Storm: A Motorcycle Journey of Love, Endurance, and Transformation (Travelers' Tales Footsteps) [Hardcover]

Allen Noren (Author)

Book Description

Series: Travelers' Tales Footsteps | Publication Date: May 10, 2000

Allen and Suzanne were seasoned travelers, and when Russia's Baltic states opened up for visitors in 1993, they eagerly embarked on a trip there. What they couldn't foresee were the record-breaking storms, desolate landscapes, and most significant, the cracks in their relationship that the trip would expose. Part love story, part edgy travelogue, and at times darkly humorous, Storm shows the fragility of human connections in the face of unexpected forces.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It's clear reading Allen Noren's haunting travel memoir, Storm: A Motorcycle Journey Around the Baltic Sea, that some trips just weren't meant to be. Yet take a really good writer, expose him to adverse conditions, toss in tragically bad weather, and what do you get? In this case, a beautifully written, stirring story that gets better and better as the journey worsens. A diehard traveler, Noren had been exploring the far corners of the world for years when he and his girlfriend, Suzanne, pinned a map of the world to their bedroom wall and plotted out an adventurous, three-month route around the Baltic Sea. They considered traveling by kayak, by car, and eventually settled on the idea of riding a motorcycle. (Or rather, Noren settled on the idea and managed to convince his girlfriend that the bike would be the way to go.) Sadly, while Noren is completely exhilarated by the challenges presented by their used BMW, and indeed, feels totally one with the machine, Suzanne--surprise--hates it from the get-go. Screaming down the Autobahn in the driving rain at 85 mph, stumbling upon a motorcycle rally full of crazed, alcohol-induced biker revelers, and camping out nightly after long days on the road doesn't hold the same appeal for her that it does for him. The tale works on many levels, but at its best Storm is a poignant account of two people whose dreams have begun to diverge. It is also an exploration of the reasons we travel--and how those reasons can change, subtly at first, and then more dramatically, as we do. And finally, it is a descriptive travelogue, full of wonderful passages that bring the landscape of Sweden and Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland to life. In short, this is a compelling book about a tumultuous and complicated journey. Storm is required reading for anyone even thinking about taking that round-the-world trip. --Kimberly Brown

From the Inside Flap

Begun as a grand adventure, Storm tells the story of a trip that quickly became a tumultuous test of endurance. When the Baltic States of the former Soviet Union opened up, Allen and his girlfriend were drawn to the prospect of traveling together once again. Setting out on a BMW motorcycle, the two seasoned travelers rode through Germany, Denmark, and Sweden to the Arctic Circle, then on to Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. Though they'd been together for seven years, and thought they knew what to expect from an extended road trip, they couldn't foresee the unrelenting natural elements, shifts in once-shared dreams, or fissures in their relationship that lay ahead. Often darkly humorous, Storm reveals a couple's love and the fragility of human connections as it recounts the journey that became a test of both rider's physical and emotional endurance.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 340 pages
• Publisher: Travelers' Tales; First Edition edition (May 10, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1885211457
• ISBN-13: 978-1885211453
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #536,439 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Rain and resentment vs. ego and compulsion, October 17, 2001

By 

H. A. Nunes - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Storm: A Motorcycle Journey of Love, Endurance, and Transformation (Travelers' Tales Footsteps) (Hardcover)

Storm
By Allen Noren

I am an avid motorcyclist, but I found this story very frustrating. It is not so much about motorcycling or traveling as it is about ego and obsession. The author is driven by his compulsion to complete The Trip, despite the horrendous, record-breaking stormy weather, over 6000 miles of northern European roadways. He presses on, focused on all the details of the challenge of coping with a bike in the most extreme weather conditions. But his girlfriend, the pillion passenger, has nothing to do but suffer. She has nothing to occupy her mind but resentment. Cold, wet, allergy riddled, bored, pissed, frustrated... this is what we see of her. She exists on this trip, to hear Noren tell it, like another natural curiosity to be observed while traveling, like the lakes, seasides, forests and of course the storms.

This book breaks down at the same place that their relationship breaks down. He is a rider, she is a passenger. Never will the passions of the two be comparable. Noren never gets to this point, though. The entire story is told through his obsessive self-centered perspective. We barely get a glimpse of her thinking, and when we do, it is interpreted through Noren's crazed compulsion: she betrays him by losing her connection to The Trip. But he avoids the point that a pillion passenger is passive and detached from the essence of motorcycling, with no control, and a feeling of literal and figurative coat-tailing to the rider. It IS his trip, and she becomes ever more an afterthought to him, as her alienation metamorphoses into her own obsession to have the trip just be over.

It is inevitable that the reader grows ever more sympathetic to her plight, and ever more convinced that he is little more than a neurotic jerk.

All that said, the writing is quite good. The book reads quickly. The style is engaging and the observations are unique and interesting. Noren does an excellent job of detailing the inner workings of a motorcyclists' mindset.... As our loved ones will attest, we are all a little obsessive, a little insane.

The lessons for me: avoid taking my wife on very long trips as a passenger (something I already knew). Make your mate get her own bike, so she can see the trip through the same eyes that you do. Oh, and buy good rain gear and heated clothing, too!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Love and Life in the crucible of the Baltic..., February 28, 2001

By 

Adrian C. Wright "Long Distance Rider" (Maryland, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Storm: A Motorcycle Journey of Love, Endurance, and Transformation (Travelers' Tales Footsteps) (Hardcover)

I received this book with great anticipation, and from the moment I started reading it I found it hard to stop. I limited myself to only 2 chapters at a time, I found that way I could savour the pain and the pleasure of their experiences... The book is a great tale of love and life, relationship and partnership, give and take... I could relate to so many of their experiences, the minor tragedies and unexpected turmoils that it felt like a microcosm of many things in my own life, and I think many other readers who have travelled will feel the same. There were parts of this book that made me want to shout at Allen about the stupidity of things said and done (like just go back and say "sorry", or "forget the trip, she's more important than the journey/the bike..."). And when I got to the end, I wanted to say, "No wait... there's got to be more...", it was like leaving a movie theater where you want things to keep going a little longer... Long enough to just find out, to really finish it off (rather like the end of "Castaway"). But that's life... And Love...

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Storm, May 26, 2000

By 

Brian Erwin - See all my reviews

This review is from: Storm: A Motorcycle Journey of Love, Endurance, and Transformation (Travelers' Tales Footsteps) (Hardcover)

Not since Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Blue Highways has there been a book that so movingly captures the transformational effects of an "on the road" experience. Noren, a first-time author whose prose flows seamlessly, describes the dichotomy between the personal growth he's experiencing on this bike trip around the Baltic and the emotional distance it's creating with his long-time girlfriend. What I believed was going to be a travel narrative turned out to be a probing, self-revelatory, and sometimes disturbing examination of the nature of human relationships. What is remarkable about it is that he doesn't take sides. He peels open the relationship and explores it with great sensitivity and ultimately with great insight. I recommend it to you highly. It's a sleeper!