[Gocamino] NY Times Article on Camino Best Seller in Germany

[HMe347 at aol.com]

Hi everyone!     From Howard Mendes,  NYC
 
A Pilgrimage Tale (Not Chaucer’s) Amuses and Inspires  
 
Marcus Gloger for The New York Times
Comedian Hape Kerkeling wrote the best-selling book, "I'm Off  for a Bit, 
Then." 
 
By _MARK LANDLER_ 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/mark_landler/index.html?inline=nyt-per) 

Published: March 8, 2008
 
DÜSSELDORF, _Germany_ 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/germany/index.html?inline=nyt-geo)  
HAPE KERKELING is the kind of comedian who is not above putting on funny wigs 
 and false teeth to get a laugh. His best-known character, Horst Schlämmer, 
is a  tiresome, booze-addled reporter for a small-town German paper who snorts 
when he  laughs, revealing a mouthful of nasty dental work, and paws any young 
woman  within reach. 
It is a coarse act, and Germans can’t get enough of it. 
Mr. Kerkeling has become one of this country’s most popular entertainers,  
with his own television variety show, film career and sold-out concert tours.  
Perhaps inevitably, he has also cranked out a book, which, given his celebrity, 
 might have been expected to sell decently. 
As it turns out, the book, “I’m Off for a Bit, Then,” has become one of the  
best-selling nonfiction works in Germany since World War II, selling 14 times 
as  many copies as _Günter Grass_ 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/gunter_grass/index.html?inline=nyt-per) ’s much-discussed 
memoir, “Peeling the  Onion.”  
Since it was published in May 2006, Mr. Kerkeling’s book has topped the  
best-seller list in the magazine Der Spiegel every week except for when it was  
briefly displaced by the memoir of the former chancellor _Gerhard Schröder_ 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/gerhard_schroder/inde
x.html?inline=nyt-per)  and a meditation on Jesus by _Pope Benedict XVI_ 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/benedict_xvi/index.ht
ml?inline=nyt-per) . 
With sales of nearly 2.9 million copies, the book is a publishing phenomenon, 
 all the more improbable because it is about a pilgrimage Mr. Kerkeling made 
to  the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, following the medieval  
pilgrims’ path known as the Way of St. James. 
“I just got up off my couch one day, after finishing a Diet Pepsi and a bag  
of chips, and started walking,” said Mr. Kerkeling, who professes to be as  
mystified as anyone by his success. 
In this land of empty churches and creeping secularism, Mr. Kerkeling has  
clearly tapped into something. His whimsical, moving and ultimately spiritual  
account has caught the imagination of Germans. (It will be published in the  
United States by Free Press in 2009.) People here are setting off on the  
pilgrimage in large numbers. 
Last fall, a German television network broadcast a weekly series, with  
celebrities retracing Mr. Kerkeling’s six-week journey. Religious and political  
leaders have debated why the book is so popular. 
They offer mostly familiar theories: the spiritual anomie of  
post-reunification Germany, which creates a hunger for some sort of fulfillment;  the failure 
of traditional religion to inspire; even a reaction to the rise of  Islam in 
Europe, where Muslims are building mosques next to cathedrals. And, it  must 
be said, the pope’s book, “Jesus of Nazareth,” has also done well in his  
native land, with about 450,000 copies sold. 
“With the breakdown of old ideologies, there is a new search for the meaning  
of life,” said _Peter Schneider_ 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/peter_schneider/index.html?inline=nyt-per) , a noted German 
author.  
Or could it be simply that Mr. Kerkeling, shorn of his comic alter egos, is  
an agreeable travel companion? 
“I think the book works on three levels,” he said. “You can read it simply 
as  a funny book; you can read it as an adventure story; or you can read it as 
a  spiritual journey.” 
A CUDDLY fellow with an ever-present cigarette and a passing resemblance to  
_Jerry Lewis_ 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/jerry_lewis/index.html?inline=nyt-per) , Mr. Kerkeling, 43, said he did not view 
 his pilgrimage as a quest that would hold lessons for others. Though raised 
as a  Catholic, he stopped going to church years ago. He describes his faith 
as a  fusion of Buddhism and Christianity. 
Born in 1964 in Recklinghausen, a town in the Ruhr Valley, to a family with  
Dutch roots, Hape Kerkeling — his first name is a combination of his given 
name,  Hans Peter — came up in show business through radio and television comedy 
shows.  In 1991, he dressed up as Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and almost 
talked his  way into a state dinner with the German president. 
By 2001, Mr. Kerkeling was one of the most recognizable faces in Germany, but 
 he said he felt physically and spiritually spent. After having his gall 
bladder  removed, Mr. Kerkeling said he needed a “timeout.” He chose the 
pilgrimage,  known by its Spanish name, el Camino de Santiago, after coming across a 
book  about it. 
“The first book that more or less landed at my feet was called ‘The Joyful  
Path of St. James,’ ” Mr. Kerkeling wrote in his first chapter. He found  the 
whole idea preposterous. “Chocolate brings joy, to some extent,” he wrote,  “
and whiskey, in extreme situations.” He bought the book anyway, and read it 
in  one sitting. 
A self-described couch potato, Mr. Kerkeling was unprepared for the rigors of 
 a 400-mile trek. The trail begins in St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port, in southern 
France,  traverses the Pyrenees and then winds across northern Spain, past 
Pamplona and  the vineyards of La Rioja. It ends in the ancient city of Santiago de  
Compostela, where, legend holds, the Apostle James is buried. 
“I figured I’d fail completely on the first day,” Mr. Kerkeling said. He was 
 nearly right. Hobbling up the mountains in a driving rain, he was soon  
exhausted, his knees swollen. But he soldiered on, and came to realize he was  
tougher than he thought. “I’m not really an esoteric person,” he said, “but I  
did begin to feel a calling of some kind.” 
Most of the book is a travelogue, written with a gentle, wry humor that  
recalls _Bill Bryson_ 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/bill_bryson/index.html?inline=nyt-per) . Determined to avoid devout pilgrims 
—  because, he writes, they will be no different at the end of the journey 
than  they were at the start — Mr. Kerkeling instead encounters an array of 
tourists,  oddballs and adventurers, to whom he speaks in any of his six 
languages. 
There is Anne, a woman from Liverpool who wears “_Harry Potter_ 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/complete_coverage/harry_potter/index.ht
ml?inline=nyt-classifier)  eyeglasses,” and Claudia, a pretty young  
Brazilian woman who wants to be more than friends. After Mr. Kerkeling tells her  that 
they will not be involved romantically (he is gay), she leaves him on the  
road. “We had, in a single day, all the experiences a couple would have in 30  
years,” he said. 
THERE are also some vivid images, like a hat seller who collected and hung  
hundreds of discarded hats and caps belonging to pilgrims from the ceiling of  
his shop. Or a waiter who showed up at Mr. Kerkeling’s breakfast table, 
wearing  a T-shirt inscribed “Keep on Running,” at a moment when he was on the 
verge of  giving up. 
During his journey, Mr. Kerkeling kept a diary, largely, he said, to pass the 
 lonely evenings. Back home, he put the notes in a filing cabinet, with no 
plans  of turning them into a book. After he discussed the pilgrimage on a 
television  talk show, a publisher called him with a proposal. 
Writers as diverse as Paulo Coelho of Brazil and _Shirley MacLaine_ 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/shirley_maclaine/index.htm
l?inline=nyt-per)  have mined the Way of St. James for  successful books. And 
for Mr. Kerkeling, the book seems only to have added  luster to his star. But 
he said the experience had also raised his expectations  of himself. “The 
Camino really begins after you’ve finished it,” he said. “Life  becomes more 
challenging.” 
Mr. Kerkeling is taking time off, again, to work on two books: one fiction  
and the other nonfiction. Still convinced that “the official churches don’t 
have  the answers,” he recommends the Way of St. James to anyone who asks — 
with one  proviso: skip the mountainous hike on the first  day




 (http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolprf00030000000001) 




**************It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms, and advice on AOL Money & 
Finance.      (http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolprf00030000000001)