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Romanen om den norske studenten Valemon Gristvågs første reise ute i verden. Han har kjøpt seg en brukt motorsykkel, forteller seg selv at han nå bryter tvert over med alt i sitt unge liv, og drar til Paris. Så er den i gang, beretningen om hans reise gjennom Tyskland i tiden umiddelbart før storkrigen kommer - om ferden gjennom Frankrike og om hans selsomme første dag i Paris.
248 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
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110 people want to read
About the author
Agnar Mykle
30 books22 followersAgnar Mykle was a Norwegian author.
He became one of the most controversial figures in Norwegian literature in the 20th century after the publication of «Sangen om den Røde Rubin» («The Song of the Red Ruby») in 1957 which ignited what became one of the most famous court cases in Norwegian history.
Mykle and his publisher Harald Grieg were accused of writing and publishing immoral, pornographic, and obscene material. Mykle's defense attorney was Johan Bernhard Hjort. Mykle and Grieg were both acquitted, but the remaining copies of the book were ordered withdrawn from the market. The Norwegian Supreme Court overturned the ruling on the confiscation in 1958.
The translations of The Song of the Red Ruby gathered tremendous attention outside of Norway, especially in the USA. Huge sales followed, but Mykle nevertheless had financial difficulties for the rest of his life.
He became one of the most controversial figures in Norwegian literature in the 20th century after the publication of «Sangen om den Røde Rubin» («The Song of the Red Ruby») in 1957 which ignited what became one of the most famous court cases in Norwegian history.
Mykle and his publisher Harald Grieg were accused of writing and publishing immoral, pornographic, and obscene material. Mykle's defense attorney was Johan Bernhard Hjort. Mykle and Grieg were both acquitted, but the remaining copies of the book were ordered withdrawn from the market. The Norwegian Supreme Court overturned the ruling on the confiscation in 1958.
The translations of The Song of the Red Ruby gathered tremendous attention outside of Norway, especially in the USA. Huge sales followed, but Mykle nevertheless had financial difficulties for the rest of his life.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 20, 2017
[continued from here]
Far, far down in Denmark, where Scandinavia ends and Europe begins...
That’s (a part of) the first sentence in the book. There, at the southernmost point of Jutland, at a customs office, stands a young man, a student from Norway, who is on his way to conquer the continent, or, more specifically, he is about to drive to Paris on his brand new used motorcycle he bought on credit to enter the city of love in France and make all the young and beautiful French women fall for him. At least that’s the plan. But to get to Paris from Denmark on a motorbike you have enter and then go through Germany first. You would think that that’s no problem at all. The borders in Europe are open after the Schengen Agreement (or at least they used to be until a couple of years ago) and the German autobahns, where you can drive as fast as you like (which some people take it “as fast as you can”), will help to bring you to your destination in no time. Wrong! First of all there are lots of sections on the autobahn where there is indeed a speed limit, and second of all this story is set in June 1939. So the European Union is decades down the road, a world war is looming, and our young biker has to go through Nazi-Germany. The first German he meets, after he dealt with the Danish border official, is the counterpart on the German side, a police officer, and the first words in German our young man hears are “Heil Hitler!” Luckily the student (who is coming from Bergen in Norway, by the way, where he is studying at a commercial college) understands and speaks German rather well, or at least he thinks he does. Later on, while traveling in Germany, first to Hamburg and then further South, he’ll learn that merely knowing the language isn’t quite enough to communicate successfully with other people from different countries.
So roughly the first two thirds of this book can be considered a road novel. Most of the time the student and his bike (which is given a rather funny name) are alone on the road, and the student has plenty of time to think about his current situation and the life and people he left behind in Norway. There are some engaging daydreams this young man has. I suspect those were written prior to the novel. They’re short stories of sorts embedded into the main novel. But it all fits nicely together, so no complains here. One of those stories, the best one to me, is called “The saga of the Draugs”. Originally draugs are undead creatures from Norse mythology, some kind of phantoms or revenants. But in this story the draugs are identified with actual people from Norway, the ones coming from the region called Sunnmøre from the Southwest corner of the country. The author makes it very clear what he thinks about this rather special kind of people. You’ll also learn why the word NOREG instead of NORGE on many Norwegian stamps is not a spelling mistake. The reason lies much deeper and it has to do with language (who would have thought?) of which Norway has an intriguing story to tell. You’ll also learn why the student’s city of birth, Trondheim, was called Niros in the middle ages before it became Trondhjem after which the name Niros popped up again which caused quite a stir, almost a civil war, so Niros had to make way again for – no, not Trondhjem – but Trondheim. To people outside of Norway this doesn’t sound like it was big deal, but for the people there, obviously including the author Agnar Mykle, it was. Those were the best chapters in the book for me.
I think it’s fair to say that our hero finally makes it to Paris. That’s when the novel turns into a social novel. Our man finally meets some women. But telling you how that went would spoil the fun. Maybe this part is not quite as good as the other, but it has also some hilarious pieces in it and I only say “Squat Toilet”.
I think this is the best of the three books that make up Mykle’s “Ask Burlefot” trilogy. There’s only small problem: The central character is not Ask Burlefot! It was me, who added the book to the series on GR. The student doesn’t have a name for over half of the book. We learn about his name very late, on page 228, and it’s not Ask Burlefot. But he has all the characteristics of Burlefot and the story starts pretty much where the previous book, The Song of the Red Ruby, ended and in some flashbacks scenes from the other books are mentioned. To me it’s perfectly clear that this man is Ask Burlefot. So either he lied about his name or carries a counterfeit passport around, or Mykle was not allowed to use the name anymore (there was a legal battle over Red Ruby for it being obscene) or he got sick of the name or maybe this book doesn’t follow Mykle’s own biography while the other two books did, so he changed the name to make that clear. Anyway, this is the best writing by Mykle I have yet encountered.
This book works well as a standalone. If you’re not interested in the prior stories of Aks Burlefot, and only want to check out this author, you’re safe to only read this one. Even if you later change your mind you can go back to books 1 and 2 without being spoiled too much by this book. And if you like to read the entire trilogy, there’s a nice way to do this: Read book 1, then book 2 without the final chapter called “coda”, then book 3, and then the coda. You’ll see what I mean, when you’ll get there.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Far, far down in Denmark, where Scandinavia ends and Europe begins...
That’s (a part of) the first sentence in the book. There, at the southernmost point of Jutland, at a customs office, stands a young man, a student from Norway, who is on his way to conquer the continent, or, more specifically, he is about to drive to Paris on his brand new used motorcycle he bought on credit to enter the city of love in France and make all the young and beautiful French women fall for him. At least that’s the plan. But to get to Paris from Denmark on a motorbike you have enter and then go through Germany first. You would think that that’s no problem at all. The borders in Europe are open after the Schengen Agreement (or at least they used to be until a couple of years ago) and the German autobahns, where you can drive as fast as you like (which some people take it “as fast as you can”), will help to bring you to your destination in no time. Wrong! First of all there are lots of sections on the autobahn where there is indeed a speed limit, and second of all this story is set in June 1939. So the European Union is decades down the road, a world war is looming, and our young biker has to go through Nazi-Germany. The first German he meets, after he dealt with the Danish border official, is the counterpart on the German side, a police officer, and the first words in German our young man hears are “Heil Hitler!” Luckily the student (who is coming from Bergen in Norway, by the way, where he is studying at a commercial college) understands and speaks German rather well, or at least he thinks he does. Later on, while traveling in Germany, first to Hamburg and then further South, he’ll learn that merely knowing the language isn’t quite enough to communicate successfully with other people from different countries.
So roughly the first two thirds of this book can be considered a road novel. Most of the time the student and his bike (which is given a rather funny name) are alone on the road, and the student has plenty of time to think about his current situation and the life and people he left behind in Norway. There are some engaging daydreams this young man has. I suspect those were written prior to the novel. They’re short stories of sorts embedded into the main novel. But it all fits nicely together, so no complains here. One of those stories, the best one to me, is called “The saga of the Draugs”. Originally draugs are undead creatures from Norse mythology, some kind of phantoms or revenants. But in this story the draugs are identified with actual people from Norway, the ones coming from the region called Sunnmøre from the Southwest corner of the country. The author makes it very clear what he thinks about this rather special kind of people. You’ll also learn why the word NOREG instead of NORGE on many Norwegian stamps is not a spelling mistake. The reason lies much deeper and it has to do with language (who would have thought?) of which Norway has an intriguing story to tell. You’ll also learn why the student’s city of birth, Trondheim, was called Niros in the middle ages before it became Trondhjem after which the name Niros popped up again which caused quite a stir, almost a civil war, so Niros had to make way again for – no, not Trondhjem – but Trondheim. To people outside of Norway this doesn’t sound like it was big deal, but for the people there, obviously including the author Agnar Mykle, it was. Those were the best chapters in the book for me.
I think it’s fair to say that our hero finally makes it to Paris. That’s when the novel turns into a social novel. Our man finally meets some women. But telling you how that went would spoil the fun. Maybe this part is not quite as good as the other, but it has also some hilarious pieces in it and I only say “Squat Toilet”.
I think this is the best of the three books that make up Mykle’s “Ask Burlefot” trilogy. There’s only small problem: The central character is not Ask Burlefot! It was me, who added the book to the series on GR. The student doesn’t have a name for over half of the book. We learn about his name very late, on page 228, and it’s not Ask Burlefot. But he has all the characteristics of Burlefot and the story starts pretty much where the previous book, The Song of the Red Ruby, ended and in some flashbacks scenes from the other books are mentioned. To me it’s perfectly clear that this man is Ask Burlefot. So either he lied about his name or carries a counterfeit passport around, or Mykle was not allowed to use the name anymore (there was a legal battle over Red Ruby for it being obscene) or he got sick of the name or maybe this book doesn’t follow Mykle’s own biography while the other two books did, so he changed the name to make that clear. Anyway, this is the best writing by Mykle I have yet encountered.
This book works well as a standalone. If you’re not interested in the prior stories of Aks Burlefot, and only want to check out this author, you’re safe to only read this one. Even if you later change your mind you can go back to books 1 and 2 without being spoiled too much by this book. And if you like to read the entire trilogy, there’s a nice way to do this: Read book 1, then book 2 without the final chapter called “coda”, then book 3, and then the coda. You’ll see what I mean, when you’ll get there.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
October 26, 2018
Read as part of trilogy that began with Ring Around The Moon. Very uneven. Stream-of-consciousness when on his motorcycle riding the autobahns of Nazi Germany. Loved the peaceful interlude as he sits drinking coffee listening to the traffic in the distance. Almost zen-like! Author is good in parts at creating atmosphere but narrative is only half-done (no plot).
December 31, 2024
En bok om å reise til Frankrike rett før andre verdenskrig for å spise rødt kjøtt og runke på et hotell.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews