The Sign of the Cross: Travels in Catholic Europe
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.79 (708 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0330373579 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 256 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-01-19 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Publishers Weekly Novelist and "collapsed Catholic" Toibin looks at Catholic rituals as practiced throughout Europe
A Customer said A good read, and thought-provoking too. This is a great book to read while traveling (it just got me through a trip home on a weekend when winter storms had disrupted airline schedules throughout the entire U.S.!). The chapters are short and fairly self-contained, but each is well-written and engrossing. There's a lot of variety -- from fairly straightforward travelogues such as the accounts of the author's visits to Rome, to highly personal essays on his family and his belated coming to grips with his father's early death. And he's the only ex-Catholic author I've read who's accurately described that odd, characteristic combination of lack of beli. Good Travel Book JAK For once my title actually means something!I did find this to be a good travel book in part because I've been to a lot of the places Toibin goes to.I will point out that the negative reviews are on to something.This is not a spiritually deep or moving book.Toibin is too detached from the subject to be able to deliver that but in fairness , I didn't sense he was trying to do that.Although I have to admit, I'm not sure what he was trying to do.If I was of a cynical bent, I'd say he was trying "expense" his travel costs for tax purposes.Toibins account of his "pilgrimage" to Santiago Compostella is downright fun. A Customer said Makes you want to follow the author's footsteps. Like all the best travel writing, The Sign of the Cross makes you want to visit the places Colm Toibin visits. He travels to out-of-the-way spots throughout Europe, usually during religious holidays. Toibin interacts with both government officials and ordinary people and evokes a feeling for the churches and festivals in a way that makes you wish you were tagging along with him. The book is a combination of travelogue, history, sociology, and personal reminiscence. Toibin is funny and a great prose stylist. You don't have to be religious to appreciate his story.
("Irish Times"). His journey led him into close contact with people from all walks of life, from priests to politicians, from the intellectually open to the spiritually bigoted. ("Daily Telegraph").. "Colm Toibin writes beautifully in a spare style that allows for plain description, high humour and effects that are carefully toned. ("Independent on Sunday"). He is at once an honest, uncertain pilgrim with a press card and a sense of devilment, and a son on an Oedipal trail". Between 1990 and 1994, Colm Toibin made a series of trips through Catholic Europe. "This book describing Colm Toibin's journey is written with the novelist's familiar clarity and wisdom. It is as much a record of the European Catholic psyche in different political climates as it is an introspective pilgrimage to see what stuff Toibin's own faith is made of". "A mixture of autobiography, travelogue and journalism which tantalizes the reader with what it withholds as much as it entertains and instructs with what it describes"The Sign of the Cross", like all good writing, is a treat". He then set down his impressions in this beautifully written book, filled with personal detail set within its historical context