Product Description

Overweight, overworked, and disenchanted, Kerkeling was an unlikely candidate to make the arduous pilgrimage across the Pyrenees to the Spanish shrine of St. James, a 1,200-year-old journey undertaken by nearly 100,000 people every year. But he decided to get off the couch and do it anyway. Lonely and searching for meaning along the way, he began the journal that turned into this utterly frank, engaging book. Filled with unforgettable characters, historic landscapes, and Kerkeling's self-deprecating humor, I'm Off Then is an inspiring travelogue, a publishing phenomenon, and a spiritual journey unlike any other.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28556 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00" h x 5.50" w x 8.50" l, .73 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781416553878
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
The 500-mile route along the Camino Frances, from the base of the Pyrenees to the shrine of St. James at Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain, has afforded a sacred pilgrimage to Christians for centuries, and German comedian Kerkeling, somewhat whimsically, resolved to hike it. At 36, a self-described pudgy couch potato who suffered some health problems, Kerkeling, wanting to know who God is, set out along the route in the summer of 2001 with an overheavy knapsack only to nearly give up at the first pass. There are nearly 40 stops along the way (helpfully laid out on a map insert), and chapter by chapter, Kerkeling chronicles nearly every one. Pilgrims must get their credencial del peregrino (passport) stamped at official hostels, usually dreary bunk-packed dorms, as they go, but Kerkeling, a fastidious German craving privacy and hot baths, mostly chooses to stay in hotels. As well, he jumped into cars and trains whenever his feet were smarting. Encounters with other pilgrims enliven this travel account, especially the two English-speaking ladies who accompanied him toward the end; as they approached Santiago, they all felt emotionally uplifted. While the author is better known in Germany and his antics somewhat lost in translation, his emotionally probing narrative develops depth and a touching sincerity. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author
Hape Kerkeling, one of Europe's most popular comedic entertainers, is the winner of the Karl Valentin Prize for Humor, the Chatwin Award for Best Travel Book of the Year, and numerous other prizes.  I'm Off, Then, his first book, has become a bestselling sensation in Germany.  He lives in Berlin.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
June 9, 2001

Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port

I'm off then!" I didn't tell my friends much more than that before I started out -- just that I was going to hike through Spain. My friend Isabel had only this to say: "Have you lost your mind?"

I'd decided to go on a pilgrimage.

My grandma Bertha always knew something like this would happen: "If we don't watch out, our Hans Peter is going to fly the coop someday!"

I guess that's why she always fed me so well.

I could be lying on my favorite red couch right now, comfortably sipping a hot chocolate and savoring a luscious piece of cheesecake, but instead I'm shivering in some café at the foot of the Pyrenees in a tiny medieval town called Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. An enchanting postcard idyll, minus the sun.

Unable to make a complete break with civilization, I sit down right by the main road. Although I've never even heard of this place before, there seems to be an unbelievable amount of traffic whizzing down the road.

On the rickety bistro table lies my nearly blank diary, which seems to have as hearty an appetite as I. I've never felt the need to capture my life in words before -- but since this morning I've had the urge to record every detail of my unfolding adventure in my little orange notebook.

So here begins my pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.

The journey will take me along the Camino Francés, one of the official European Cultural Routes. I'll be trekking over the Pyrenees, across the Basque country, the Navarre and Rioja regions, Castile and León, and Galicia, and after about five hundred miles I will stand right in front of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. According to legend, this is the location of the grave of Saint James, the great missionary for the Iberian people.

Just thinking about the long trek makes me want to take a long nap.

And here's the amazing part: I'll hike it! The entire length. I will hike. I have to read that again to believe it. I won't be alone, of course: I'll be toting my twenty-four-and-a-quarter-pound, fireengine red backpack. That way, if I keel over along the route -- and there is a real chance of that happening -- at least they can see me from the sky.

At home I don't even take the stairs to the second floor, yet starting tomorrow I'll have to cover between 12 and 18 miles a day to reach my destination in about 35 days. The couch potato takes to the road! It's a good thing none of my friends knows exactly what I'm up to. If I have to call the whole thing off by tomorrow afternoon it won't be too embarrassing.

This morning I took my first wary peek at the start of the official Camino de Santiago. Uphill from the city gate, on the other side of the turrets and walls of Saint-Jean, is the entrance to the Spanish Pyrenees, and the first segment of the Camino Francés is marked by a steep cobblestone path.

I see a gentleman of around seventy who has difficulty walking, yet is evidently quite determined to undertake this pilgrim's marathon. I watch him in disbelief for a good five minutes until he slowly disappears into the morning fog.

My guidebook -- I chose a wafer-thin one, since I'll have to lug it with me over the snowcapped peaks of the Pyrenees -- says that for centuries, people have undertaken the journey to Saint James when they have no other way of going on with their lives -- figuratively or literally.

Since I have just dealt with sudden hearing loss and surgery to remove my gallbladder -- two ailments that I think are perfectly suited to a comedian -- it's high time for me to readjust my own thinking. It's time for a pilgrimage.

I paid the price for ignoring the inner voice that had been hollering "TAKE A BREAK!" for months. When I forged ahead with my work, my body took revenge and shut down my hearing. An eerie experience! I was so furious at my own folly that my gallbladder exploded, and the next thing I knew, I was back in the emergency room with the symptoms of a heart attack.

I finally paid attention and drifted into the travel section of a well-stocked bookstore in Düsseldorf, looking for a suitable destination with one thought in mind: I've got to get away! It was high time for a time-out.

The first book I happened upon was Bert Teklenborg's The Joy of the Camino de Santiago.

What an outrageous title! Eating chocolate can be a joyful experience -- or maybe drinking whiskey -- but can a route bring you joy? Even so, I bought this presumptuously titled book. And devoured it in a single night.

The way to Santiago de Compostela is one of the three great Christian pilgrims' trails -- the others are the Via Francigena from Canterbury to Rome and the pilgrimage to Jerusalem from anywhere.

According to legend, the Santiago trail was used by the Celts in pre-Christian times as a path of initiation. Veins of electromagnetic power in the earth and lines of energy (called ley lines) are said to be aligned with the Milky Way along the entire trail, all the way to Santiago de Compostela (which may mean "field of stars"), and even beyond that to Finisterre at the Atlantic coast in Spain (then considered "the end of the world"). The Catholic Church kindheartedly forgives the sins of people who complete a pilgrimage to Santiago. But that's not my primary incentive; I'm drawn to the idea that the pilgrimage will help me find my way to God and thus to myself. That's certainly worth a try.

I spend the next few days in a near trance, scoping out my itinerary and buying a backpack, a sleeping bag, a sleeping pad, and a pilgrim's passport, but once I'm on the flight to Bordeaux, I emerge from my daze and hear myself say out loud: "Am I nuts?"

It's been two decades since I first visited Bordeaux. Perhaps I've been in a bad mood ever since? I arrived there for the second time, only to discover that it is just as ugly and gray as it was when I visited at sixteen. I decided to spend the night at the Atlantic Hotel, a stately neoclassical building across the street from the train station. This is meant to be a consolation for the coming five weeks of dilapidated dormitories filled with snoring Americans and belching Frenchmen and no decent sanitary facilities.

It turns out I would have been better off in a dormitory. I was greeted with a friendly smile, shown to a drab little hole-in-the-wall, and quoted an exorbitant price. Instead of a window, the room offered harsh blue fluorescent lighting. I didn't complain, but I could feel my nonexistent gallbladder acting up!

If Bordeaux had been nicer, I might not have continued on.

But there is nothing to keep me in the room, since the last guy to sleep here had the good sense to empty out the minibar. So, out I go, back to the train station.

In the gigantic main hall, I marshal my high school French to issue this halfway decent sentence: "Mademoiselle, one ticket from Bordeaux to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, one way, second class, please." The charming lady behind the counter beams at me.

"À quelle heure, monsieur?" -- Ah, yes; at what time do I want to travel? That's a good question.

"At about seven a.m." I decide on the spot, which is how I do things.

"What was the name of that place again?"

Great! None of the maps I studied listed a train connection to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port -- so there must not be one! I mumble the name again while she pores over enormous timetables from past centuries with a quizzical look on her face, then announces, to my complete surprise, "Monsieur, there is no such place in France."

I am as flummoxed as if she'd just claimed that God is dead.

"Waaait a minute," I say, "the place does exist, but maybe the railroad doesn't go there. Surely there's an interstate bus or something of that sort." The lady politely stands her ground: "No, no, the place does not exist. Believe me." Naturally I don't. There's a principle at stake here!

After an excruciating couple of minutes, she discovers that the place exists after all! And there's even a convenient set of connections. I feel as if I'd wished this place into existence. Maybe I'll have the same good luck with God?

I leave the train station with my ticket in hand, wondering what I'm actually doing here, whether any of this makes sense. I look up, only to see a huge billboard advertising the latest technological gadget with the catchphrase "Do you know who you really are?" My answer is quick and clear-cut: "Non, pas du tout!"

I decide to give that some thought once I'm back in my hotel room. I leaf listlessly through a tattered city guide to Bordeaux to find out what I missed last week, and come across another version of the same ad campaign. This one declares, "Welcome to Reality!" Touché!

My room hasn't sprouted any windows since I left. My cell phone charger doesn't fit into the French outlet, and as a matter of fact I would like to go back home already -- or should I go on? I opt for going on. Then I fall asleep.

When I arrive this morning, Saint-Jean is already packed with pilgrims of all ages and nationalities. The city evidently reaps a handsome profit from pilgrim business. Rustic walking sticks and scallop-shell pendants -- the pilgrims' insignia -- are sold on every corner. There are kitschy statues of saints, pilgrims' lunch platters -- think French fries with meat course -- and hiking guides in every conceivable modern language. I opt for a simple walking stick, although it seems much too long, much too heavy, and much too unwieldy.

On the way to the local pilgrims' hostel I turn over in my mind how to say stamp in French. In Spanish it's sello -- that's written in the pilgrim's passport, the credencial del peregrino. In the entryway the word finally occurs to me: Timbre! Naturellement. I've got my sentence formulated in my head: J'ai besoin d'un timbre. Then I hear the elderly gentleman at the table speaking Oxford English while stamping the passports of a young four-man band from Idaho and assigning them beds one through four. It turns out he's British and spends his summer vacations here in this little office, endorsing pilgrims' passports and assigning b...

Customer Reviews

I'm Off Then: Losing and Finding Myself on the Camino de Santiago
I LOVED this book. As a Santiago pilgrim myself (2008, from St Jean), I've been awaiting the English translation of this famous German's camino book. Nearly every German I met on the Camino had read the book. For some, it was the reason they were walking the 800 km journey. I'd heard from some that they'd read it and were unimpressed, too.

So I was very pleasantly surprised when I couldn't put it down. It's a page turner - mostly due to the humble, self-effacing style of Hape Kerkeling, but also due to his unfailing ability to describe with truth and pathos what his eyes see.

A refreshing aspect of the book is that Kerkeling does include details about the camino itself. He clearly walked most of it (unlike our dear Paulo C) and endured the hardships (though he skipped all but a few albergues). His Camino starts in solitude, but as he walks he opens himself to the scenery and the people and you can feel his soul expand.

I've recommended the book to all my Camino friends and would recommend it to anyone who's considering walking the Way of St. James. A thanks to the translator (though I'm still not sure what she means by a "Spanish biscuit." Hopefully she's not referring to the omnipresent Spanish tortilla - hardly a biscuit).

For good measure I'm off to read this great book a second time. Thank you, Hape, and buen camino.

A Memorable Journey for Armchair Travelers
I just returned from a most memorable 500+ mile long journey across the French Alps to Camino de Santiago and I never left my chair except to refill my wine glass. German comedian and author Hape Kerkeling took me along on his pilgrimage through the pages of I'm Off Then: Losing and Finding Myself on the Camino de Santiago. Right from the start Kerkeling confesses to being an unlikely pilgrim...more of a couch potato than an adventurer. I too must admit that when I began this literary trek with Hape, I had serious doubts about whether or not I would stick to the journey. For me, a walk means circling the mall three times or a sunset stroll on the beach. I do not relish the thoughts of "roughing it." I was not at all certain that this was "my kind of travel book."

I was wrong. As we traveled the pages across the snowcapped Pyrenees, through Basque country, Navarra, Rioja and all the way to Galicia, I discovered that this journey was really about self-reflection and self-discovery. The more I read, the more it reinforced my strong belief that when we travel with an open mind and an open heart, we quickly learn that different cultures, beliefs and traditions are not wrong...simply different...and we embrace the differences. We also discover that as human beings we are much more like our fellow pilgrims than we are different. And, as Hape point out: "Sometimes even the most annoying people mean well."

I particularly enjoyed Hape's self-deprecating humor, his keen perceptions about the people he met and traveled with along the way and his pithy insights (some profound, some playful) the end of each chapter. My personal favorite; "Open your heart and canoodle with the day." (Looking up the definition, I quickly figured out that canoodle is a hip way to say "Make love to the day.")

First released in German, I'm Off Then quickly became a best seller. No doubt, the English version will also reap awards and significantly increase Hape Kerkeling's fan club.

Review by Lynne R. Christen
Author: Travel Wisdom

Compelling and engaging
I first read about this book a few months ago in Out Magazine [they named it, along with Terry Galloway's "Mean Little deaf Queer", as a book to look forward to] and promptly forgot about it until my friend Austin brought a copy to book group thinking I'd enjoy it. What can I say? Austin knows me pretty well; I loved it!

Each year tens of thousands of people make the pilgrimage from St Jean Pied de Port to the Santiago de Compestela (or The Way of St James) in Northern Spain; this is one mans story. Never preachy or sanctimonious, "I'm off Then" is immediately engaging and compelling throughout. Hape Kerkeling is an internationally known German comedian, and he relates the experiences of his spiritual trek in a brisk and congenial manner. The whole is nothing more than a series of vignettes, each relating the day's events, the places and people encountered along the road. The author communicates no great epiphany, and yet the reader is moved to accept that the journey did have a profound and lasting effect on him.

I suppose the highest praise I could give this volume is to say I enjoyed travelling along vicariously with Hape and his friends; I felt a part of, and would have been more than content to continue along with them a while longer.