By walking we escape the idea itself of identity, the desire to be someone, to have a name and a history...The freedom experienced when walking is about not being anyone because the body that walks has no history; it just has an eternal current of life. In A Philosophy of Walking, Frederic Gros charts the many different ways we get from A to B - the pilgrimage, the promenade, the protest march, the nature ramble - and shows what it tells us about ourselves.
He draws attention to other thinkers who also saw walking as a central part of their practice, and ponders over things like why Henry David Thoreau entered Walden forest in pursuit of the wilderness, the reason Rimbaud walked in a fury while Nerval rambled to cure his melancholy. We learn how Rousseau had to walk to think, Nietzsche in order to write, while Kant walked to distract himself from contemplation.
Brilliant, erudite, and always entertaining, Gros is certain to make you reconsider the everyday activity of walking.
