Werner Herzog commits to walking from Munich to Paris in the belief that his dying mentor, Lotte Eisner, will stay alive as long as he journeys to her on foot. His journal powerfully captures the brutal weather and bitter cold. Herzog breaks into homes and other buildings to make it through the nights, and at times he appears to go mad as he chronicles his surreal thoughts.
It is 1974, and the book gives you a sense of how much the world has changed as we experience with him the roads, poverty, farms, streams, forests, and isolated towns whose residents eye him warily. Herzog takes you along on his odyssey emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
Another benefit of reading this book is that it inspired me to watch several of his incredible films at the same time. One of my favorite lines could only come from a filmmaker: “Only if this were a film would I consider it real.”
I also found this line from a review interesting: “Beautifully designed and emotionally impressive, Of Walking in Ice is the first in a color-coded series of remarkable yet long-forgotten titles being republished by Free Association.”
Herzog goes to extremes in his art and life, in the best possible way. Read an excerpt of Werner Herzog’s Of Walking in Ice on Vulture.com.
Find Walking in Ice by Werner Herzog on Audiobooks, Amazon/Audible, and Bookstores who are not Amazon.
You also might enjoy Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room by Geoff Dyer as well as “Henry Miller’s Influence and His Favorite Books.“
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