This is from the last page:
Even you, that, having begun to read this book, could get no further than page 47, and especially you who have read it manfully in spite of the flesh, I love you all…
-Hilaire Belloc, The Path to Rome, p.441
“Read it manfully in spite of the flesh”. He’s talking about me. I was disappointed in the book. I kept waiting for it to get really interesting, or funny, or profound, or… something and it never did. It showed hints a few times but then it quickly returned to more description of the countryside.
Oh well. I read it for a book club that I’m a part of with my friends up north (that all happen to be traditionalist Roman Catholics). The club meetings themselves are a blast. Perhaps I’ll find what I was missing when we take a look at it (over drinks) this weekend.
The part I found most interesting I think was how primitive much of Europe still was, even only 100 years ago! Belloc is constantly having to find someone to ferry him across rivers and help him through mountain paths. Why? There are virtually no bridges! Grand suspension bridges like the one in Brooklyn are standing by this time but there is really only one developed highway through all of Italy. We have electricity and cars and airplanes. But MOST of the country might as well be back in 1000 A.D. Everyone is still cooking over fires and riding in horses and carts and farming in their vineyards the exact same way they have been for centuries.