Review by Booklist Review
Donkeys are misunderstood. At least, that's the impression left by Merrifield's gentle meditation on life, art, and the meaning of beauty, which crucially involves journeying through the hills of southern France and daydreaming in the open air with floppy-eared Gribouille's faithful companionship. Merrifield's donkey recalls another, more famous member of the breed, Robert Louis Stevenson's Modestine in his Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes. Merrifield references Stevenson's travel classic often, also mentioning the work of other artists, including Cervantes, filmmaker Robert Bresson, G. K. Chesterton, George Orwell, and Anne Sexton, in which donkeys were important characters or the image of a donkey was an effective device. Even the Old and New Testaments and the Qur'an are cited. Watching donkeys graze in the middle of nowhere is, Merrifield concludes, a type of therapy. He discusses donkeys' habits and idiosyncracies, especially their distinctive braying, and insists that when you're with a donkey, time slows down. Can a donkey be a philosopher? Merrifield believes so and, with this modest, lovely little book, makes us believe so, too.--Sawyers, June Copyright 2008 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
It is too seldom that the Spiritual Living section of LJ has an opportunity to read and review a real love story, but this is such a book, the affecting and eloquent account of a man and a chocolate-colored donkey named Gribouille. Merrifield, author of important biocritical studies of Henri Lefebvre and Guy Debord, as well as Metromarxism: A Marxist Tale of the City, tells the tale of his wander through the Haute-Avergne in southern France, learning the ways of his patient, strong, and stubborn donkey companion, who gradually shows him that "real happiness comes in unforeseen places, through surprising twists and turns, through honesty." Highly recommended. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
