![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Stevenson’s account of his chequered relationship with Modestine the donkey is both pithy – ‘she tried, as was her invariable habit, to enter every house and every courtyard. (He had a pressing need to earn money.) Now the genre has been badly abused, and anyone tempted to find a new gimmick (such as walking with a fridge) should go back to Travels with a Donkey and see how he did it – properly. Though I didn’t know it when I first read it, Stevenson had started a new tradition in travel literature – he had set out on his journey in order to write a book about it. His Travels with a Donkey filled me with romantic ideas – the independence of the lone explorer the rapport with natural beauty the almost sacred duty to record experiences. But Stevenson himself fitted my expectations of a dashing young adventurer, setting off alone in a foreign land. Stevenson’s donkey Modestine, on the other hand – ‘patient, elegant, the colour of an ideal mouse’ – was a comforting antidote, domestic and affectionate for all her perceived obstinacy. Many of the fictional characters who figured largest in my childhood were full of machismo, because they were in books filched from my brothers. The brown cover of her 1906 edition is faded with fingering, its pages frayed and loose from her rereadings. ![]() Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, Robert Louis Stevenson’s account of his walk through the mountains in 1878, was my mother’s favourite book, which automatically made it one of mine. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |