Frederic Gross is a French Professor of Philosophy, or, as Carole Cadwalladr refers to him in her Guardian article of 2014, Frederic Gros: why going for a walk is the best way to free your mind, a philosopher of walking. The Guardian article suggests that his book, A Philosophy of Walking, was a surprise best seller. Cadwalladr meets him for an interview in Paris's Bois de Vincennes, where they have planned a walk. She finds him of a nervous disposition and wondering why his book has attracted such attention. Cadwalladr reminds us that the book is an examination of the philosophy of various thinkers for whom walking was central to their work - Nietzsche, Rimbaud, Kant, Rousseau and Thoreau. Interestingly she points out that none of his subjects are women, but is not sure if that's because women don't walk or don't think!!! (???) The book also discusses Gros's own thoughts on the subject. Cadwalladr feels that it is a passionate affirmation of the simple life, and joy in simple things. She argues that it is beautifully written: clear, simple and precise and the opposite of most academic writing. I would agree with both of these statements; I found it a very enjoyable read and it gave me further interesting insights into walking. Gros says that the philosophy of walking is the philosophy of everyday life. It still looks at the questions of eternity, solitude, time and space, but based on experience. On the basis of very simple, very ordinary things. He argues in the interview that for the philosophers he discusses walking was not just a distraction from their work, it was the condition of their work.
Gros begins his book with the statement that walking is not a sport; there is no result, no time. He argues that walking is the best way to go more slowly than any other method that has been found. This I agree with and from my point of view is very important in order to be able to notice the close detail of nature. Gros tells us that Nietzsche was a remarkable, tireless walker. He says that he walked as others worked and he worked while he was walking. He tells us that Nietzsche argued that We write only with the hand, but we write well 'only with our feet'. This is true from my experience, not writing but thinking things through while out walking. Nietzsche said that if he walked for several days and lives in a landscape, he slowly takes possession of it. This is very reminiscent of Nan Shepherd's philosophy in The Living Mountain. Gros tells us that a an important lesson is that in walking an authentic sign of assurance is slowness and that haste and speed accelerate time which passes more quickly; two hours of hurry shorten a day. He emphasises that one of the secrets of walking is a slow approach to landscapes as it renders them familiar.
Gros tells us that American naturalist, philosopher and writer, Henry David Thoreau observed repeatedly that silence taught him more than the company of others and remarked especially on the silence of woodlands. Jean Jacques Rousseau, Gros says, claimed to be incapable of thinking properly, of composing, creating or finding inspiration except when walking and coined the term Homo Viator - walking man. Rebecca Solnit in Wanderlust also agrees with this point.
At one point Gros talks about humans being 'busy': busy, busy, busy, but always having to do something not to 'be'. To quote a good friend of mine a Human Doing rather than a Human Being. For me it is important in life just to be sometimes and then we can slow down and appreciate the close fine detail of nature. Gros points out that you are doing nothing when you walk, nothing but walking. But having nothing to do but walk makes it possible to recover the pure sensation of 'being'. To marvel at the beauty of the day, the brightness of the sun, the grandeur of the trees, the blue of the sky. To this I would add the intricate close-up detail of nature: the beauty of a lichen covered rock, or a moss encrusted tree trunk, the floor of a wood, the detail of a fern or the beauty of a feather. Gros goes on to say that the body becomes steeped in the earth it treads and thus, gradually, it stops being in the landscape: it becomes the landscape. Gros asks the rhetorical question what profit is gained from walking. He answer that there is none: nothing is produced, no social service is rendered and in that respect walking is thoroughly useless and sterile. Nevertheless the benefit to our lives is immense. When discussing Thoroeau, Gros points out that for Thoreau the American Wilderness is located in the west before him. It is the possibility of the future. For him the wilderness is not the night of European memory, but the morning of the world and humanity and this is where he is coming from in the famous quote 'The west of which I speak is but another name for the wild; and what I have been preparing to say is that in wildness is the preservation of the world.'
Gros discusses the pleasure of walking and says that in walking you find these moments of pure pleasure around encounters. The scent of blackberries or myrtle, the gentle warmth of an early summer sun, the freshness of a stream. Something never known before. In this way walking permits, in bright bursts, the clearance of a path to feeling in discreet quantities: a handful of encounters on the way. He says that joy is experienced in walking, understood as the affect linked to an activity. The same fundamental idea can be found, he says, in Aristotle and Spinoza: joy is the accompaniment to an affirmation. That is why joy, unlike pleasure, increases with repetition and is enriched. He talks about relaxation at the end of a day's walking. Of taking the weight off one's legs, satisfying hunger simply, having a quiet drink and contemplating the declining daylight. I totally empathise with this statement and another joy, for me, especially of winter walking in mountains at the end of a day is the twinkle of lights coming on in the valley and anticipation of relaxation that is to come. There is nothing like that first pint in the pub at the end of a long day. Gros reminds us that Arthur Rimbaud describes this in his poem At the Green Inn ' Blissfully happy, I stuck out my legs under the green table....'
Gros talks of the Urban Flaneur who does experience walking, but in a way far removed from Nietzsche or Thoreau. The Flaneur appeared at a time when the city had acquired enough scale to become a landscape. Baudelaean sauntering a number of descendants, he says: surrealists Louis Aragon and Butte-Chaumont and Andre Breton and later situationist drift theorised by Guy Debord.
Gros goes on to say that Wordsworth is an unavoidable personage in any history of walking, many experts considering him the authentic originator of the long expedition. He was the first - at a time when walking was the lot of the poor, vagabonds and highwaymen - to conceive of the walk as the poetic act, a communion with nature, fulfillment of the body and contemplation of the landscape.
Cadwalladr, C. (2014) Frederic Gros: Why Going for a Walk is the Best Way to Free Your Mind Gaurdian [online] Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/20/frederic-gros-walk-nietzsche-kant [Accessed 27.06.16]
Gros, F. (2014) A Philosophy of Walking, London, Verso
Solnit, R. (2014) Wanderlust: A History of Walking London, Granta
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