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The Scenic Route
Divorced, alone, and unexpectedly unemployed, Sylvia Landsman flees to Italy, where she meets Henry, a wistful, married, middle-aged expatriate. Taking off on a grand tour of Europe bankrolled with his wife's money, Henry and Sylvia follow a circuitous route around the continent--as Sylvia entertains Henry with stories of her peculiar family and her damaged friends, of dead ducks and Alma Mahler. Her narrative is a tapestry of remembrances and regrets...and her secret shame: a small, cowardly sin of omission. Yet when the opportunity arises for Sylvia and Henry to do something small but brave, the refrain "if only" returns to haunt her, leaving Sylvia with one more story of love lived and lost.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
21 people are currently reading
796 people want to read
About the author
Binnie Kirshenbaum
21 books137 followersBinnie Kirshenbaum is the author of two short story collections, six novels, and numerous essays and reviews. Her work is noted for its humorous and ribald prose, which often disguises themes of human loneliness and the yearning for connection. Her heroines are usually urban, very smart, and chastened by lifetimes of unwelcome surprises. Kirshenbaum has been published in German, French, Hebrew, Turkish, and several other languages.
Kirshenbaum grew up in New York and attended Columbia University and Brooklyn College. She is the chair of the Writing Division of the Columbia University Graduate School of the Arts, where she has served as a professor of fiction for more than a decade.
Called, “a humorist, even a comedian, a sort of stand-up tragic,” by Richard Howard, Kirshenbaum has twice won Critics’ Choice Awards and was selected as one of the Best Young American Novelists by Granta Magazine. Kirshenbaum was also a nominee for The National Jewish Book Award for her novel Hester Among the Ruins. Her new novel, The Scenic Route, was published in May, 2009. Of the novel, Gary Steyngart says, “The Scenic Route is warm, wise, and very difficult to put down."
Binnie Kirshenbaum lives and works in New York City.
Binnie Kirshenbaum was born in Yonkers and grew up in Westchester County. After attending Columbia University as an undergraduate, Kirshenbaum earned her MFA at Brooklyn College. She taught at Wagner College before joining the faculty at the Writing Division of Columbia University's School of the Arts.
Kirshenbaum grew up in New York and attended Columbia University and Brooklyn College. She is the chair of the Writing Division of the Columbia University Graduate School of the Arts, where she has served as a professor of fiction for more than a decade.
Called, “a humorist, even a comedian, a sort of stand-up tragic,” by Richard Howard, Kirshenbaum has twice won Critics’ Choice Awards and was selected as one of the Best Young American Novelists by Granta Magazine. Kirshenbaum was also a nominee for The National Jewish Book Award for her novel Hester Among the Ruins. Her new novel, The Scenic Route, was published in May, 2009. Of the novel, Gary Steyngart says, “The Scenic Route is warm, wise, and very difficult to put down."
Binnie Kirshenbaum lives and works in New York City.
Binnie Kirshenbaum was born in Yonkers and grew up in Westchester County. After attending Columbia University as an undergraduate, Kirshenbaum earned her MFA at Brooklyn College. She taught at Wagner College before joining the faculty at the Writing Division of Columbia University's School of the Arts.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 121 reviews
August 12, 2009
If I didn't know the author personally and respect her work, I don't think there's any way I would browse through a bookstore and pick this one out. For one, the cover looks like a poster for a sugary Jennifer Aniston movie. Strike Two is the first sentence, which is completely melodramatic and inauthentic to the purposes of fiction (it struck me as a sentence that strives very hard to be a great first sentence). I suppose there was no third strike, but two strikes are usually enough for me to put a book back on the shelf.
However, "The Scenic Route" was recommended to me, and Kirshenbaum's books are nothing if not entertaining, so I dove in. It does rally from its initial missteps. I enjoyed the writing style, although it takes a little getting used to (this is the proverbial book that "teaches you how it should be read"). Kirshenbaum does an effective job jumping back and forth between past and present, and the success of the book hinges on that transition. There were times when I wondered if Sylvia's recollections could have been chosen a bit more carefully; there was a little too much family history to neatly keep track of. I was also eager to spend more time in the present, Sylvia & Henry's scenic trip through Europe, but in hindsight I'm not sure why. Sylvia and Henry never fully develop as characters in the here & now (Henry is an especially faceless, non-descript character), and the descriptions of the European locales isn't that engaging or complex or weird. What I liked best was getting into the rhythm of the sentences, the repetitiveness of it; it was a quick read in that way.
There are enough positives, ultimately, for me to recommend this book. It's focus on the bonds of family and friendship is an oft-repeated theme, but Kirshenbaum gives it thoughtful, sensitive treatment here. You could certainly do worse, for instance, if you go see the next sugary Jennifer Aniston movie.
However, "The Scenic Route" was recommended to me, and Kirshenbaum's books are nothing if not entertaining, so I dove in. It does rally from its initial missteps. I enjoyed the writing style, although it takes a little getting used to (this is the proverbial book that "teaches you how it should be read"). Kirshenbaum does an effective job jumping back and forth between past and present, and the success of the book hinges on that transition. There were times when I wondered if Sylvia's recollections could have been chosen a bit more carefully; there was a little too much family history to neatly keep track of. I was also eager to spend more time in the present, Sylvia & Henry's scenic trip through Europe, but in hindsight I'm not sure why. Sylvia and Henry never fully develop as characters in the here & now (Henry is an especially faceless, non-descript character), and the descriptions of the European locales isn't that engaging or complex or weird. What I liked best was getting into the rhythm of the sentences, the repetitiveness of it; it was a quick read in that way.
There are enough positives, ultimately, for me to recommend this book. It's focus on the bonds of family and friendship is an oft-repeated theme, but Kirshenbaum gives it thoughtful, sensitive treatment here. You could certainly do worse, for instance, if you go see the next sugary Jennifer Aniston movie.
October 8, 2010
I loved how the format of this novel reflects its overarching theme. The book meanders through time (literally taking "the scenic route," just as the two main characters take the scenic route through Europe). Along the way, pieces of the past are revealed through flashbacks in seemingly random order.
I wanted to LOVE this novel, and I almost did. I found myself rereading sentences over and over again, identifying strongly with certain insights into the human experience. I saved a few lines in my quote file. (e.g., "It was effortless, Semille's weeping, because this sorrow, which she carried with her from long ago and far away, contained no rage and no surprise.")
Binnie Kirshenbaum is a perceptive and original writer, admirably so. In an interview at the back of the book, she mentions that a critic once called her a "stand-up tragic," and the description is quite apt. That's exactly what kept me from LOVING this novel. The characters were all deeply flawed (as we all are, human as we are), but no one overcame any of their flaws, and the optimist in me always wants them to. It seemed that all the characters were ignorant of the very traits that kept them from any measure of happiness--and none made any effort to understand, acknowledge, or overcome their own flaws. And I liked them all enough that I wanted them to make different choices and meet different ends.
I wanted to LOVE this novel, and I almost did. I found myself rereading sentences over and over again, identifying strongly with certain insights into the human experience. I saved a few lines in my quote file. (e.g., "It was effortless, Semille's weeping, because this sorrow, which she carried with her from long ago and far away, contained no rage and no surprise.")
Binnie Kirshenbaum is a perceptive and original writer, admirably so. In an interview at the back of the book, she mentions that a critic once called her a "stand-up tragic," and the description is quite apt. That's exactly what kept me from LOVING this novel. The characters were all deeply flawed (as we all are, human as we are), but no one overcame any of their flaws, and the optimist in me always wants them to. It seemed that all the characters were ignorant of the very traits that kept them from any measure of happiness--and none made any effort to understand, acknowledge, or overcome their own flaws. And I liked them all enough that I wanted them to make different choices and meet different ends.
July 1, 2009
All I could think of while I was reading this book was a) I need to stop getting book recommendations from Oprah Magazine or Real Simple and b) this author really teaches writing at Columbia? I suppose if I was a middle-age woman plodding along in life and going through some sort of crisis or hoping like hell I soon would and therefore my life would start to be interesting -- then I would have liked this book. But, I am not and I wouldn't recommend the book to anyone other than that target demographic.
It is trite, overtly sentimental and lacking any sort of purpose. Much like the protagonist in the book. Sylvia is a recently unemployed, aimless fortysomething that falls into a relationship with an unavailable man while on vacation in Italy. The following days, weeks, whatever it was, felt like years as I turned the pages. Interspersed with this meandering prose was memories of Sylvia's past interwoven with hisotrical tales of her Jewish relatives. It was an awkward, boring read and I am glad to be done with it.
I have to go pick up a classic now and rediscover what constitutes a good book and is worth my precious time. Sorry to be so hard on the book. I did give it one star because the interview with the author at the end of the book was moderately redeeming.
It is trite, overtly sentimental and lacking any sort of purpose. Much like the protagonist in the book. Sylvia is a recently unemployed, aimless fortysomething that falls into a relationship with an unavailable man while on vacation in Italy. The following days, weeks, whatever it was, felt like years as I turned the pages. Interspersed with this meandering prose was memories of Sylvia's past interwoven with hisotrical tales of her Jewish relatives. It was an awkward, boring read and I am glad to be done with it.
I have to go pick up a classic now and rediscover what constitutes a good book and is worth my precious time. Sorry to be so hard on the book. I did give it one star because the interview with the author at the end of the book was moderately redeeming.
November 3, 2009
This book had such a slow start that I almost put it down many times. The last third of the book was much better. The novel definitely takes "the scenic route" in getting to the plot and is very disjointed and frustrating at times. All in all, it's not a bad book but I didn't think it was excellent. It seemed more like a very rough draft written at many different times instead of a cohesive collection of stories interwoven with the main plot.
January 26, 2014
When I read reviews like "witty and poignant," "a brilliant creation," and "a most virtuoso performance," my interest is peaked and I give a book try. Review fail. Kirshenbaum's protagonist is hardly witty -- in a rambling narrative filled with non sequiturs, she loses her job, travels Europe and takes up with a married man. Snippets from her past, oddities from her luggage, insights from her lover are all jumbled together with no point in sight. Not a trip I want to retake.
December 6, 2023
I definitely struggled to find the plot with this one. I don’t really think there is one, it’s just a story about a woman who meets a married man in Europe after getting laid off… she’s just telling the reader various stories about her life.
I knew it wasn’t going to have a happy ending from the first page of the book but still gave it a shot. It was filled with personal anecdotes which sometimes left me saying “wow” but other times were completely pointless.
I also wish more of the book took place in the present with Sylvia and Henry in Europe, instead of a stream of consciousness of Sylvia’s life and upbringing.
Although there were many sad storylines, I think the one that got me the most was the one about Ruby. I liked the way the author connected the message at the end, about how sometimes doing nothing can be your biggest mistake, to both Sylvia failing Ruby and Sylvia and Henry failing themselves and each other.
The ending does make you think about the consequences we suffer when we lack courage to change our lives.
I knew it wasn’t going to have a happy ending from the first page of the book but still gave it a shot. It was filled with personal anecdotes which sometimes left me saying “wow” but other times were completely pointless.
I also wish more of the book took place in the present with Sylvia and Henry in Europe, instead of a stream of consciousness of Sylvia’s life and upbringing.
Although there were many sad storylines, I think the one that got me the most was the one about Ruby. I liked the way the author connected the message at the end, about how sometimes doing nothing can be your biggest mistake, to both Sylvia failing Ruby and Sylvia and Henry failing themselves and each other.
The ending does make you think about the consequences we suffer when we lack courage to change our lives.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 27, 2013
Binnie Kirshenbaum's new novel looks like another year in Provence or another romance baked under the Tuscan sun. It begins with a recession fantasy: A middle-age, divorced woman gets laid off but uses her severance money for a trip to Italy. There, as usually happens, she strikes up a conversation with a handsome millionaire at a cafe and spends the rest of the summer driving around Europe with him, staying in the cutest inns and savoring the finest wines. Given this setup, you'd expect the cover of "The Scenic Route" to show a shirtless steroid-abuser embracing a mildly resistant lingerie model in a ripening vineyard.
But in this case, the opening is something of a bait-and-switch, and the switch is far better than the bait. Sylvia Landsman's tour of Europe turns out to be just a thin frame on which Kirshenbaum hangs several generations of family stories. Florence, Prague and Slovenia whiz by as they take "the scenic route . . . loop-de-loop and fast, as if we were in hot pursuit of a horsefly." Every few days, Sylvia points randomly at the map, and they're off again, but this isn't a travelogue, and we don't hear much about each town. "Once you've seen it, you've seen it," Sylvia shrugs. "We didn't catch sight of much scenery other than déjà vu-type sensations of evergreen trees and garden gnomes." Fortunately, her hunky new companion, Henry, is a good listener, the perfect audience, in fact, for a woman who wants to talk her way across the Continent. If there's a movie version of "The Scenic Route," the actor who plays Henry won't have to memorize more than a page of dialogue.
The hard-to-believe pleasure of this novel depends entirely upon the wit and poignancy of Sylvia's digressive patter -- a Jewish woman's version of Colson Whitehead's recent "Sag Harbor." Her quirky, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic stories flow one after another, anecdotes nested in anecdotes, interrupted by asides and parenthetical observations, and punctuated by historical footnotes about Shalimar perfume, Raisinets or martinis.
I can't imagine what Kirshenbaum told people who asked, "So, what's your novel about?" and yet it's continually engaging, the illusion of artlessness that only the disciplined artist can carry off. We hear of the neighbor girl who accidentally decapitates her own mother, the uncle whose hands wander too far, the friend who decides to get out of debt by borrowing $10,000 for dance lessons at Arthur Murray. Making love to Henry during a lightning storm in Austria reminds Sylvia of Great Aunt Hannah getting shock treatment in New York, which sparks the tale of Luigi Galvani in 18th-century Bologna discovering the electrical nature of frogs' nerves. The Autobahn can't match Sylvia's winding, high-speed narrative, delivered in prose that mimics all the detours and incongruities of the spoken word.
"We were alone, the two of us, in his car, driving through Tuscany; alone, the two of us, in a world of our own design, a world not unlike the desktop biosphere you can buy at Sharper Image. Or a snow dome. Other people? Who were they to us? Other people, they were the stuff of stories to tell; they were the characters who populated our stories."
Much of what Sylvia describes involves herself: the quiet dissolution of her passionless marriage, her dangerous neglect of a close friend. But other stories, drawn from the sepia past, sound more like fables. There's the great-grandfather who invented shampoo and another who left home, "someplace like Fiddler-on-the-Roofville, Poland, with a handful of zlotys in his pocket, and all alone he set sail for America." Aunt Thea dropped out of Vassar during the Depression to marry the son of a wealthy family that kept their lives stagnating for decades. Sylvia's namesake, Aunt Semille, escaped the Holocaust and came to New York with stories meant to obliterate the past rather than preserve it. But that, too, is all part of this thoughtful meditation on the way we construct our lives. Sylvia reminds us that storytellers, like nature, abhor a vacuum. "More often than not," she admits, "we don't know what really happened, and what we say happened is more likely to be a reconstruction of events rather than a restoration. We imagine as much as we remember."
Early in their road trip, Sylvia asks Henry somewhat defensively, "Does there have to be a point to a story?" Clearly, she's speaking for her creator, chair of the graduate writing program at Columbia University. Kirshenbaum wants us to understand that there doesn't have to be a point, but that doesn't mean a story is pointless. Something serious is happening beneath Sylvia's chronic gabbiness. "Like Scheherazade," she says, "we all tell stories as a means of staying alive," and that's a theme this novel returns to in a variety of thoughtful ways.
One of the most touching ones takes place in a New York hospital when a neurologist advises Sylvia to tell her father old family tales as a way of rebuilding his damaged memory. It's a poignant reversal of the way Sylvia began her life, captivated by her father's bedtime stories, even as her mother told them to turn off the light: "Conspirators, my father and I, and he lowered his voice because you can't leave off a story just at the point when, from off in the distance, Little Sylvia hears the howl of the wolves."
Kirshenbaum has endowed her narrator with the raconteur's greatest gift, that sense of imminent revelation that keeps us from wondering, "Are we there yet?" Spiked with wit, scrubbed free of sentimentality, these tales of love and loss, courage and cowardice, transport us back into the pages of our own lives and our own families. "There is cruelty to memory," Sylvia says, "the way there is an ache after a dream." So true, and just the sort of insight that makes this bittersweet novel a perfect companion for summer.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...
But in this case, the opening is something of a bait-and-switch, and the switch is far better than the bait. Sylvia Landsman's tour of Europe turns out to be just a thin frame on which Kirshenbaum hangs several generations of family stories. Florence, Prague and Slovenia whiz by as they take "the scenic route . . . loop-de-loop and fast, as if we were in hot pursuit of a horsefly." Every few days, Sylvia points randomly at the map, and they're off again, but this isn't a travelogue, and we don't hear much about each town. "Once you've seen it, you've seen it," Sylvia shrugs. "We didn't catch sight of much scenery other than déjà vu-type sensations of evergreen trees and garden gnomes." Fortunately, her hunky new companion, Henry, is a good listener, the perfect audience, in fact, for a woman who wants to talk her way across the Continent. If there's a movie version of "The Scenic Route," the actor who plays Henry won't have to memorize more than a page of dialogue.
The hard-to-believe pleasure of this novel depends entirely upon the wit and poignancy of Sylvia's digressive patter -- a Jewish woman's version of Colson Whitehead's recent "Sag Harbor." Her quirky, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic stories flow one after another, anecdotes nested in anecdotes, interrupted by asides and parenthetical observations, and punctuated by historical footnotes about Shalimar perfume, Raisinets or martinis.
I can't imagine what Kirshenbaum told people who asked, "So, what's your novel about?" and yet it's continually engaging, the illusion of artlessness that only the disciplined artist can carry off. We hear of the neighbor girl who accidentally decapitates her own mother, the uncle whose hands wander too far, the friend who decides to get out of debt by borrowing $10,000 for dance lessons at Arthur Murray. Making love to Henry during a lightning storm in Austria reminds Sylvia of Great Aunt Hannah getting shock treatment in New York, which sparks the tale of Luigi Galvani in 18th-century Bologna discovering the electrical nature of frogs' nerves. The Autobahn can't match Sylvia's winding, high-speed narrative, delivered in prose that mimics all the detours and incongruities of the spoken word.
"We were alone, the two of us, in his car, driving through Tuscany; alone, the two of us, in a world of our own design, a world not unlike the desktop biosphere you can buy at Sharper Image. Or a snow dome. Other people? Who were they to us? Other people, they were the stuff of stories to tell; they were the characters who populated our stories."
Much of what Sylvia describes involves herself: the quiet dissolution of her passionless marriage, her dangerous neglect of a close friend. But other stories, drawn from the sepia past, sound more like fables. There's the great-grandfather who invented shampoo and another who left home, "someplace like Fiddler-on-the-Roofville, Poland, with a handful of zlotys in his pocket, and all alone he set sail for America." Aunt Thea dropped out of Vassar during the Depression to marry the son of a wealthy family that kept their lives stagnating for decades. Sylvia's namesake, Aunt Semille, escaped the Holocaust and came to New York with stories meant to obliterate the past rather than preserve it. But that, too, is all part of this thoughtful meditation on the way we construct our lives. Sylvia reminds us that storytellers, like nature, abhor a vacuum. "More often than not," she admits, "we don't know what really happened, and what we say happened is more likely to be a reconstruction of events rather than a restoration. We imagine as much as we remember."
Early in their road trip, Sylvia asks Henry somewhat defensively, "Does there have to be a point to a story?" Clearly, she's speaking for her creator, chair of the graduate writing program at Columbia University. Kirshenbaum wants us to understand that there doesn't have to be a point, but that doesn't mean a story is pointless. Something serious is happening beneath Sylvia's chronic gabbiness. "Like Scheherazade," she says, "we all tell stories as a means of staying alive," and that's a theme this novel returns to in a variety of thoughtful ways.
One of the most touching ones takes place in a New York hospital when a neurologist advises Sylvia to tell her father old family tales as a way of rebuilding his damaged memory. It's a poignant reversal of the way Sylvia began her life, captivated by her father's bedtime stories, even as her mother told them to turn off the light: "Conspirators, my father and I, and he lowered his voice because you can't leave off a story just at the point when, from off in the distance, Little Sylvia hears the howl of the wolves."
Kirshenbaum has endowed her narrator with the raconteur's greatest gift, that sense of imminent revelation that keeps us from wondering, "Are we there yet?" Spiked with wit, scrubbed free of sentimentality, these tales of love and loss, courage and cowardice, transport us back into the pages of our own lives and our own families. "There is cruelty to memory," Sylvia says, "the way there is an ache after a dream." So true, and just the sort of insight that makes this bittersweet novel a perfect companion for summer.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...
October 28, 2024
I was not a fan of this book. I don't have ADHD or ADD, but I imagine it is similar to how this book reads. It was constantly jumping around timelines, and narratives and it was very hard to follow or understand. When I finished I literally thought what did I just read and what was the point. I understand the messaging about being afraid to doing something, but you didn't need this long and windy and confusing book in order to get to that point. I also had a hard time because the way that the narrator talked it made them sound much older and from a different time period. When I found out that it was based in the 2010's I was SHOCKED. I did like the beginning where she decides to take her own life into her hands and go to travel for a bit to find herself, but from there it went downhill. I would not recommend this book to anyone.
July 30, 2023
2.4 This book lacks a definite purpose. It meanders physically across Europe and winds through an emotional journey of the baggage of life. The title is apt but disappointing in it’s follow through. I was excited to travel through Italy but each stop is barely mentioned let alone described. It is also about the here and now of an affair showcased in privilege knowing indulgence in riches and heart won’t last.
November 6, 2018
Pleasant, entertaining, good vacation book.
December 17, 2019
Didn’t finish
February 6, 2020
Trivial stories and day to day events made into a book. Most of the content irrelevant.
But the writing style is good!!
But the writing style is good!!
August 3, 2020
It wasn't as if this book was full of edge of your seat adventure, but Kirshenbaum's writing kept me interested in the story. She is so witty.
June 17, 2022
This was well written, but I didn't find the story very compelling, or really care what happened.
June 29, 2022
50 pages DNF.
Read
August 10, 2022A fun beach read. I laughed out loud a few times.
February 29, 2024
Brutal to finish this one.
January 17, 2025
A mess of timelines, melodrama, and a bad case of a lost plot.
March 9, 2017
I should have taken the advice of the some of the other readers when they said the first chapter was a disaster, and stop reading there. I found the book to be lackluster at best. The two characters driving around Europe are both portrayed as completely lacking any personality, and were very one dimensional. All the other characters in the book were crazy, or mean, or both. In between the multitudes of mini stories going on the author would inject these non-fiction passages that were sometimes unrelated to any of the stories going on. One non-fiction piece was not researched enough, and gave erroneous information on Zelda Fitzgerald. I found the whole book frustrating from start to finish, all the while hoping it would get better. It did not get better, and had a very predictable ending. So, if you read the first chapter and don't get a warm and fuzzy feeling, just stop reading. I really wish I hadn't wasted my time.
June 12, 2025
Eat, Pray, Love without the prayer? It flips along a current story line and the past, but does it well.
September 22, 2009
In the current age of recession and double digit unemployment percentages, the catalyst of Sylvia's story rings of the familiar: she loses her job. However, rather than gathering her pennies and unemployment checks like a squirrel preparing for a long winter, she drops everything and runs to Italy. Everything she is running from unfolds elegantly throughout the course of the story, but what she is unexpectedly running toward takes the shape of Henry. An American expat and kept man, Henry rambles through Europe while his wife busies herself with her latest point of fascination. Sylvia and Henry become amicable, romantic travel companions and the reader is invited to climb into the back seat as they wend their way from town to town, telling stories and sharing experiences. Sylvia's past in particular comes into relief through the course of their road trip through these stories that flow with the conversation, not necessarily in chronological order, but rather by subject, inspiration, and memories.
Kirshenbaum makes no secret of the fact that their journey must come to an end at some point; the foreknowledge is seared into the very first sentence of the first chapter. However, this disclosure adds an awareness of passing time that gave the pacing of the novel an interesting texture. I very much enjoyed this unique perspective and getting to know Sylvia more in the style of a developing friendship rather than feeling as a voyeur spying on her every move and thought. Peppered through the story are italicized associations, words or phrases that clearly remind Sylvia of slogans, characters, and sayings she has encountered. Although our brains function this way, rarely do we say them aloud and I found the inclusions very distracting from the fluidity of the reading - rather annoying in a way painfully reminiscent of advertisements for the search engine, "Bing." That aside, I enjoyed my ride alongside Sylvia and Henry, and would urge this as a good choice for the beach or a day stuck inside with crummy weather.
Kirshenbaum makes no secret of the fact that their journey must come to an end at some point; the foreknowledge is seared into the very first sentence of the first chapter. However, this disclosure adds an awareness of passing time that gave the pacing of the novel an interesting texture. I very much enjoyed this unique perspective and getting to know Sylvia more in the style of a developing friendship rather than feeling as a voyeur spying on her every move and thought. Peppered through the story are italicized associations, words or phrases that clearly remind Sylvia of slogans, characters, and sayings she has encountered. Although our brains function this way, rarely do we say them aloud and I found the inclusions very distracting from the fluidity of the reading - rather annoying in a way painfully reminiscent of advertisements for the search engine, "Bing." That aside, I enjoyed my ride alongside Sylvia and Henry, and would urge this as a good choice for the beach or a day stuck inside with crummy weather.
December 25, 2013
In Florenz treffen sich Henry und Sylvia, zwei Amerikaner im Urlaub. Sie ist kürzlich geschieden und hat ihren Job verloren. Henry ist der Mann einer reichen Frau, der sich die Zeit vertreibt, bis seine Frau aus Indien zurückkommt. Gemeinsam begeben sich die Beiden auf einen Road-Trip kreuz und quer durch Europa. Sie haben Sex und erzählen sich Geschichten aus ihrer Vergangenheit.
Die Romantiker unter den Lesern werden enttäuscht sein, denn es gibt kein Happy-End für Henry und Sylvia, so viel ist gleich auf den ersten zwei Seiten klar. Es geht auch gar nicht so sehr um ihre Beziehung zueinander, sondern um die Vergangenheit, die hauptsächlich Sylvia dem gerade erst kennengelernten Henry erzählt. Von der an Krebs gestorbenen Mutter, dem Onkel, der sie unsittlich berührte, ihrer Freundin Ruby und anderen Familiendramen. Relativ emotionslos lässt Sylvia die Episoden ihres Lebens wieder aufleben, dann wird mit dem Auto über die Straßen gejagt, gut gegessen und dann ins Bett gegangen. Eigentlich ist es egal, in welcher Stadt oder welchem Land sie sich gerade befinden, es sind die Erinnerungen, die dieses Buch ausmachen und in der Regel sind sie nicht zum Amüsieren gedacht.
Ein Buch, das sicherlich zum Denken anregt und mit einigen sehr interessanten Anekdoten über Alma Werfel-Mahler oder Guerlain aufwartet. Durch die distanzierte Erzählweise kommen keine großen Gefühle für die Protagonisten auf. Auf ihre Weise läuft jeder von ihnen vor ihrem derzeitigen Leben davon, ohne die Kraft, etwas daran ändern zu wollen. So wird dieser Sommer immer etwas Besonderes in ihrem Leben bleiben – Eine bittersüße Erinnerung.
Wer auf einen netten Frauenroman hofft, wird sicherlich bitter enttäuscht werden. Es ist kein Buch für Pralinen und einen gedanklichen Traumurlaub.
Die Romantiker unter den Lesern werden enttäuscht sein, denn es gibt kein Happy-End für Henry und Sylvia, so viel ist gleich auf den ersten zwei Seiten klar. Es geht auch gar nicht so sehr um ihre Beziehung zueinander, sondern um die Vergangenheit, die hauptsächlich Sylvia dem gerade erst kennengelernten Henry erzählt. Von der an Krebs gestorbenen Mutter, dem Onkel, der sie unsittlich berührte, ihrer Freundin Ruby und anderen Familiendramen. Relativ emotionslos lässt Sylvia die Episoden ihres Lebens wieder aufleben, dann wird mit dem Auto über die Straßen gejagt, gut gegessen und dann ins Bett gegangen. Eigentlich ist es egal, in welcher Stadt oder welchem Land sie sich gerade befinden, es sind die Erinnerungen, die dieses Buch ausmachen und in der Regel sind sie nicht zum Amüsieren gedacht.
Ein Buch, das sicherlich zum Denken anregt und mit einigen sehr interessanten Anekdoten über Alma Werfel-Mahler oder Guerlain aufwartet. Durch die distanzierte Erzählweise kommen keine großen Gefühle für die Protagonisten auf. Auf ihre Weise läuft jeder von ihnen vor ihrem derzeitigen Leben davon, ohne die Kraft, etwas daran ändern zu wollen. So wird dieser Sommer immer etwas Besonderes in ihrem Leben bleiben – Eine bittersüße Erinnerung.
Wer auf einen netten Frauenroman hofft, wird sicherlich bitter enttäuscht werden. Es ist kein Buch für Pralinen und einen gedanklichen Traumurlaub.
June 26, 2009
I’m glad I finished this novel over a lunch break at work; else, I would have had to curl up someplace and bawl for a while. From the very beginning, “The Scenic Route” is about endings.
Sylvia Landsman, fortyish, divorced, childless, having been laid off from a job she didn’t care about, decides to go to Florence. There, she meets Henry, an expatriate whose marriage of convenience provides him with means and opportunity for a life of utter frivolity and leisure. Together, they set off on an aimless, luxurious jaunt through Europe, somehow outside of time and space, though conducted in five-star hotels and beholden to a deadline: eventually, Henry’s wife will return from her travels, to him, and he to her.
On long drives through landscapes, Sylvia tells Henry stories, rich expanses of unimportant detail, stretching back generations, while avoiding the uneasy climax of her most important story—the betrayal by omission of her best friend. But as she says, stories only have happy endings if you end them too soon, and the choices we make, though in many ways inevitable, are still our responsibility.
And all that makes the novel sound dark, doesn’t it? It’s not, though there’s plenty of grief to go around. Kirshenbaum’s facility with language locates beauty and humor everywhere, and the novel duplicates the process of getting to know someone so well that we’re ready to forgive Sylvia her cowardice, because it’s so like our own. “The Scenic Route” is that wonderful mix of wry, witty, and unutterably tragic—you know, like life. Where the destination’s known, but there are so many ways to get there.
Sylvia Landsman, fortyish, divorced, childless, having been laid off from a job she didn’t care about, decides to go to Florence. There, she meets Henry, an expatriate whose marriage of convenience provides him with means and opportunity for a life of utter frivolity and leisure. Together, they set off on an aimless, luxurious jaunt through Europe, somehow outside of time and space, though conducted in five-star hotels and beholden to a deadline: eventually, Henry’s wife will return from her travels, to him, and he to her.
On long drives through landscapes, Sylvia tells Henry stories, rich expanses of unimportant detail, stretching back generations, while avoiding the uneasy climax of her most important story—the betrayal by omission of her best friend. But as she says, stories only have happy endings if you end them too soon, and the choices we make, though in many ways inevitable, are still our responsibility.
And all that makes the novel sound dark, doesn’t it? It’s not, though there’s plenty of grief to go around. Kirshenbaum’s facility with language locates beauty and humor everywhere, and the novel duplicates the process of getting to know someone so well that we’re ready to forgive Sylvia her cowardice, because it’s so like our own. “The Scenic Route” is that wonderful mix of wry, witty, and unutterably tragic—you know, like life. Where the destination’s known, but there are so many ways to get there.
October 23, 2009
Again, another book lent to me by my neighbor and one that I hadn't heard of but am giving 4 stars to which I don't give to many books but this book was just so well written. This is a book narrated by Sylvia, a single, divorced, middle aged woman who when laid off from her job, goes to Europe for an indefinite amount of time and soon after landing in Europe, she meets Henry who is another American but one who has been living an expatriate life in Paris, living off of his extremely wealthy wife. Henry and his wife live very separate lives and have almost nothing in common but he would never think of leaving her for as he sees it, that would "ruin his life" and Sylvia understands this thoroughly since her and Henry are bound but one strong bond, their absolute inability to act on anything.
The story is a rich story for it is a sum of the stories that Sylvia tells Henry of her family as they tour around Europe in Henrys car, staying at lavish hotels & eating wonderful meals, all bank rolled by Henry's rich wife. They both fall very much in love wih each other but know that they will do nothing about it.
The author herself, sums up Sylvia perfectly when she says in telling teh story "Sylvia is trying to understand how she got to this state, as if understanding will afford her purpose, and somehow ease her sorrow."
The story is a rich story for it is a sum of the stories that Sylvia tells Henry of her family as they tour around Europe in Henrys car, staying at lavish hotels & eating wonderful meals, all bank rolled by Henry's rich wife. They both fall very much in love wih each other but know that they will do nothing about it.
The author herself, sums up Sylvia perfectly when she says in telling teh story "Sylvia is trying to understand how she got to this state, as if understanding will afford her purpose, and somehow ease her sorrow."
July 5, 2009
I read (or at least, read half of) this book because indie publisher, promoter, and book junkie Richard Nash thought I might like it.
The writing is deceptively simple - so simple and beautiful that you're almost tricked into thinking that it's too simple to be good fiction writing. Almost. The writing is good, and seductive, and just - pretty.
So why couldn't I finish the book? Personal reasons (it's not you, it's me). No, seriously. I like books with rich characters that I can either identify with strongly or show me a totally different aspect of humanity. The characters in this book did something in between for me. More than that, I couldn't finish the book because it's about heartbreak, and falling in love, and getting caught up in the web of another person. And at this particular moment in time (and in my own web of heartbreak and healing),I just can't stomach reading a novel like this.
That said, if you're a hopeless romantic (like I am) but also haven't recently gone through heartbreak (like I have), and want to fantasize about love and European roadtrips, you might just like this book a lot.
The writing is deceptively simple - so simple and beautiful that you're almost tricked into thinking that it's too simple to be good fiction writing. Almost. The writing is good, and seductive, and just - pretty.
So why couldn't I finish the book? Personal reasons (it's not you, it's me). No, seriously. I like books with rich characters that I can either identify with strongly or show me a totally different aspect of humanity. The characters in this book did something in between for me. More than that, I couldn't finish the book because it's about heartbreak, and falling in love, and getting caught up in the web of another person. And at this particular moment in time (and in my own web of heartbreak and healing),I just can't stomach reading a novel like this.
That said, if you're a hopeless romantic (like I am) but also haven't recently gone through heartbreak (like I have), and want to fantasize about love and European roadtrips, you might just like this book a lot.
September 16, 2009
This book was good when I was actually reading it, but I wasn't thinking about it when I wasn't reading it. And at first I wasn't sure if I was going to like the prose style, which is as if someone were speaking rather than writing, but the voice is well spoken, and I didn't mind after the first 50 pages or so.
The three main characters are, of course, flawed, but they aren't bad people. They aren't very interesting, either. Neither is the story of the present. But the narrator, Sylvia, who I thought might be an Unreliable Narrator, has very interesting stories about the past, which she tells for a need to remember, but some of which she also wants to forget.
Sylvia is telling her friend Ruby the story of her summer romance in Europe with the married Henry, to whom she is telling the stories of the past. Eventually, she tells Henry the story of her most recent past, where her _inaction_ was the mistake. But neither Henry nor Sylvia learn the moral of this story, and the novel ends with another "if only" moment.
The three main characters are, of course, flawed, but they aren't bad people. They aren't very interesting, either. Neither is the story of the present. But the narrator, Sylvia, who I thought might be an Unreliable Narrator, has very interesting stories about the past, which she tells for a need to remember, but some of which she also wants to forget.
Sylvia is telling her friend Ruby the story of her summer romance in Europe with the married Henry, to whom she is telling the stories of the past. Eventually, she tells Henry the story of her most recent past, where her _inaction_ was the mistake. But neither Henry nor Sylvia learn the moral of this story, and the novel ends with another "if only" moment.
September 5, 2011
At first I had a hard time following the flow of this story. As the narrator takes "the scenic route" through Europe with Henry (a new love), she also takes him and the reader through different stories of her family and history. As those stories also float between many times and people (a secondary "scenic route") the connection and continuity of the story can be difficult. I found once I just let the stream of consciousness technique just "be", I could enjoy the little side trips as vignettes on their own and that made the stories (and the story) more acceptable. As the story continued, a number of pieces fell together and made a more precise whole. This could have been a point as our memories exist in moments but after a while they do come together as a whole. How our lives fit together with others' lives is what makes up the world but as this book shows - how often do we know the outcome of that puzzle.
November 20, 2009
The funny thing about _The Scenic Route_ is that I didn't even care about the story of Sylvia and Henry. I was interested in Sylvia's asides, and her trips back in time. She tells us interesting facts not only about her family, but about history as well!
I felt like we never really go to know Henry, he was this mostly faceless character (blurry faced?), but perhaps Kirshenbaum wanted it that way, we could insert our own idea of Henry. We got to know Sylvia of the past, but not really Sylvia of the future...and perhaps that was because Sylvia was in a state of evolution throughout the "now" part of the story.
This is reading like I'm having my own little bookgroup conversation by myself!
This was an enjoyable read, but it's only been a week since I read it, and I've already forgotten most of the interesting things Sylvia told me about (the above mentioned history).
I felt like we never really go to know Henry, he was this mostly faceless character (blurry faced?), but perhaps Kirshenbaum wanted it that way, we could insert our own idea of Henry. We got to know Sylvia of the past, but not really Sylvia of the future...and perhaps that was because Sylvia was in a state of evolution throughout the "now" part of the story.
This is reading like I'm having my own little bookgroup conversation by myself!
This was an enjoyable read, but it's only been a week since I read it, and I've already forgotten most of the interesting things Sylvia told me about (the above mentioned history).
June 27, 2009
I was turned on to this book by the prose. I usually don't like books about middle aged women--they're either sappy or ridiculous. The prose is why I gave it a chance, but the reflection is what kept me reading. No, the plotline isn't anything to write home about, but then, that's not really the point of the book now is it? The point is that the story really is unremarkable, that her life is unremarkable--what's important is what she does with that knowledge. The self reflection, the asides about how we deal with action, cowards, endings...that is the real point in this book, and I think that she does a good job of it. At the very least it helps us to excuse the failings of ourselves and the people in our lives.
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