A Review by Richard Kayne
Travel Courier Magazine
August 1991
August Books
Even with a few months to go in 1991, I know that ON PILGRIMAGE
by Jini Fiennes (Sinclair-Stevenson, 16.95 pounds) will be my favourite
travel book of the year. The author, wearing another hat, is the
novelist Jennifer Lash, so she has an engaging way with words. Her
journey is an odyssey round the sacred shrines of France following the
old Pilgrim's Way to Santiago de Compostella in Galicia. There are
excellent reflective passages; brilliant asides are spiked with a spicy
mix of deep perception and a dry humourous philosophy. She takes
great joy in the incongruous. Mention must be made too of her love
of nature; she notices what the dandelions are doing and where the foxgloves
grow. This gives her book a fragile and intensely human quality.
So few people nowadays are willing to accept their own vulnerability.
She is. Faith and the search for it is about taking that first brave
step into the unknown. One is with her on her quest for a lost faith
and one cheers her on. Lively read, lovely book.