Éloge de la marche, David Le Breton

“Walking means opening up to the world. Often we go on a walk to recover our centre of gravity after our inner selves have come under attack. Walking is an act of transgression, a powerful affirmation of freedom.” Il mondo a piedi (Walking the world) presents a new way of travelling, it is “a call to pleasure, rather than a guide of what to see and do. It quietly celebrates the joy of thinking and walking.”
Reading this book is like “going on a simple trip” around the world, accompanied by original historic and contemporary personalities, such as writers, philosophers and artists who share their sensory experiences and reflections on travelling and walking.
We travel, or better, we walk with Breton from the Gare du Nord to Tibet. We scale mountain passes in Nepal, cross forests in Quebec, leave the shores of Lake Tanganyika for Zanzibar and journey down the Ganges to Benares. Then, drunk with a thousand different sensations, when we finally reach the end of our journey, Compostela, Katmandu or simply our own home, we are ready to start again.

David Le Breton
Éloge de la marche
Paris: Métailié, 2014
ISBN: 9782864243519
French-language Edition
176 p.