Zoe, a sometime artist, is from California. Martin, an engineer, is from Yorkshire. Both have ended up in a picturesque Cluny, in central France. Both are struggling to come to terms with their recent past -for Zoe, the death of his husband and for Martin, a messy divorce-.
Looking to make a new start, each sets out alone to walk 2.000 kilometres from Cluny to Santiago, in northwestern Spain, in the footsteps of pilgrims who have walked the Camino - the Way- for centuries.
Two Steps Forward is about renewal -physical, psychological and spiritual. It's about what you decide to keep, what you choose to leave behind and what you rediscover.
Ready to know about the Camino through this wise, funny and romantic novel, in which Martin's and Zoe's stories are told by husband-and-wife writing team Graeme Simsion -the author of The Rosie Project- and Anne Buist? Let's walk!
"Destiny speaks to those who choose to hear".
"The Chemin will change you".
"The Chemin is not a conventional walk".
"Only to things are certain about the Chemin. The first is ampoules. The second is that when you arrive at Santiago cathedral, you will cry".
"This is your first lesson of the Chemin. Take what is offered. You will have chances to help others and you will take those chances also".
"This shell will go to Santiago. And when you finish your journey, you will find ... what it is you have lost".
"First lesson of the Camino: everyone does the Camino their own way".
"Do not walk in jeans: that would be lesson number ...?".
"Keep an open mind. Go with the flow. The Camino walks you".
"Nature always wears the colours of the spirit" - Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote in the book.
"Was this the sort of inspiration I was looking for? My experience of the last two weeks was of finding comfort in the simplicity of the daily routine, of having no time to think about anything but staying on the path, finding somewhere to sleep and washing my change of clothes -not even having to choose what to wear. I had rediscovered the pleasures of food, and of sleep that comes from exhaustion and leaves no room for rumiation. The Camino existed on a different frequency to the rest of life -but part of me relished the difference, embraced it like a lost friend".
"Almost as soon as I disembarked (from Hendaye to Hondarribia), I realised that the Camino, no longer the Chemin, would be different in more than the name. A crude yellow arrow painted in a concrete wall pointed the way, and a series of similar markers took me into town and past my first tapas bar".
"After finding my way through the Pyrenees, the abundance of signposts on the Camino was almost insulting. Stone markers emblazoned with the scallop-shell symbol gave a stronger sense of permanence to the Camino than the stuck-on squares in France. They were supplemented by the crudely painted yellow arrows which I had thought were a local anomaly in Hondarribia. The French, and for the matter the English, would not have countenanced such eyesores".
"The clash between the arrows and the otherwise pleasant bucolic environment dramatically expressed the two different mindsets one might bring to the walk: contemplation of nature or focus on getting to Santiago. The journey or the destination".
(Martin): "An hour later there was a text message (from the Germans): Please, join us for dinner at Arzak restaurant. We will meet in hotel foyer 9 p.m. If their choice of restaurant was an indication of the depth of their pockets, then things were looking up. A quick search informed me that I would be dining in one of the ten finest restaurants in the world. In my spare pair of walking pants. Unless I wanted to surprise them with the blue dress".
(Zoe): "Now I was about to go to dinner in the company of a British adventurer with a hint of a Harrison Ford smirk, with whom I'd just spent two hours talking art and architecture at the Guggenheim in Bilbao. On -let's face it - a date" / (Martin): "I felt I'd managed to invite Zoe to dinner without giving the impression of it being a date".
"Why am I walking? I asked myself, but no answer came. I got another glass of rosé".
"What had I learned? Monsieur Chevalier had asked. I had said I could walk. Now I couldn't, so maybe this was the lesson -not to be proud; not to take anything for granted, as I had with Keith. But was it also a lesson to still have faith enough in myself to be independent? It was a confused message, which may have had something to do with the third glass of rosé".
"The Camino expands and contracts like a concertina; people move at their own pace, but with rest days and injuries they turn up again in a café or bar, at the gîte or in the bakery. There are hugs exchanged, drinks bought, stories shared. Each time you know that you might see them tomorrow -or never again".
"The Camino whispers its magic, and around the next bend are more reunions and new friends -and maybe the answer he seeks".
"Two (of the Spanish men) spoke good English -the tall, serious Felipe, and Marco, who had those dark good looks and bedroom eyes that give Latino men their reputation".
"By Lugo I had put the whole Bernhard-Brazilian mess out of my mind. The beauty of walking alone on the Camino, when you are fit, is that you feel one with nature: time is suspended and everything else fades away".
"Everyone falls in love with the wrong people, but you don't want to have to defend them to your parents, because they'll just tell you why they're wrong for you ... which you know already. So, you tell them you're not in love".
"(Zoe): So why did you start it (the Camino)? - (Renata): To contemplate. That's what it's supposed to be about, isn't it? - (Zoe): About anything in particular? - (Renata): Life".
"(Zoe): Does not play well with others. - (Renata): Sorry? - (Zoe): It's a thing teachers say at school. About kids who are ... independent. A joke when we use it for adults".
"(Zoe): I'm still missing something. - (Renata): What does it feel like? The thing you are missing? The gap, the hole? - (...) - (Renata): This was maybe the most corageous thing you have done. The best thing. The story that defines you. That's why you chose it to tell me" - (Zoe): But it had ... consequences - (Renata): Of course. Always big things have consequences. Pain, and things lost maybe forever. But this is why you are here, is it not? You came to France to find Camille. But you are afraid to do ... to be what you were then. I think that for you is the hole".
"Every bar had stamps -sellos- for my credencial. In the last sixty miles, the official requirement was to have two stamps a day instead of one: a half-hearted attempt to frustrate the taki drivers".
"Since she put it like that, I had little choice. She was right, of course, this woman who I had criticised for refusing my offers of meals and accomodation. But I needed the time she spent in the bar to push aside, barely, the ignominy of riding in my cart, pulled by -yes, it did make a difference- a woman. I thought the Camino had taught me all the lessons it had in store for me, but it had saved a hard one for the end".
"(Zoe): When I returned to Boente in a taxi with the welding apparatus and the box of parts that looked like stuff you'd put out for the junk collection, Martin was not around".
"Martin stood awkwardly, pulled me to him and kissed me. Whatever it might mean beyond today, in the moment it felt right. Syncrony".
"Making love never quite works the first time, and I was concerned not to hurt his knee, but the connection was there in the way he cared about how I was dealing with it, the concern for what I wanted".
"(Zoe): Fuck. I stop asking the universe for help, and take responsibility myself, and this happens. I'm not stopping.- Zoe took the handle again. At that point, the universe answered".
"In the end I believed not just in fate, with all its capriciousness, but in the special power of the Camino. It reminded me that sometimes there are things we cannot do alone".
"We cheat on many things in life - said Fabiana. But some things matter more than others".
"To know all is to forgive all".
I just finished the book and I enjoyed it very much, like the previous The Rosie Project, The Rosie Effect and The Best of Adam Sharp from Graeme Simsion. Funny reading (loved the brainy sense of humor that both authors share), romantic story and addictive argument, with sudden shifts in the narration that keep you totally gripped. Emotionally very intense and an epic ending guaranteed, one of those holding back tears. I'm really looking forward to seeing all the characters in the big screen; not only Zoe and Martin, but also Camille, Julia or Sarah and specially all the pilgrims they meet along the way, like Monsieur Chevalier, the Brazilians, the Spanish group, Madame Chaud Lapin, Todd or Bernhard and his father.
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