A Sense of Direction: Pilgrimage for the Restless and the Hopeful 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? |
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... dad's justification for this, in those moments when he felt as though he needed to produce one, was that he was claiming the outré adolescence he'd been denied. He'd lived a life long on sacrifice and short on pleasure, and had begun ...
... dad's justification for this, in those moments when he felt as though he needed to produce one, was that he was claiming the outré adolescence he'd been denied. He'd lived a life long on sacrifice and short on pleasure, and had begun ...
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... dad's problem was that he hadn't had enough experience, that he'd chosen a career and a marriage before he knew what else was out there, and I didn't want to make the same error. Experiencewise, I wanted what I thought everybody wanted ...
... dad's problem was that he hadn't had enough experience, that he'd chosen a career and a marriage before he knew what else was out there, and I didn't want to make the same error. Experiencewise, I wanted what I thought everybody wanted ...
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Other editions - View all
A Sense of Direction: Pilgrimage for the Restless and the Hopeful Gideon Lewis-Kraus Limited preview - 2013 |
A Sense of Direction: Pilgrimage for the Restless and the Hopeful Gideon Lewis-Kraus No preview available - 2013 |
A Sense of Direction: Pilgrimage for the Restless and the Hopeful Gideon Lewis-Kraus No preview available - 2012 |
Common terms and phrases
albergue Alina Alix Andy Berlin Brett Brierley Camino can’t cigarettes dad’s Daishi daven David Levine didn’t Emilie everything experience Facebook father feel felt forgiveness fucking German Gideon girlfriend going hard Hasids he’d he’s Heart Sutra I’ve idea Japan Japanese Jews kilometers kloiz knew Ko-bo later live look Micah Moreton morning mountain moving never nice night Nordic walking o-henro okay once onsen osettai path payos pilgrimage pilgrims pretty Rabbi rain regret relationship ritual road Rosh Hashanah ryokan Santiago seems sense Shanghai Shikoku Shlomo sleep someone sort Spain spend stop story talk tashlikh tell temple there’s they’re thing thought told Tom’s trail trip Ukrainian Uman walk wanted we’d we’re what’s who’d who’s woman wonder worry write yarmulke Yeah yellow arrows you’re Yumi