Review by Booklist Review
"This is what will happen," writes novelist Nors (Mirror, Shoulder, Signal). "I will set off humbly in my restless Toyota" for a year of travel along the coast of the North Sea in her native Denmark. Expressively translated by Waight, A Line in the World chronicles that journey through cold, deadly, beautiful landscapes and the memories they hold. Nors writes with quiet awe about wind turbines and rip tides, recognizing the efforts of humans past and present to make their lives by the sea in the full knowledge that at any day they might be consumed by it. The tight bond between place and people forms the backbone of this evocative and haunting book, which reminds the reader at every turn that permanence is not promised. Yet neither can we depend on our own transience, for history leaves traces throughout Nors' landscapes, from recovered frescoes in Danish churches to German bunkers repurposed as symbols of lasting peace. Both celebration and elegy, this book will appeal to travelers and homebodies.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Danish novelist Nors (Mirror, Shoulder, Signal) makes her first foray into nonfiction with this poetic chronicle of her time spent along Denmark's North Sea coast. The rugged and ever-shifting coastline, which Nors paints as harsh and unforgiving but not without beauty, has "been a part of me from the beginning," she writes in "The Line"--it's where her family is from, and where she owns a house. "Amsterdam, Hvide Sande" shows how "living with the water and off the water takes arrogance and submission at the same time." "West by Water" reflects on the WWII land mines that, until "well into" Nors's lifetime, were buried off the coast, while "The Secret Place" describes the industrial waste that contaminated the area around her family's summer home. One of the most memorable entries is "The Timeless," which sees Nors and her friend Signe Parkins (whose illustrations adorn the opening of each chapter) explore frescoes in coastal churches; when asked at one church if they're there to see the paintings, Nors answers, "We're on a kind of quest for things that transcend time." Nors's portrait of her connection to a landscape both "harsh and mild" enchants. Illus. (Nov.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Novelist and Man Booker finalist Nors (Mirror, Shoulder, Signal) muses on divergent, intertwined aspects of landscapes and life along the North Sea, from the west coast of Denmark, south to Germany and the Netherlands. From the region's past and present, mostly around Jutland, Denmark, there are also vignettes and tales about its people, homes, lighthouses, church frescoes, dunes, and walking paths, along with explanations about how storm surges and the sea always prevails. Nors connects her own childhood experiences and her current transient life in the region to view the culture as an insider and outsider. Most stories, ranging from a chemical plant that causes irreparable damage to a seemingly vanishing abbey, migratory birds, and the surfing scene, traverse time and tie back to the present through the coast. Black-and-white drawings by Signe Parkins bring out the harshness of the landscape. VERDICT Inquisitive and flowing, with plenty of insight into how North Sea cultures adapt and respond to the sea. More than a travelogue, with stories about life, death, and nature as an enduring, immovable, ever-changing force.--Zebulin Evelhoch
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
The first book of nonfiction from the iconoclastic Danish author. In this graceful, lyrical text, Nors gathers 14 essays about the North Sea Coast of Denmark, which is, for her, both legacy and landscape. "That was where our kin came from; the coastline was our place of origin," she writes in the first of the deft and offhand pieces. "My family had a little house tucked away in a deserted backwater out there all my life." If this statement makes her efforts seem like a reclamation, there is plenty of disruption, as well. The author sees the coast as not only geographic, but also personal. "A landscape is beyond the telling, like the telling is beyond itself," she writes. "It takes a person to take up the line somewhere, to open, look and make a cut." That is her purpose in this luminous set of reflections, which she frames as something of an escape: "Me, my notebook, and my love of the wild and desolate. I wanted to do the opposite of what was expected of me. It's a recurring pattern in my life." As the book progresses, Nors touches on a variety of intriguing rituals and landmarks--e.g., the Midsummer's Eve bonfire, in which a doll is burned to ward off evil; a tour of coastal churches undertaken in one day. "We Danes," she writes, "are more or less in agreement: all of this is a game we play." Still, those ancient places and ceremonies exert a vivid pull. Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent then when she addresses weather patterns, the storm surges, "part of the organic, changeable and violent life of the coast," that have wreaked havoc on inhabitants for centuries. "It's always out there, the great storm surge," she writes. "You know it's coming." An intricate reckoning with a world that, despite our best attempts to tame it, remains elemental and wild. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
