As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie lee

Author: Laurie Lee

Title: As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 1979

Pages: 224

Genre: Autobiography 

 

     Abandoning the Cotswolds village that raised him, the young Laurie Lee walks to London. There he makes a living laboring and playing the violin. But, deciding to travel further afield and knowing only the Spanish phrase for 'Will you please give me a glass of water?', he heads for Spain. With just a blanket to sleep under and his trusty violin, he spends a year crossing Spain, from Vigo in the north to the southern coast. Only the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War puts an end to his extraordinary peregrinations . . .

     So I decided to continue my exploration of the world of Laurie lee this time with As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning. For me, the ideas contained within these pages have been ones that have long stuck to me. Possible as far back as I can remember. This desire to go out from these small valleys and explore the world. With no set idea as to how or wear but this deep longing to be placing one foot in front of another and to never stop. Over the years I have devoured such books always looking for the next place to explore and adventure to be had. And for the most part, these books like As I Walked Out have been on the older side. When it wasn't as easy as hopping online and simply booking everything. The getting there was always part of the adventure or maybe it was the entire point. And whilst I have been lucky enough to have traveled here and there, there is still a part of me that longs for a time lost now where things were not so simple, and setting out on the road was also an exploration in learning about places you couldn't simply look up. But that may just be rose tint glasses for a time I never got to experience first hand. 

     Once again Lee brings a dream-like state to his work. We are spared I'm sure a great many of the more unpleasant or is often the case boring moments from his travels on the dusty road. What we get are the hazy sun-drenched moments as he ambles his way across the country. Along the way, he throws us a few moments to get the pulse racing and to add to the grandness of his travels I still feel that was never really the point. But it is all too easy to slip into his world. As we moved from the fog of London across the ocean I could feel the change in temperature that very heat beating down on my neck. And whilst Lee may not use an entire dictionary to describe his surroundings we can still build a picture of Spain that was. A place that seems to move at a much slower pace than that which the world demands of us now.  I suppose he is in no hurry to get anywhere. Much like many others of his time, they set out with no sort of a plan or time frame. Should money run low there were always ways to top it back up and continue on their travels. In the case of Lee, his trusty violin is always sure to see him through the next few days. There is a carefree feeling that seems to flow when you are young. One this author seems to have been able to capture in its very essence and distal onto the page. And unlike some of his contemporaries such as Kerouac, Lee would seem to be a little less troubling to a modern audience. 

     Once again with his work, this book is not exactly long in nature but he seems to have captured a time and a place in a most poetically beautiful way. We are treated here and there to a view of the world that is uniquely his own. Which may not have been exactly how it was but I feel there is nothing wrong with this. After all are we not looking for a little escapism even in what is supposed to hold dear to the truth. So far in both the books of his I have read he never seems to go to a place of pushing the reader.  We are instead treated as a companion as Lee tries to show us moments of a life well-traveled. Odd moments that he feels we would find some meaning in. Also, he never tries to make out that he is in any way better than those he happens to cross paths with. They are equals to be treated with respect just as much as our narrator even if they only last a few pages. It is this intoxicating mix that lives Lee's work off the pages and into the hearts and minds of those who read them. We are allowed if only for a short while to breathe in these heady fumes and bask in a life unencumbered by the bonds that bind us. This book goes to show us that one person's life can be another escapism. And whilst such works may not be to everyone's taste for me they are places I am happy to sit a willow in for a little while before returning to the life of nine to five.