Customer Reviews

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

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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.

My church book club read this book as the first book of our new year. In our discussion, we focused on how the author considers miracles - and what is our own attitude toward them. Personally, I was hooked on page 47 when the little boy with his bicycle looked at the author and said with a wisdom given to children that "You and I are miracles, aren't we?" Enough of the Tales themselves are included to give you a good introduction or review, for those of us who read them years ago. And the forays into life in the Middle Ages are packed with interesting information given in compact doses. It's amazing how much you can learn without inundated. As a group, we particularly were envious of the author's ability to meet people where they are and bring something away from each encounter. We challenged ourselves to be more aware of the daily miracles in our lives - slowing down enough on our own journey to appreciate them.

On a long train ride to New York, I consumed Jerry Ellis's wonderful new book in one sitting. From the man who walked a straight line to the squeaky staircase, the stories Ellis tells make the reader feel as if he were along on the pilgrimage too. And a pilgrimage it was as even I, a particularly non-spiritual person, felt moved by the otherworldly aspects of the quest.
Further the fact that Chaucer, all these years later, drew Ellis across the Atlantic to make this trek is captivating proof of the universal power of literature. Walking to Canterbury achieves the right balance of the then and now, and I predict that Ellis will introduce thousands to Chaucer who would have never known him.

Walking to Canterbury is one of the most unusual books I have ever read, combining adventure, history, literature and spirituality into a compelling and reflective look at medieval and modern England. Couldn't put it down, which is most rare for me...a very picky London reader.

Once again the master of the physical and the spiritual journey has taken again to the road. How lucky for us! Sit back, take in both journey's, and you will find pleasure, humility, and wisdom. The world is sorely in need of this adventurer. When you put WALKING TO CANTERBURY down you will most assuredly hope that Ellis hits the road again. Soon!

I'll state up front that I am not a religious person, and I suppose as well not very spiritualistic in the sense that much of this book seems to refer to it. So I am perhaps not the best audience and therefore not the best reviewer. I picked this up mostly because the Chaucer aspect of it interested me and I'll confess to some disappointment at how little reference there was to Chaucer and his work. There were a lot of quoted sections, but I was hoping for more connections between his centuries-old tale and today's life. I was also put off somewhat by the speech of many of those Ellis ran into, which just didn't ring true to me. I have no problem with a writer removing the various "umms", "uhhs", and "huh's" that one has to assume were part of any conversation, but too many of these people spoke far too eloquently. I can overlook that flaw more readily in a fiction novel, but in a non-fiction work it makes me wonder what else the author has modified; it adds a small but constant feeling of mistrust. Beyond that, I didn't find much of interest in his present-day journey. Some of his encounters were pleasant enough, but none particularly riveting or moving, and at times I thought he tried too hard to make them feel so to the reader. His frequent swoops into the past, however, were far more interesting and enjoyable as he relates a slew of obscure information about Chaucer's time, ranging from table fare and manners to monastic rules. These passages are nicely woven into the text and I wouldn't have minded more of them. In fact, to be brutally honest, I could have done with just them. Others, however, clearly were moved by his own personal pilgrimage, so as I stated, perhaps I'm just the wrong audience. If you're picking this up for Chaucer material, be prepared to be disappointed. If you want information on Chaucer's time, you won't be disappointed but you might be better served skimming. If, on the other hand, journeys of personal spiritual redemption are what you're looking for, I'll leave it to the other reviewers to give you a more refined and fair sense of whether or not you'll find it here.

Some people search for deep truths in church, some in books and some in meditation. Jerry Ellis seeks his truths on foot, on long, mostly solitary walks on trails laden with personal and historical meaning. In his 1991 book _Walking the Trail: One Man's Journey Along the Cherokee Trail of Tears_, he traced the deadly march that his Cherokee ancestors were forced to make, and in the process deepened his connection with them and their world. In his newest book, _Walking to Canterbury_, he sets off to rediscover his English roots by retracing the 60-mile path from London to Canterbury walked by thousands of pilgrims in medieval times, and immortalized in Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_.

I found _Walking to Canterbury_ captivating. From the start, it's clear that Ellis' quest is both personal and spiritual. Through his eyes, the English landscape becomes vividly alive, small events such as finding a scallop shell lost by some long-dead pilgrim take on deep significance, and every encounter is charged with psychological depth and spiritual meaning. Anyone who seeks or has experienced moments of great clarity and connectedness will recognize the place Ellis writes from, and admire his ability to snare some of that ineffable and evanescent magic and share it with his readers.

Ellis also does a seamless job of weaving a great deal of history into his narrative. Along the way we not only learn a lot about Ellis and the people who share bits and pieces of his journey with him, but many fascinating details about how people in medieval England lived, loved, and saw the world a millenium ago.

As storytellers have known at least since Homer's time, a journey is a ripping good way to tell a story, and a natural, perhaps primal metaphor for life itself. In _Walking to Canterbury_, Ellis proves himself both a gifted storyteller and a worthy guide.

Robert Adler, author of _Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation_ (John Wiley & Sons, September 2002).