Maclaine's book.  I do thank her for
>that.
>  I personally don't like Maclaine due to many interviews I have seen
>(except
>for her role in The Trouble with Harry) so I wasn't going to read the book.
>  I
>do wonder though... Can anyone recommend a good book about the camino,
>written
>by someone who is just a regular person (not rich or famous)and describes
>the
>trials and triumphs he or she experienced on the Camino without any new age
>spirituality?  The book stores where I live really lack in this type of
>subject.
>
>Mac
>
>=====
>Knowing is not enough; we must apply.  Willing is not enough; we must do.
>-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
>
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