Thread 7: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?

[DisappointedReader]

The Observer The real Salt Path: how a blockbuster book and film were ...

Second article in the Observer
https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/the-salt-path-whats-in-the-book-and-what-the-observer-has-found

Third item in the Observer
https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/the-salt-path-the-truth-behind-the-blockbuster-book-video

Fourth item in The Observer
‘I felt I was being gaslit’ – the landlord who helped Ray...

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Thread 6
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5372494-thread-6-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

Raynor Winn/Sally Walker's statement Raynor Winn

New posters welcome. It would be helpful to read at least the four Observer items above before posting.

To all - Please be careful when it comes to naming or implicating people and addresses not in the public eye or with no connection to the story, and around the understandable health speculations, especially where details are unclear or still emerging. Please do not engage with possible visitors who seem to have their own agenda and seek to derail.
Keep on the path as we have done together amazingly well for six threads so far. No saltiness. Thank you.

Thanks - what a lot of threads!!!

Thanks

Once more into the breach, dear friends.

These threads are more interesting than the book !! I felt very guilty finding the book somewhat boring ( book club) and it didn’t ring quite true to me at the time - I felt bad about that too with Moth being so ill etc.

Place marking - thank you for the new thread!

No offence but you lot are obsessed 😂

Thanks for the new thread @DisappointedReader

Thanks

It’s interesting to read old MN threads on the book - obviously haven’t read all of them, but on the couple I have a quite high % of posters (my impression is 50, but that could be confirmation bias) found them feckless and irritating.

I’m interested that it has done so well.

Is it a snowball effect? You achieve enough sales to get publicity, so you get more publicity?

I was just thinking about Dervla Murphy this morning so thanks for mentioning her @crackofdoom . I used to devour travelogues and particularly cycling ones (have done a lot of LD ones). None of them used to focus on having a back story and they didn’t need it as a crutch either.

I was also thinking of when Fyona Campbell confessed she hadn’t actually walked around the world in the 1990s. The subsequent book she wrote about why she lied was actually pretty interesting but she never really seemed to take responsibility for her actions, preferring to blame her life circumstances (fwiw she appeared to me to have a privileged background). I wonder if SW will publish something similar?

Thank you 😊

Placemarking for now

Travel programs in the past used to be about the destinations and the hosts were generally interesting but focussed on the destinations so to speak

now they have to be ’personalities’ and it just feels like a jolly or a way to introduce a child so they can get a nepo job in showbiz

It’s easier to forgive when there aren’t identifiable victims.

I'm tempted to write an account of my walk along the SW coast path yesterday (all 11 miles of it) in a "triumphing- over- adversity" stylee. It could be called "Why I've finally bought a hat like a sensible person" 😆

PMK when I should be working

Moi?!
But yes, as I said in a previous thread, their story is really fascinating and grim.

Has anyone else on the thread flirted with the idea that Dave and Julie are imaginary?

It's just never particularly clear why Raynor and Moth appear to like them so much. Maybe it's partly that if they are real, she doesn't want to write about them in any identifying way, or, as I sometimes suspect, that her writing about people is more vivid when she actively dislikes them or is suspicious of them.

Dave= big and loud and talks a lot.
Julie= small and quiet.

Or is it that she writes people the way she sees herself and moth?

Re: the lockdown chicken shop roof story. I just read it and doesn't strike me as odd. It's clearly intended to be RW's imagined thoughts when she doesn't hear from her daughter for 3 days. She's imagining that's what has become of her daughter and seemingly attempting to flavour it with some humour and absurdity. It's italicised and not meant to be read literally. Maybe her 3 books should have been italicised, however.

This has been infinitely more gripping than TSP. When thread 6 suddenly was under review yesterday, I became lost 😂 (joke)

Agreed but it’s still really stupid

and says a lot about her view of other people. She consistently writes other people as being unkind and judgy

I'm interested to hear they may be living in Gweek. I've been there before in a little boat and I can imagine them living there. There seemed to be a population of people living on boats and when we were there they all came out to the village green for a chip van and had a sort of little village party going on.

I've also been to the Lyn Peninsula and could see why they would like that as well.

Amazon blurb:

One of the most talked about books of the decade, an inspiring true story of hope and the healing powers of the natural world.

OVER 2 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

INCLUDED IN THE SUNDAY TIMES 2024 LIST OF THE TOP 100 BOOKS OF THE PAST FIFTY YEARS

WINNER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE CHRISTOPHER BLAND PRIZE

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING

SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD

Of course the revelations of the true story behind the true story are fascinating.

Now I want to understand the world of literary prizes!

Read in 2023, and found it hardgoing boring. It was difficult to sympathise with the main protagonist, who had seemed to have no empathy for anyone except herself and her partner, even ridiculed others. Plus RW seemed to blame MW for the challenges his condition added to the walk, which grated on me. The Moth character wasn't personified much.

I plodded on.

In fact I remember feeling obliged to finish it – as at the time I did believe the premise of the terminal neurological condition, and thought the least I could do was finish reading the book! 😄

I didn't keep it or pass to a friend, it was a charity shop purchase and I returned it from whence it came. Unlike Best Foot Forward by Susie Kelly, a jolly read presented as travel writing and non-fiction, but no huge emphasis on true story. Funnily enough, I did suspect a dramatic add-in in that book!!