Of Walking in Ice

A few days before Bruce Chatwin's death in January 1989 he asked Werner Herzog to visit him.  They shared a belief in the restorative powers of walking and Chatwin was convinced that Herzog had healing powers.  Too weak now to rise from his bed, Chatwin nevertheless longed to be out on the road again.  Herzog's account of their conversation appears in Nicholas Shakespeare's biography Bruce Chatwin (1999).  'He looked down at himself and he saw the legs were only spindles and he looked at me in this very lucid moment and he said: "I'm never going to walk again." He said: "Werner, I'm dying." And I said, "Yes I am aware of that." and then he said: "You must carry my rucksack, you are the one who must carry it."  And I said: "Yes, I will proudly do that."'

In 1978 Herzog had published a short book, Vom Gehen im Eis (Of Walking in Ice) that had particularly impressed Chatwin.  'At the end of November 1974', Herzog wrote in its preface, 'a friend from Paris called and told me that Lotte Eisner was seriously ill and would probably die.  I said that this must not be, not at this time, German cinema could not do without her now, we would not permit her death.  I took my jacket, a compass and a duffel bag with the necessities.  My boots were so solid and new that I had confidence in them.  I set off on the most direct route to Paris, in full faith, believing that she would stay alive if I came on foot.'  Herzog set off from Munich and arrived twenty days later, exhausted, to sit by her bedside.  Lotte Eisner made a recovery and lived on until 1983. 

I have created a map that tries to give a visual impression of this elemental journey, through snow and ice (white), rain and water (blue), mist and fog (grey) and the occasional burst of sunshine (yellow).  You can click on each square for a short quote from the book and imagine them read in Herzog's familiar voice: 'The snow lies wet on the fields, darkness comes, all lies barren...'  The black circles record the places he found to sleep: a barn, a stable, a few inns, abandoned buildings and empty holiday homes.  It would of course be possible to derive many alternative maps from the text, marking, for example, moments of physical pain and exhaustion, or fleeting, strange encounters with Herzogian characters, or those points in the narrative where the account of his walk dissolves into descriptions of dreams.

'A rainbow before me all at once fills me with the greatest confidence.  What a sign it is, over and in front of him who walks.  Everyone should walk.'

- Werner Herzog, Thursday 5th December, 1974