Hape Kerkeling

This gets 2 stars instead of 1 because the author had a soft spot for animals and was kind to many dogs along his route. From many of his interactions, I think he might like dogs more than people. I decided about halfway through the book that I didn’t really like this guy, who picked and chose who he’d be civil to along the Camino. Once he made some real friends that he hiked the route with, his attitude picked up a little, but he still thought himself perfectly justified to just not respond to people who were trying to connect with him.

I walked the Camino with my husband in 1996. Of course the experience would be different for a newly married couple who had recently celebrated their first anniversary. Kerkeling was on his own, and so our approaches to the route and the people on it, and their approaches and reactions to us would be different. But still, we met people we didn’t like and kept running into them too, but we didn’t just refuse to talk to them when we saw them. Kerkeling does this on many occasions in the book, and his detailed critique of a German couple after eavesdropping on them in a hotel was where I first started really disliking this guy. He only speaks to the people he deems worthy of his time.

Besides that, the book just wasn’t consistently enjoyable to read, with his kooky philosophical ramblings and judgments of his fellow hikers. He did have a couple of religious metaphors that I thought were quite good, but overall, the spiritual commentary seemed kind of fluffy to me.

Reading this did inspire me to get out my old journal to consult my own attitudes and memories, so I am glad that I read it. Walking the Camino de Santiago is one of the great memories of my life, so a refresher about the places and challenges of the pilgrimage was welcome.
… (mais)

Hape Kerkeling is one of the most popular comedians in Germany, although he has not been very active for several years. It seems like he is making way for the next generation, despite being only in his fifties. He became a bestseller author in 2006 when he published an account about his pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. I loved the audiobook of that one because of his wonderful narration. He has published a few more books since, but I was looking for something short, and settled on a collection of columns that he wrote for Gala, a German celebrity magazine (at least it is one that is a little more classy than others). He wrote the columns collected in this book from summer 2017 to summer 2018. They deal with many different topics, foremost with celebrities since Gala is that kind of magazine, but also with current events and scenes from everyday life.
I liked those columns best in which the author tells us something about his own life or recalls some interesting memories. For example, he explains what the introduction of same sex marriage in Germany meant to him (finally being able to properly marry his partner instead of just registering a life partnership), he reminisces on the day he was part of the Federal Assembly and voted for the President of Germany, and he tells a funny story about celebrating carnival with fellow comedian Hella von Sinnen.
A lot of the columns deal with royalty, especially Dutch and British royalty. These were a little interesting because his thoughts were relatable to me. However, the columns about celebrities were neither funny nor did they hold any interest. In general, I found that Kerkeling's humor in these columns was not really mine, and I had hoped for more funny thoughts or more witty moments.
I still like Kerkeling's reading voice and his style of narration and the audio book served the purpose of providing a few hours of light entertainment, so I don't have any regrets, but next time I will seek out his proper books instead of something like this.… (mais)