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Summary: Shirley's Camino
Review: I Absolutly found Shirley's new book "Camino" Earth shattering and thought provoking,to say the least! I find that her inner Adventures through outer ones alway's seem to reach out to me somwhow and shake my reality and have me re-define my life as I know it! I Also get this sence of excitment and courage to alway's Search for more in myself,not so much that Im not enough but realizing there is more to me than I give myself creidit for! Shirley Maclaine books I find are always thought provoking As if her books Are whispering to me, reminding me that Im on a journey with in myself comming home to my self.
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Summary: A Review By a Fellow Pilgrim
Review: I walked The Camino in October-November 1999. I enjoyed Shirley's book because I could relate to a lot of the places which she mentioned. I did not like a lot of the mystical portions. I give her a lot of credit for some far-out thoughts and beliefs. Although I support some of her beliefs she goes much further with them than I ever could. It's too bad that much of the enjoyment of her walk was spoiled by all the media attention. I am her age and it took me 37 days to walk the 500 miles so I suspect she is in much better shape than I am. It is a great experience and I would recommend it. It can be just an adventure as it was for me and it does not have to be a spiritual experience as it was for Shirley. Her book is very interesting and those who are contemplating the walk should read it.
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Summary: Fantastic Journey
Review: A fantastic journey between the mundane (blisters, water, sun) and the sublime (trips through time). Another great chapter in Shirley's ever evolving journey - her honesty is refreshing, her journey is thought provoking. Parts of this book are as valuable as any spiritual/philosophical books I've read. Don't miss it. Shirley? Write more often - no one communicates like you!
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Summary: More Steps on the Road To Enlightenment
Review: "The Camino", Shirley Maclaine's new book, covers a 500 mile walking trip she completed along the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain. Blisters and body pain, loneliness followed by relentless press who heard she was making the pilgrimage, vivid dream/recollections and synchronicity are shared in this journal. 40 pages into this book, I announced to my family that I will be making this same trek. Ms. MacLaine is an excellent writer; clean, intelligent, free of the need to prove anything to anyone. She's just saying what she experienced. We come away with a glimpse at the history of the trail from the days of Charlemange. We see her experience of the possible origin of three dimensional human life, Atlantis, Lemuria, ancestral connections to ET's and genetic engineerring that very possibly got us where we are right now. Skeptics will scoff. Students of Spirit will nod. (Remember, in spring 2000, scientists JUST found out that dinosaurs had four chamber hearts that show they were WARM blooded, not cold blooded like the "fact" they have "known" for years.) Whatever your level of listening, believing or remembering, "The Camino" is a wonderful journey that leaves us feeling renewed. Ultreya, Ms. MacLaine!
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Summary: Her best
Review: To be skeptical is to take the easy route, to write it all off as nonsense. But if you embrace the possibility that the earth is alive, that it is crisscrossed by channels of energy, then MacLaine's book deserves far more than tongue-in-cheek sarcasm. The Camino is about a spiritual journey and MacLaine captures not only what that means - but what it may not mean. It reads like a novel, with the suspense and tension focused on what MacLaine ultimately learns about herself and the world beyond herself. You get past lives, you get insight, you get MacLaine at her shining best.
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Summary: Tedious and tiresome
Review: I was looking forward to this book...This book is verylittle about El Camino and very much about Ms. MacLaines' personaloff-road takes on history, sex and sexuality, creation, living concurrent lives, etc... I would not have selected this book had I not thought it was connected with El Camino. Once I got over that it was scarcely Camino, I tried to find something else to like...
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Summary: Another Spiritual Journey!
Review: Shirley Maclaine is the only actress I ever pay any attention to, and it is precisely because of her spiritual journeys & the valuable information that she has to impart. It amused me to read a couple of the reviewers who were surprised that this book was so "spiritual" and not completley focused on the "Camino." Obviously, they had little knowledge of Shirley Maclaine when they started reading, or they would have known going in that they were going to be reading about "spiritual" adventures. A couple years ago at the age of 40, completely caught up in Christian traditionalism, I started hearing a voice telling me that hell did not exist and encouraging me to search and question my beliefs. I started having dreams about past lives (one life during a period of intense racism, where I took a black child and raised him)--another life as a passionate artist in Italy. I didn't understand what was happening to me, and there were times when I honestly thought I was going crazy. One night, I found Shirley's book "Out on a Limb" under my bed. I didn't have any idea how it got there--I live alone, and I never purchased it. But I started reading and realized I was going through so many of the things that she described in this book. When she described her "Out of body" experience, I felt such a relief. This happened to me several years ago, every single night for an entire summer. I didn't understand what was happening at the time. I would go to sleep, and the next thing I knew I would be out of my body watching myself sleep. My church taught us that out of body experiences were sinful, and I never told anyone. At the time it happened, it was confusing to me, and although I felt that I could have gone anywhere or done anything--I didn't. I simply sat there every night and watched myself sleep. I wish I'd had Shirley's books at that time in my life. The Camino is her best book of all. Thank you, Shirley. You have been one of my "teachers" and have helped me on an incredible spiritual journey of my own!
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Summary: Not sure what to make of it.
Review: It is a wonderful book -- full of anecdotes and personal stories of triumph and tragedy. However, as a travel guide it certainly lacks. Moreover, trying to get to the meat of the book by working one's way through Ms. Maclaine's metaphorical musing was a little difficult. I understand that it is a perfect forum for her to talk about her beliefs and all but I think it took away from the story when she went on about her encounters with John the Scot and the almost otherworldly encounters with Moors and Charlemagne. Here is what I think... the author, although well meaning is somewhat trapped in an "Orientalist" mode that places less complexity on the characters she is trying to humanize. I don't want to be mean because she seems very sincere. As a book on metaphysical musings it works. As a travel guide, maybe DK can come up with something more menaingful. For her sincerity and grace, I still give SM a thumbs up and 4 stars.
Miguel Llora
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Summary: For Serious Spiritual Seekers
Review: I have read and enjoyed each of Shirley Maclaine's books; those that have explored the journey's of life, and those that have explored her show business career. I have not always agreed with everything the author presented, but I have always found the materials to be interesting, thought provoking, and presenting the challenge that always comes with new ideas. I first picked up the Camino when it originally came out about two years ago and simply was not able to read it. I now understand that it was because I was not ready to read this book, even though I have been and continue to be a serious seeker of spiritualism and the meaning of life. Having just read this book, I found it to be interesting and mind broadening. This book is not for everyone. Some people will eagerly and openly embrace its message; others will be questioning and skeptical, which is also good. Others will deride the book and its author, which is unfortunate. Those of us who have read and/or experienced spiritual phenomena owe Ms. Maclaine a great debt, because as a celebrity, and as a gifted writer, she has been able to take subject matter that was once hidden and has presented it to a wide audience, who are free to enjoy it. Most of us do not have the financial resources to take a spritiual journey or pilgrimage. I admire the way she has taken a very personal spiritual journey, and has presented it to her readers in a frank and meaningful way, to allow us explore and examine our own souls.
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Summary: Must be a different Camino
Review: We walked the Camino in 1997 and again in 2002. Ms. MacLaine's self-absorbed hallucinatory spiritual mumbo jumbo only goes to cover up a badly written and even more poorly edited book. It serves little, if any, value to those seeking to understand the Camino to Santiago or any of several other topics she would fein to understand (Einstein's theroies, history of Spain, etc). Her experience, if this really was her experience, will not be your experience. But if you like extraterrestrial time travel pseudo-spiritual sci-fi... If you walk the Camino, (unlike Shirley) you will not find yourself entering Burgos three different times (bad writing or bad editing?), you will encounter the places she describes in their proper locations, you are unlikely to have to evade the media or be offered free rooms, food and rides. And you will likely encounter Spanish dogs as we did, sleeping in the square in the mid-day sun, not lunging at your throat from around every corner. But do consider the Camino as the opportunity for an incredible life experience, just seek other sources of information. Can I have my money back please?
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