STORM

A MOTORCYCLE JOURNEY AROUND THE BALTIC SEA

by Allen Noren ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2000

Wayfarer Noren and his girlfriend Suzanne argue their way around the Baltic on the back of a motorcycle through a lot of

bad weather and sinus trouble. The idea was this: to ride a motorcycle through Denmark north to Scandinavia up to the Arctic Circle then south and east through Russia and the Baltic states to Germany via Poland. It would be done on a shoestring, as they had little money, yet they were veterans of the road and this trip looked promising: newly opened lands, brave new prospects. Then it started to rain. And, evidently, it continued to do so, with frequent high winds, for the entire three-month slog. Readers are treated to a few of those candent, chance moments that hard traveling afford—an unexpected day sail in the Arctic, a glimmering little island off Estonia that had just been opened to those other than Soviet apparatchiks—and Noren, appealingly, never lets background information get in the way of his encounters with places, for happenstance and immediacy are his guides. But mostly it is extended recounts of the fighting between Noren and Suzanne: she, understandably, wants to bag the trip, particularly after her allergies kick in; he, incomprehensibly (for his compulsion never becomes anything to hang a passion on), wants to push forward. This makes slow progress for both them and the reader, compounded by Noren's unsure hand at writing. He has a tendency to baldly explain rather than let the narrative unfold, he plays back too many conversations verbatim—“Frahm Amerika? Eww iss frahm Amerika? Naj! I love Amerika. Cowboys!”—he trots out too many travel truisms (“The world becomes so big when you're out in it”), and he protests about the weather too much. A strange adventure doesn't insure a compelling travel narrative—and Noren's is so unpolished that it simultaneously leaves too little up to the reader’s imagination and asks too much of their patience. Wayfarer Noren and his girlfriend Suzanne argue their way around the Baltic on the back of a motorcycle through a lot of bad weather and sinus trouble. The idea was this: to ride a motorcycle through Denmark north to Scandinavia up to the Arctic Circle then south and east through Russia and the Baltic states to Germany via Poland. It would be done on a shoestring, as they had little money, yet they were veterans of the road and this trip looked promising: newly opened lands, brave new prospects. Then it started to rain. And, evidently, it continued to do so, with frequent high winds, for the entire three-month slog. Readers are treated to a few of those candent, chance moments that hard traveling afford—an unexpected day sail in the Arctic, a glimmering little island off Estonia that had just been opened to those other than Soviet apparatchiks—and Noren, appealingly, never lets background information get in the way of his encounters with places, for happenstance and immediacy are his guides. But mostly it is extended recounts of the fighting between Noren and Suzanne: she, understandably, wants to bag the trip, particularly after her allergies kick in; he, incomprehensibly (for his compulsion never becomes anything to hang a passion on), wants to push forward. This makes slow progress for both them and the reader, compounded by Noren's unsure hand at writing. He has a tendency to baldly explain rather than let the narrative unfold, he plays back too many conversations verbatim—“Frahm Amerika? Eww iss frahm Amerika? Naj! I love Amerika. Cowboys!”—he trots out too many travel truisms (“The world becomes so big when you're out in it”), and he protests about the weather too much. A strange adventure doesn't insure a compelling travel narrative—and Noren's is so unpolished that it simultaneously leaves

too little up to the reader’s imagination and asks too much of their patience.

Pub Date: April 1, 2000

ISBN: 1-885211-45-7

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Travelers’ Tales

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2000

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION