The author, Bebe Bahrami, combines three pilgrimages in her book documenting her search for the meaning of the popular “Goose Game” which originated in the area of the Camino France´s. Bebe is an anthropologist exploring cultures that worship an Earth goddess, possibly a “Mother Goose.” Throughout her book, she points out many examples of statues and symbols showing pre-historic and pre-christian worship of an Earth mother. In Christian theology, the author believes, that this goddess has become the Madonna.
It’s an interesting topic, but I found almost 400 pages of detail about women with goose feet, women who were half snake and women with other unusual attributes, tucked away in the dark niches of ancient churches, just a little too much. Although, Bebe writes often about the people she meets, both pilgrims and locals, given her fluency in French and Spanish as well as English, there isn’t enough of the stories of other people to alleviate the repetitive references to the “Wild Goose.”
The author has a book contract for her final pilgrimage and hopes to transition from academia to freelance writing. I hope she succeeds because I found her writing style a little overworked. I think she is trying too hard to overcome the anthropologist, by adding too much descriptive detail in an effort to become a professional writer. One perfectly chosen word would have condensed several sentences of extraneous detail, which made for a tedious read. By all means read this book, if you are interested in the Goose Game, ancient cultures, medieval architecture and the challenges of a single woman’s solo pilgrimage.