Library Books and Walking Books

Gros echoes Nietzsche's distrust of books that "smell of the library," as opposed, of course, to books, like Nietzsche's that were born of long walks in the open air.  As one who loves both books that smell of the library AND those that bring with them an outdoor breeze I don't really have a dog in this fight.  What is interesting to me is that a book titled "The Philosophy of Walking" contains (so far) little logical discourse and a great deal of subjective impression and reaction.  It's not a criticism.  I've gotten far more insight in my lifetime from aphorism and conviction than I have from closely argued structures.

I am, however, reminded of a classic joke from the early 20th century -

A Frenchman, an Englishman, and a German each undertook a study of the camel.

 

The Frenchman went to the zoo, spent half an hour there, questioned the staff, threw bread to the camel, poked it with the front of his umbrella, and, upon returning home, wrote an essay for the papers, full of sharp and witty observations.

 

The Englishman, taking his tea basket and a good deal of camping equipment, went to set up camp in the Orient, returning after a sojourn of two or three years with a fat volume full of raw, disorganized, and inconclusive facts which nevertheless had real documentary value.

 

As for the German, he was filled with disdain for the Frenchman’s frivolity and the Englishman’s lack of metaphysical ideas, and so he locked himself in his room, and there he drafted a multi-volume work entitled: The Idea of the Camel Derived from the Concept of the Ego.

 

http://www.celebritytypes.com/blog/2011/04/french-german-and-english-philosophy-in-mbti-terms/