Published: March 9, 2014
I’ve just seen a lovely review by E&T Magazine:
Nicholas Brealey Walking the Woods and the Water: In Patrick Leigh Fermor’s Footsteps from the Hook of Holland to the Golden Horn
There’s a certain sadness about most ‘following-in-the-footsteps’ travelogues – a recent trend that is threatening to become a new full-scale literary genre. Sadness and repetitiveness, for it is hard to avoid excessive, at times over-excessive, quoting from the original.
Having turned the last page of ‘Walking the Woods and the Water’, I am pleased to say that none of the above applies to this delightful, balanced and extremely well-written book. Hunt does try to retrace the 18-year-old Patrick Leigh Fermor’s footsteps across 1933 Europe – from Holland to Constantinople – as much as he can, but he seldom resorts to direct quotes from the classic preferring to convey the latter’s experiences descriptively, often by overlaying them with his own attitudes and observations. Hunt’s narrative therefore, while carrying an inevitable retro touch and a lot of affection for his literary mentor (to whom he often refers as “Paddy” – a token not of familiarity, but of warmth), is never self-effacing. Nor it is in any way self-promotional. Fans of Patrick Leigh Fermor among E&T readers (I am sure there are many) will be attracted to Hunt’s powerful descriptions of Europe’s altered and ever-changing industrial landscape: roads, factories, power stations and means of transport – particularly as he is walking through Germany and the Ruhr area. In short, an impressive and timely effort. A worthy literary tribute to a classic of British travel writing.
Vitali Vitaliev