Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of The Pilgrimage

The Pilgrimage
katknit avatar reviewed on + 355 more book reviews


Another of those "path to enlightenment" accounts (ala Shirley MacLaine, Lynn Andrews, Carlos Castenada) in which the candidate is put through a harrowing and confusing series of trials by his enigmatic spiritual guide. The recognition of life's great truths, which the pilgrim has actually known all along but refused to acknowledge, is the ultimate goal and the way to know oneself and the purpose of one's life. That's what this book is about, with little information about what it is like to walk this famous route or arrive at the cathedral destination.
Described as dazzling and poetic, I wonder if something was lost in translation, as this reads in a somewhat sophomoric and clunky fashion. Books of this sort have their place, and for those who have not encountered any of them before, The Pilgrimage can open the mind.