Eine Pilgerreise verspricht der Untertitel dieses Buches, doch eigentlich handelt es sich eher um drei. Wobei die Dritte dann doch keine ist, sondern vielmehr eine Vater-Sohn-Zusammenführungsunternehmung oder sowas in der Art. Und Pilgerreisen sind auch nicht das allein bestimmende Thema dieses Buches, sondern die Suche des Autors nach einem Ziel, einer Richtung in seinem Leben sowie die Bewältigung des Konflikts mit seinem Vater, der seinen Söhnen erst spät eröffnete, dass er schwul ist.
Was sich in dieser 'Kürzestzusammenfassung' wie auch im Klappentext vielleicht als amüsantes Pilger-Roadmovie à la Hape Kerkeling anhört, entwickelt sich jedoch zunehmend als zeitweise recht anstrengend zu lesendes philosophisches Traktat über das Wesen des Pilgerns an sich wie auch als selbstreflexive Studie über das Verhalten des Autors aufgrund seiner verkorksten Vater-Beziehung.
Die erste Strecke führt ihn zusammen mit seinem Freund Tom auf den Jakobsweg quer durch Spanien, während er als zweite Route einen Pilgerweg in Japan auswählt, der ungleich schwieriger ist. Parallel zur anstrengenderen körperlichen Herausforderung werden auch die Überlegungen des Autors anspruchsvoller und komplexer. Und manchmal leider so komplex, dass ich schlicht den Sinn dahinter nicht mehr verstanden habe. Dies setzt sich auch bei der dritten Reise nach Uman fort, die er mit seinem Vater und seinem Bruder unternimmt, welche eher eine Art Wallfahrt darstellt, die mit den früheren Pilgerreisen nicht vergleichbar ist. Nur ein Beispiel: 'Am Ende einer Pilgerfahrt wird dem Schmerz und dem Elend rückwirkend ein Platz in der Ordnung der Dinge gewährt.' So weit, so gut. Weshalb er sich jedoch hierbei auf Nietzsche, Camus, Dorothea Brooke (wer immer das auch sei) und Rilke bezieht, ist mir völlig unklar. Um nicht falsch verstanden zu werden: Es gibt durchaus eine Menge amüsante und schräge Geschehnisse in diesem Buch, aber sie nehmen nicht den Hauptteil ein.
Wer also schlicht und einfach 'nur' gute Unterhaltung sucht, dürfte sich mit diesem Buch nicht unbedingt einen Gefallen tun. ( )

Hmmm – what to say. The last few pages are what I always strive to find in a book: lyrical, philosophical, deep, searching for greater meaning in life. The previous 360+ pages, not so much. The author’s young, so perhaps one shouldn’t expect so much from him just yet. He’s also a tad self-absorbed, so perhaps one can’t expect so much of him ever. Granted, my standards are pretty high. I want non-fiction to move me, not just inform me. I’ve got a friend who does a ton of walking tours (most recently in New Zealand) and I’ve done some hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail myself, so I was initially drawn by the book’s subject matter: following several of the world’s oldest pilgrimages in search of something. Sadly, the book ended up being a bit of a slog – what with all the tedious details of the day to day maneuvering of the trails and the myriad people who annoyed him on said trails along with a healthy dose of complaining about his gay father. You learn some interesting facts about the Camino de Santiago in Spain and the Shikoku pilgrimage in Japan, but it all seems like a concerted effort to do something, anything, to justify a book. It’s not even that fulfilling as a travelogue. And I understand that parents can be rough, and they’re not perfect by any means, but I end up sympathizing more with his dad (who came out as gay in middle-age and has wasted no time making up for his closeted years), which I gather from the author’s characterizations was not his intent. Sad to say I preferred Cheryl Strayed’s Wild (itself no literary masterpiece) to this – at least there she was dealing with some hardcore issues and truly seemed to be searching for a way outside of her own demons, instead of complaining ad nauseum about the people that populate her life.

I picked up this book for the Camino pilgrimage portion of the book. The Shikoku was Ok and I abandoned the section on the Jewish pilgrimage with his father and brother. ( )

Rating: 3.8* of five

The Book Description: In medieval times, a pilgrimage gave the average Joe his only break from the daily grind. For Gideon Lewis-Kraus, it promises a different kind of escape. Determined to avoid the kind of constraint that kept his father, a gay rabbi, closeted until midlife, he has moved to anything-goes Berlin. But the surfeit of freedom there has begun to paralyze him, and when a friend extends a drunken invitation to join him on an ancient pilgrimage route across Spain, he grabs his sneakers, glad of the chance to be committed to something and someone.

Irreverent, moving, hilarious, and thought-provoking, A Sense of Direction is Lewis-Kraus's dazzling riff on the perpetual war between discipline and desire, and its attendant casualties. Across three pilgrimages and many hundreds of miles - the thousand-year-old Camino de Santiago, a solo circuit of eighty-eight Buddhist temples on the Japanese island of Shikoku, and, together with his father and brother, an annual mass migration to the tomb of a famous Hasidic mystic in the Ukraine - he completes an idiosyncratic odyssey to the heart of a family mystery and a human dilemma: How do we come to terms with what has been and what is - and find a way forward, with purpose?

My Review: Another year-old LibraryThing Early Reviewers win, what the hell happened to me last year? Did I have a stroke and forget stuff? Damn. I hate that I didn't write these reviews on time.

This is a book by a David Foster Wallace-readin' straight twentysomething son of a gay father whose selfish and self-absorbed life erupts after he goes on the Sacred Road pilgrimage in Spain. He then goes on a Buddhist pilgrimage in Japan...alone...speaking no Japanese. What could go wrong? ::eyeroll:: And then, after Pilgrimania has fully gripped him, his pop and he (plus an ignorable sibling) go on some Hasidic hoo-rah that really sets the ducks in the shootin' gallery.

Target rich environment! Set phasers on devastate, Mr. Sulu, we're gonna skewer this kid!!

And, well, maybe I could and perhaps I should, but for all the whingeing whiney crap, the kid writes from whatever soul he has and he is honest. Sometimes to a fault. I get it, I get it, Dad coming out when you were at a delicate age had some troublesome aspects for you. But despite the fact that we dwell in Gideon's overprivileged head, we do so with a very witty host. He makes funny lines, but you know something weird? They aren't funny outside the book. Can't quote 'em. He's good for a grin, though.

I enjoyed reading this book, and I think it will be a good first book for his CV. Don't sprain anything running out to get one. ( )

I got a review copy of this book from LibraryThing.com's Early Reviewers program. I had a hard time connecting with Gideon. I wish the focus of his novel was more about the people and places he visited on his pilgrimage. But instead, it's about how he is dealing with the fact that his father is gay.