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Rating: 
Summary: Not over the hill yet
Review: A good book for those who are interested in nature, human and otherwise. At age 65, this New York Times foreign correspondent walks out of the Times building and just keeps on walking. Four hundred miles and five weeks later, he is at home in Vermont. This book chronicles the ups and downs, humanly and geographically, as he hoofs his way on New York city streets, over highways, under bridges, through towns and villages, over the Appalachian Trail, arriving home just in time to feed the cats. Henry David Thoreau is his philosophical mentor as he ponders things like the best way to carry a backpack, filter your water, boil your oatmeal, keep the mosquitoes away, pamper aches and pains, and decide upon a suitable trail name. Along the way he meets an interesting variety of fellow travelers, most walking for reasons that go way beyond just exercise. Civilization is never far away, and the author meets up occasionally with his wife and friends, when he forsakes the Daniel Boone lifestyle for that of the aging jet-setter dining in an exclusive restaurant. He admits that after these respites he is glad to hit the lonely trail again. During the book the reader is treated to gentle flashbacks that reveal Wren's adventurous career as a reporter in Russia, China, the Middle East, and other exotic locales. These recollections seem a bit shoehorned in, but they are necessary to understand how far the author has come. After what he has seen in his life, a hike of four hundred miles is just a walk in the woods. Those like me who are generally the same age as Wren will find the book a nice reminder that we're not over the hill yet. Wren says, "Life seems sweeter once you accept that it cannot endure. The best part of growing old is that welcome relief from being merely young." Great stuff for a graying head! Upon finishing the book, I went out for a good, long walk. But I'll be back for supper.
Rating: 
Summary: A Plodder Slogs Uphill
Review: By Bill Marsano. I wanted to like this book. I too am a walker, enlisted in the non-combat infantry. Of a proximate age to Wren, I walk all over Manhattan, weekly crossing the Brooklyn Bridge just for breakfast; I have walked in Tuscany and Liguria and on Cornwall's windy, sea-banged coast.
But this is not a book about walking, however much one-foot-in-front-of-the-othering occurs therein. It is about the change of life called retirement, and it is rooted in denial.
The author, age 65, has retired as a foreign correspondent for the New York Times. He refuses to be a retiree who can't let go, who hangs around to see "how things are going at the office." So far, so good; but I really got no clear idea of his plans other than to "walk into retirement" in that prissiest of New England states, Vermont. That's the one where faux-rustics think the NEW L.L. Bean is the REAL L.L. Bean. (And thank heaven for SUVs, hey?)
Wren's denial is of his age: 65. He doesn't rant and moan about it but he does intrude it at times and in ways that hit the floor like a brick. When he's grateful, for example, that younger hikers don't notice or at least mention his age, I'm embarrassed for him. A tone of defeat creeps in each time, when in fact some hint of triumph is deserved. It is not nothing, after all, to walk at the age of 65 some 400 miles from Times Square and up the Appalachian Trail, even if the destination is Vermont. It is an accomplishment at any age.
Denial damages his walk. He's out of shape, but won't exercise. He has a bad knee, but ignores it; for his arthritic ankle he buys a doctor-prescribed ankle brace ($80!) but leaves it in his pack unused, despite frequent pain. Now about that pack. It weighs 50 pounds! Wren takes far too long to realize that's far too much and even longer to do anything about it. And when a tick bite hints at Lyme disease, Wren dabs it with suntan lotion. That's not brave. It's dumb.
Despite some amusing or informative incidents, Wren's storytelling shows just how retired he and his reportorial curiosity are. He starts themes but doesn't finish them: "Yes, there are bears in the woods, but you don't need to meet them." (So . . . ?) What will the ex-marine he meets do in civilian life? "Go into the family business, sir." (Which is?) Readers seeking compensating tales of foreign-correspondent life will regret it. Wren has too many, most relentlessly dull and clumsily introduced: "Stretching back against the rock . . . . I sought out the Big Dipper . . . . These were the same glorious constellations I had studied one night in the Ogaden desert of Ethiopia, out with a band of guerrillas who were at war with the government." Then it gets worse. Much worse.
Wren convincingly paints the Appalachian Trail as a rather unpleasant experience. Even the young hikers he meets are usually dirty, smelly and exhausted. They use pseudonyms called 'trail names' and don't talk much: Some are social misfits or running from personal troubles, others are just too tired. One is so used up he eats uncooked oatmeal. The worst of Wren's fellow travelers talks too much, however; that would be America's original smug bore, Henry David Thoreau. In a real failure of imagination, Wren lugs some Thoreau along and frequently shares its dead weight with poor us, apparently unaware that this Waldensian faker was a freeloader always running home for a hot lunch cooked by mommy. Quoting him is prima facie evidence of having too little respect for your audience. Just remember this much: When college is over, so is Thoreau. OK?
Come we now to the writing and editing. With the latter we can easily dispense: The publisher evidently did. Surely there was no editor of this book; just someone who had lunch with the author? (Yeesh, what a racket. And all those years I worked for a living.) As for the writing, it never rises above the pedestrian, and I make no pun. It never gets as good as workmanlike and is often visibly worse. Wren inhabits a world in which "battered" taxis drive him to "ramshackle" towns; where the beers are "frosty," the sandwiches "scrumptious" and the steaks--oh my god, the steaks!--are "seared to perfection."Walkers have a tradition of writing really fine works: RLS, Hilaire Belloc come to mind, as do Wordsworth, Coleridge and Hazlitt, among many others. But then this is not a walking book. It's a plodder.--Bill Marsano is a profesional editor and an award-winning writer on travel, and wines and spirits.
Rating:
Summary: An Appalachian Odyssey
Review: How many of us have had fantasies of walking away from the life we've known into a cleansing wilderness and emerging, at the end of the ordeal, renewed? Christopher S. Wren, former New York Times correspondent did just that. Upon retirement, he strode out of New York City and made his way to his home in Vermont via the meandering Appalachian Trail. Along the way, he kept company with a motley crew of other travelers, ominous black SUVs, mosquitoes and his memories. This isn't just a travelogue of sights along the way, though, it's a layered story of a man's life at a turning point, weaving remembrances (some harrowing) from a long life lived in many foreign places into the new, unfolding story of a man who is no longer what he was. It's not to be confused with Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck's wonderful tale of travel across the country with his trusty poodle. Steinbeck was in search of his country's identity, but Christopher Wren's goal is more personal -- he's searching for his new self. Wren's self-designed rite of passage fulfills the requirement of all such rites: redefinition. He begins his journey as a man at the end of a professional life, graduating into a gray, undefined role as "retiree". He emerges from the trail with a deep understanding of the meaninglessness of such titles and the resilience of human character. The editorial reviews above mention that the book will be appreciated by hikers and lovers of "off beat adventures", etc. I think the book will be appreciated by anyone who wants to understand better how to be an adult and, last time I checked, that was everybody.
Rating: 
Summary: A JAUNT OF GREAT PROPORTIONS
Review: I would call this a quiet book; pleasant storytelling with rippling rhythms of then and now. The author is a retired N.Y. Times foreign correspondent who attends his retirement party in Manhattan and then the next day starts walking to Vermont (near Hanover) where he is going to live. He walks on the Appalachian Trail where the distance is almost 400 miles and he accomplishes this in 5 weeks moving through 5 states. He tells of his experiences while on the trail with frequent interjections of incidences overseas while doing his work for his newspaper. I feel he could have elaborated more about his overseas experiences as they were interesting, but they took up from one paragraph to one page...oh well, I guess that is another book. He meets some interesting characters on the way, but because of the nature of his quest, nothing is permanent. I thought he hiked in a most sensible manner as every so often he would rent a motel/cabin, get a good meal in a local cafe, and take a shower/bath to clean off all the accumulated crud, and stop in to see past friends in their homes (which were on the way) and stay for a day or two. He accomplished lhis goal and derived great satisfaction in doing so and then wrote a book about it.
Rating: 
Summary: The begining of life
Review: Living the vicinty of NYC, i am always amazed at the people i see every day. It has been a dream of mine to conquer the AT. But for a man in retirement, to due such a venture, is an inspiration. The authors ability to bring his past ventures in to simular standing is also a great asset to the books adventures. We all want to know how it comes about.
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