Did anyone else think that The Salt Path was seriously overrated?

[Gone2far]

I'm ploughing through it for my bookgroup, but, my God, it's tedious. Like sharing a long car journey with an embittered aging hippy. I know that most people loved it, so I'm obviously missing something, but did anyone else just not get it?

Anyone seen the Gillian Anderson/Jason Isaacs adaptation? I've got no interest in reading the book (you lot have put me right off) but strangely more interested in the adaptation.

No didn't like it either, gave up halfway

I think it only premiered at one of the big film festivals a few weeks ago, so I don’t think it’s on general cinema release yet. I wonder what the adaptation will leave out — surely the very over-egged long-running Simon Armitage gag?

Hated it. Couldn't read it. Gorgeous cover, obviously. But found it so annoying. And not inspiring.

I struggled to believe this was a true story from the outset. It was impossible to check whether what they said was true. They lived in a nameless village in an unspecified part of Wales, they don't appear to have made a planning application to use their barn as a b&b (at least not in their own names) and it would be very rare that a court would leave a middle aged couple so very little to live on. Moreover, there is no mention of how they travelled back to their van after they had completed their trip, which surely must have really stretched them financially and worthy of a sentence or two for that very reason.

I had the audiobook, read by Anne Reid. I like her usually but her voice was so mournful. How many times did they have just the half-sandwich left between them? Maybe I misremember! Not a favourite.

I also slogged through it for book club and my group unanimously disliked it. I was irritated from the start when it very clearly only gave us half the story (if that) about how they lost their house, it picked up a bit for me at the start of the walk but then became so repetitive. Also he looks nothing like Simon Armitage 😂

This book has three more days on Prime reading 😊

Thank goodness others found the salt path tedious and cliched. I lived in Cornwall most of my life and frankly I barely recognised it!

I gave up after 50 pages...I found the couple feckless.

Hated it. First impression was of a couple so smug and self confident ( arrogant), that they assumed their superior intelligence would allow them to plough through the legal system and emerge victorious from a legal battle that is never explained, other than that "it was lost through an administration error"' then their home and garm were almost immediately possessed by bailiffs leaving them penniless and homeless??? Pretty unlikely and I cannot find anything about this online ?? Following that, poorly written and unlikeable people with zn unshakeable belief in their selves which unfortunately people have proved to them with their uncritical praise of this book and now by casting Gillian Anderson as Raynor Winn.
Does anyone know what the actual court case was ( I mean more than just their account?)

The book infuriated me. The stories of how they ended up in such hardship was so full of holes.
They seemed like people who constantly made poor decisions and blamed everyone else.

Some of the descriptions of the coastline were nice but the totally lack of honesty amd ability to make sensible decisions just made it so hard to enjoy

Saw the film yesterday , enjoyed it (Jason Isaacs is lovely), but it felt a bit long.

I’m about a third of the way in and struggling which surprises me because I usually love this sort of book.

The court case stuff is weird - the only explanation I can see is that the whole thing had been done and dusted for ages and they just hadn’t bothered to prepare or think about it or engage with the court. Bailiffs aren’t just sent round at a moments notice - - the claim has to have been decided and then subsequently enforced with about 6 months gap.

Then the constant snarkiness about other people including people who went really out of their way to help them. And very little so far at least about the path or the scenery except that it is hot and hilly and they forgot sun cream…).

It’s 99p today if anyone does want to read it!

https://amzn.to/4ezVBio

Will anyone want to read it after this?

Sorry, not quite sure why my link hasn't posted. There's an article in The Observer today about 'The Real Salt Path'. It answers a lot of the concerns on this thread.

Yes, there's a discussion about this on AIBU just now. The Observer article is interesting; worth a look.

Wow. The Observer story is eye opening.
I knew their story was full of holes but I assumed the background was incompetence not serious criminality that ruined someone else's life.

And (as someone with a neurological condition) the medical side had made me uneasy but I felt mean thinking it! But it definitely made me feel ashamed I couldn't "walk myself better". I hope the book gets pulled. I hope the film gets pulled.

Maybe someone can write the real story as a book and film!

For one brief moment I thought all my suspicions were going to prove to be unfounded! I still have a hope in the goodness of people

i listened to the Salt Path as an audiobook and enjoyed it mostly - I knew some of the areas they were walking and it was quite evocative. The book did not leave me thinking they were entirely victims - more that they had had some bad luck, made some bad decisions. It wouldn’t surprise me if the real decisions were spectacularly bad. That kind of biographical writing is never the unvarnished truth.

However that article reads more like a classic tabloid hit piece on someone who has become a minor celeb than traditional Observer quality journalism. I wouldn’t assume its any more accurate than the original book. Much of it is based on claims by the “life coach” married to the loan shark whose loans got them into escalating debt and whose solicitor demanded NDAs from others involved. A life coach whose “name was changed for privacy” but is quite happy to be photographed for the press. I’m sure her business will benefit from the publicity.
The police comment was merely “Winn had been questioned”, not that he had been charged (and in the case of fraud, its they/CPS who make the decision to investigate and prosecute once involved). Even the opening paragraph “I’ve been waiting for a journalist to call” is a bit weird. Nor do I see why anyone should share their private medical records just because a journo wants to make a few quid on a hit piece and has found consultants saying they personally have not seen the reported pattern of disease. I’ve no idea whether the guy has the condition described in the book, was misdiagnosed or has something else altogether.
Claiming they were not homeless because someone said they had some land in France (such an easy option to leave when you have no funds) just increases the sense of a tabloid hit piece.

So to be honest whilst I’m sceptical about some parts of the book I’m equally sceptical about the hit piece.

You've completely misrepresented (or misunderstood) what the article says.

There are ways of confirming a diagnosis without revealing your entire medical history. Frankly the 'mix up' over his illness is the least of it. It's possible that he was misdiagnosed, that's the kindest perspective I can put on it, but he wasn't 'cured', and that could well have given false hope to some seriously ill people which is not something I can just brush off I'm afraid.

I had never been attracted to the book, which looked drippy and not very well written, but sort of thought I ought to read it. When I saw them on Rick Stein's Cornwall programme I thought they were extremely odd, and that put me off even more.

They seem to have an almost sociopathic attitude to wrong doing, we are not bad people so what we do is not really bad either.

I await with interest to see how things unfold!

Yes exactly this. The way in the book they justified stealing , lying, deceiving.

"They seem to have an almost sociopathic attitude to wrong doing, we are not bad people so what we do is not really bad either."