Customer Reviews

Walking Davis

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

So, this guy gets hired to walk around the world as a publicity stunt...

The cops tell him he can't walk on the road--"but nobody walks! Roads aren't made for walking!" A reverse racist Jamaican tells Davis he hasn't "suffered" enough to tackle the project. His family doesn't care much, and his sponsor pulls support.

And still Davis keeps walking...Des Moines, Peoria, Kankakee, Lafayette, Marion, Columbus and Newark, Pittsburgh, up into Vermont and then Canada, Scotland and England, France, Germany, Greece and Turkey...

The obsession shines through in the writing. It's wonderful to see something as mundane as walking made a gripping adventure and a metaphor. Davis' trials are with the system as a rebel, with nature as a man. Just as I'd think of one of his setbacks as excessive, I'd recall that things could be worse. Which may be the point here. If we stop walking, we surrender to the world. Davis won't be stopped. Lack of support, a conman agent, the spotlight swinging to an upstart competitor, police, psychiatrists, Greek nurses and their jealous brothers, all are just bumps on the road.

The characters are quirky and enjoyable, the narrative makes me smile and is compelling. I read it through in two hours, which is far too short a time to appreciate a work like this. It's inspiring but in a subtle way. A shame it's not in print at this time. Read the story of the man who was buried by an earthquake, crucified as a false prophet, shot as a spy, sold as a slave, who climbed the Himalayas and learned the language of rocks, whose memorial was built on a parking ramp.