Riding with Rilke: Reflections on Motorcycles and Books

by Ted Bishop

"Part travelogue, part ode to his bike and part literary criticism...a memoir infused with joie de vivre."― Publishers Weekly In this "joyful book" ( Booklist ), archive diver and Ducati enthusiast Ted Bishop takes readers on an epic trip from Edmonton to Austin, through the classic landscapes of the American West, and to some of America's and Europe's most famous cities as he considers what it means to be a road dog and a researcher. Whether describing how he came to own a Ducati, debating the merits of D. H. Lawrence's novels, relishing the outlaw thrill of cruising small American towns on his bike, or holding Virginia Woolf's suicide note in the British Library, Bishop "easily blends his love of books and archives with his love of motorcycles and riding...an unusual combination...but one that ultimately works" ( Library Journal ). A Playboy Best Book of 2006.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, Motorcycle, Memoir, Biography, Motorcycling, Canada

272 pages, Paperback

First published September 13, 2005

Reviews

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you don't love motorcycles but you do love books this is the read for you. If you happen to also love motorcycles then this book is doubly satisfying. Author Bishop, a professor of English at the University of Alberta, narrates his tale of a southern road trip from Edmonton to Austin. Bishop is on sabbatical and traveling to the Harry Ransome Center at UT Austin to use that center's magnificent manuscripts collection in furtherance of work on Virginia Woolf. While Woolf gets her due - there's a wonderful description of Bishop reading Woolf's suicide note - so do James Joyce and D.H. Lawrence and cowboy librarians and the Austin music scene and high-end book collectors and motorcycles and books. I've never owned a motorcycle but I came away from this understanding why people ride and also why they read. Recommended.

[Barry Bandstra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edward "Ted" Bishop is an English professor at the University of Alberta, Calgary. He is driven by two impulses: finding primary sources in literary archives and pushing his Ducati Monster to the limits. I found this book to be thoroughly engaging: both his reflections on riding and his stories of research. And, he is a darn good writer. Admittedly this is a niche book; how many people out there want to hear about non-Harley motorcycling AND literary criticism? But he tells the stories soooo well.

[C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Technically, he's riding with Joyce and Woolf, not so much Rilke. Rilke doesn't rear his poetic head till the epilogue. Yes, I said the same thing, "but why...?" One quote summed it up for him. I can't copy that here because it'll ruin the surprise...right?

I want to give this five stars, but I'm held back by the narrative dragging badly in some spots. Around those spots, though, is an enjoyable, very quotable book. It bummed me out a bit, not to have sticky notes in hand to mark spots, OR the book on my kindle where I could highlight and share!

In one case, he's talking about books as sentient things that decide when the time is right to be read. How, if you try to force yourself to read them when they're not ready, they'll fight you and leave you exhausted. How, when looking for the book or a passage, you won't be able to find it. OH how I FEEL that! And how, when the time is right, they practically fall into your hand. You read the text and absorb it in a way you never could have but for the time being right. I so loved that.

Another point (easier to find), he quotes Robert Bringhurst:
"If you use this book as a guide, by all means leave the road when you wish. That is precisely the use of a road: to reach individually chosen points of departure. By all means break the rules and break them beautifully, deliberately and well."

There is some nice prose in there dedicated to motorcycling. There are some things we all think, I feel, when we head out on our bikes. Some funny truths, some romantic truths.

Again, I so want to give it 5 stars. I almost feel I should give it 5 stars simply because I have 2 chapters left to read, interrupted because *I* had to go out and go for a ride and get it out of my system (marking as "read" since that'll be finished tonight). But, those parts that drag really crawled for me. So that one star has to get knocked off.

Definitely worth a library check out, and I will say I'm more curious about Virginia Woolf and James Joyce than I was before.

[Faythe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not only does it have "reflections on motorcycles and books," but it also goes into Geneva, museums, archives, AND BMW motorcycles. A book after my own heart :)

[Leila · Rating 3 out of 5]

The thing about reading personal nonfiction is, if you don't like the person (or, to be nicer, if you are unable to empathize with the person), the subject matter can be as perfect as you want and it still won't be a fulfilling read. That's what happened for me here. Bishop seems to hope that his mildly self-deprecating, off-the-cuff styled humor will make him seem cool and humble. Instead, he seems to hit too close to the truth when he jokingly confesses that he can never be as cool as the bikers and movie figures he measures himself against. On top of that, his mildly misogynistic (mainly by omission and minimization of the women in his story) attitude is distracting. I love modernism and I love motorcycles, but I wish Hsing, his girlfriend, had written the book instead.

[Heidi Nemo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tweed vs. leather--and often annoying. Occasional moments of insight. He rode all over the US and Canada, but he didn't even CAMP?!

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

"I have accepted that it is my destiny to leave a trail of sunglasses through life, but I never lose my map. My map. What could be a worse omen for the first day of a trip? Bad karma. Starting a journey you should be calm, centered, complete, like a samurai, at one with his sword, totally focused on the task. Not flailing about like a man trying to pick up an exploded bag of marbles. It was all Hsing's fault."

A grown man loses his road map on a trip, and, sorry, let me get this straight, it is his girlfriend's fault? We'll get back to my hatred of the narrator later.

First, formatting-wise, this book was a disaster. The timeline was all over the place and difficult to follow. The book is advertised as the man's accident and recovery being the focal point of the novel, but in reality, it is merely a footnote, and an excuse for him to pretend to be badass for a second while actually spending a majority of the book talking in depth about his unfinished literary work. I still am not sure how his road trips to and from Texas, his trip to Europe (why was that even included?), and the accident work out in the timeline.

Now, getting onto the narrator. I hate the narrators in many books that I end up enjoying as a whole anyways. This was not one of them. First, let's mention the subtle misogyny displayed by Ted. His long-term girlfriend is mentioned briefly throughout the book, usually when he is either a) complaining about her nagging b) complaining about her not answering his calls or c) reasoning with himself on why he shouldn't hook up with a random 19-year old girl he meets (his girlfriend is only the afterthought that comes to mind after his worries about STDs).

"But when a woman rides her own bike, you're immediately converted to chopped liver on wheels. You pull into a gas station and there's chaos, pump jockeys leaping over each other, begging to check her tire pressure, fill the tank, change the oil, anything.
You, you get nothing. No attention, no service, no chance."

What follows is a 2-page long tantrum about riding with his girlfriend makes him feel invisible, where instead he could be praising or admiring the fact that somehow a dorky scholar like him managed to snag a badass doctor who rides a BMW as a girlfriend.

Secondly, the moment he leaves the border of Canada, there is nothing but disdain for the landscapes and people he encounters. He travels through some of the most beautiful places in the world, but his admiration never travels further than the local coffee stands. The people he meets don't gasp and ask for his autograph when he mentions he's from Canada, or that he's riding a motorcycle, and so of course he takes major offense to this and writes off all Americans as snobby and rude. Hey, it may be true, but why the hell are you riding through the entire country if you hate it so much? He rides through southern Utah, known universally as a gorgeous, world-renowned red rock landscape, and he writes it off as a boring desert. His mind is so closed, and it was depressing to see the world through his eyes.

Finally, he is cocky in his ineptitude, and it is incredibly off-putting. He boasts about not knowing how to fix a single thing on his bike, except how to tighten the chain. Oh, except he has to get that replaced at one point because he doesn't actually know how to do that either. He seems to love that he fits perfectly into the "wealthy mid-life crisis" category of motorcycle enthusiasts,and while there is nothing wrong with that, the way he presents himself could have been done in a much less unpleasant way.

The fact that this review is so negative reflects my passion for the subjects of this book - both bikes and literature - and it is unfortunate that they have been represented in such a way by such an annoying and repulsive narrator. If you're looking for a similar book, I would recommend Ghost Rider by Neil Peart. That's not a five star book either by any means, but a much more interesting read on a similar subject.

[A · Rating 1 out of 5]

I feel terrible about disliking this book to the extent that I did, because I attended the University of Alberta at the same time Ted Bishop was teaching there and I understand that he was a well-respected professor who, as far as my fellow students in the English program were concerned, was a decent person and a good professor. He was also polite to me whenever I bumped into him.

HOWEVER. This book is so boring. Ted Bishop the person may be fine; Ted Bishop the character in Riding With Rilke is a middle-aged man going through an almost cinematically cliche mid-life adventure. He is desperate to be cool, as demonstrated by his obsession with being perceived as a ragged anti-hero on his motorcycle, and the self-deprecating asides which would otherwise be humorous come off, instead, as the pathos of a tenured English professor whose act of rebellion is a summer trip on his expensive motorcycle.

The landscapes all blur together. Some authors (such as DeLillo in "Americana") can describe a landscape in a meaningful way. With all due respect to Mr. Bishop, he cannot. Whenever he wrote about the curve of a road, it was as though I was reading through a travel brochure. The towns are, similarly, presented in such a generic fashion that I couldn't keep track of what was happening where. And, frankly, it becomes so monotonous. The editor should have tried to force a cap on the references to poor diner food, good diner food, terrible coffee, and finally the good espresso. When comparatively exciting plot developments do occur, such as the aside with the wealthy book-buyers, they become bloated with yet another description of the motor of his Ducatti, which we have heard before.

My overall issue with this book is that Mr. Bishop is not a skilled enough writer to make something out of nothing, in the same way that Virginia Woolf can transform buying flowers into something profound, for example. When he isn't dealing with an overbearing academic suggesting projects (the only interesting part of the book), the characters, scenes, and random asides into his childhood are so generically written (a word I've used a lot, because it applies) that they aren't more revelatory or insightful than watching a slideshow of vacation photos. I don't think this book is poorly written, but it is astonishing it was nominated for an award.

[Joey · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title of this book is very apt. Prospective readers who pay attention to the title -- judge a book by its title, so to speak -- shouldn't be disappointed. It's about riding AND Rilke (well, not really about Rilke specifically, but about literature). It's a reflection on motorcycles AND books.

I suspect no one picks up this book for a good read about 20th century modernism in literature. But that's easily half the volume. Every reader opens this work expecting a motorcycle memoir. They'll probably be half disappointed, but they shouldn't be. The title says it all.

I personally love books and I'm a wannabe academic who lacks the drive and persistence and intelligence (and youth) to actually do it. Unlike most of Bishop's audience here, I probably like motorcycles less than I like books, but I like motorcycles fine, and I ride for fun sometimes. I'm more of an American cruiser fan than I am of European sport bikes, but Bishop's treatment of the world and the heart of motorcycle riding reads universally -- he rides his Ducati the way we ride our cruisers: across wide open deserts and over piney peaks on rain-washed roads.

I really loved "Riding with Rilke." Bishop's writing is light and jaunty, yet substantial and informative. We learn a lot about Georgia O'Keefe, but also a little about Taos Pueblo and Andrews, Texas. We get to know Bishop just enough -- not so much that it feels like he's needy, but enough that we feel like we're going on both a motorcycle and an emotional journey with him.

Bishop is clearly a writer, and clearly a rider. This book didn't make me a better person or cause me to think about the world differently. But it was time well spent and I found myself excited to turn more pages every day. That's the sign of a good book.

[Ray Argyle]

A charming little book, even if you're not a motorcycle enthusiast -- which I'm not. But Ted Bishop, a professor of English at the University of Alberta (at time of writing, 2000, at least) takes us on a combined motorcycle-literary voyage down the spine of the Rocky Mountains to the Ransom Library in Austin, Texas, and back to the Yellowhead Highway in B.C. Actually, Bishop begins in B.C., with a horrific accident that puts him in hospital for weeks. Only after 238 pages of often droll bike and book talk do we return to him in recovery mode, in the book's epilogue. In between, we share Bishop's joy in James Joyce and Ulysses, T.E. Lawrence, D.H. Lawrence and sundry other authors whose lives were touched by the Southwest U.S. locations (Taos, Sante Fe, etc) that he takes us to. We also gain some insights into the complicated but most often comfortable life of the academic. Bishop is worked up by the blue covers of the early editions of Ulyssses, and writes a paper for the Joyce Studies Annual which earns him a trip to Rome. Nice work if you can get it! This book;s been around for awhile, but you should read it if you can find a copy. The Rilke of the title, you may have guessed, is the oft-quoted German poet.

[Vanessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best nonfiction book I've ever read. Totally smooth and a page turner cover to cover. Not once did I stop because I was bored. Ted Bishop seamlessly entertains the reader down each highway of anecdotes, tales of D.H. Lawrence here, elegies of Virginia Woolf there, and the whopper of riding with Rilke at the end. From laugh out loud hilarious to heart wrenching Bishop is a master storyteller, the elegant tour guide feeding you history and story with the same spoon of honey. I cannot wait for another book by him. Heck, even a book on fonts is looking damn fine from here.

[Trudy Jaskela · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading about Doctors Without Borders and their work, I needed a lighter humorous read. I enjoyed this book . The author, an English Prof from Edmonton, took his sabbatical year, and on his motorcycle, journeyed to Austin Texas to do primarily research on James Joyce and Ulysses, and some research on Virginia Woolf, DH Lawrence and TE Lawrence. The majority of the book is about his travels thru USA, the terrain and the characters he met. Also lots of details about his beloved Ducati motorcycle and how to ride it in al kind of weather.

[Gord · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok road-odyssey motorcycle journal that comes across very often as exactly what it is; a book written by an English Professor. While there were some interesting and sometimes humorous parts that I enjoyed, usually his experiences in small towns, locals, travelling etc., the academic pursuits and his Joyce research just wasn’t very captivating. I know that probably says as much about me but whatever, it seemed kind of a long read and might have DNFed if not given to me by a friend.
2.5 stars rounded up because it’s Friday and I’m in a good mood.

[Juan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Motorcycles and Literature

This was a very special book. The story telling by Ted Bishop is intellectually driven and charming. I recommend it to anyone who loves the adventures of the outdoors and the written word.

[Ginger Hewitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book introduced to me the idea of “paratext.”

[Kurt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three and a half stars, actually.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars, rounded up. Decent, and interesting, but the author’s way of describing women gave me the slight heebie jeebies every now and again.

[Vali · Rating 5 out of 5]

You like Motorcycels? Read it.
You like Books? Read it.
You like both? READ IT.
You like neither? Still read it.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 1/2 stars...Didn't actually finish....liked him, couldn't appreciate his motorcycle meanderings.

[Krishl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind of snooty Canadian English Professor rides his Monster from Alberta to Texas. Has fun and has lots of rude things to say about Americans, especially Texans. I'm guessing his Canadian English speciality is correct usage of the term "Eh." Not especially recommended.

[Pat Loughery · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this one. The author is a college professor of English, specializing in modern literature. He's also a motorcycle enthusiast. The story is the memoir of his ride from Calgary to Austin for a sabbatical research project, and takes on library archives, James Joyce, TS Lawrence, Virginia Wolfe, motorcycle touring, the Ducati brand, and other topics.

It's far deeper on the literature side than the motorcycle side, but it did a good job of describing the love many of us have for motorcycle travel. It introduced me to modernism, and even his descriptions of typefaces and bookbinding - which sounds totally boring - was pretty interesting.

The book is fairly philosophical. Somewhere in the rough genre of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, though I enjoyed this one more (although I last read ZAMM when I was a 20-year-old, so perhaps I should revisit it).

Oh, and the Rilke part of the title was a bit misleading. Rilke's work only shows up late, and in a small snippet. I was disappointed in that, but it didn't ruin the book by any means.

[Marc · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book took about a day to get through cover-to-cover, and was entertaining. I expected something more academic, or at least with a greater connection between the author's two worlds of motorcycles and literature. Instead, he occupies both worlds and has anecdotes from each, but they don't blend well and the pacing of the book suffered as a result of lack of transition between the "bike" and "books" sections.

The opening of the book, describing his crash, was chilling and very well written - and is largely the inspiration for me buying the book.

Overall, it is a good book, filled with interesting bits and well worth reading, but isn't as significant as Pirsig's "Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," which, for me, still sets the bar for philosophical motorcycle travel narrative.

[Bob · Rating 2 out of 5]

A novice to the American West rides through it on motorcycle. Narrative is much like other travel writing.

Clarity in discussion of 'place" is fuzzy at best. Caught many times with incorrect positioning of places. The worst infraction is his visit to Monument Valley...just outside Moab, UT. Looking at acknowledgements, it is clear where the problem lies. When not writing about the road, he seems to be clear and concise. In turn, it is not surprising that he seemed to do a lot of research about those things. However, there are no "thank you's" to people who helped him with information about place. In turn, his sense of place is sometimes jumbled or incorrect.

[Spyder · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book about motorcycles and books... Hell yeah!!! Two of my favorite things. An interesting read for a non-Academic though I admit that the story drug on a little as he described his research endeavors. Having lived in Austin for 9 years and knowing the Hill Country as well as I do, as well as, being familiar with many of his other well traveled routes through various travel books, maps and personal driving experiences made this little book a lot of fun to read.

[TC · Rating 5 out of 5]

A travelogue and a memoir of ideas about literature, motorcycles, people and places. This satisfying book is more thoughtful consideration and educated reflection than swagger, pussy and motors, and that's a good thing. Compelling memoir written by a Canadian lit prof who toured the West astride his Ducati Monster. Riding with Rilke, to me, was a celebration of the finer connections between people and the places they inhabit, the past and the present. I loved it.

[John K. Ross, MD · Rating 4 out of 5]

This artful blend of motorcycle riding, motorcylcles lore and the world of academic literature echoes Melissa Pierson's "the perfect vehicle--what is is about motorcycles". Substitute an early middle-aged professor for the young Melissa, put in a little literature archive work and the Southwest desert...definitely, to this two-wheeler nut, a good, good read.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the book and was going to give it only three stars but like the author I, too, have totaled an older BMW twin motorcyle, ending up hurt in a ditch. And I, too, have a Ducati Monster motorcycle. So, I added an extra star in honor of his vehicular taste. Oh, and because his writing's not too bad either.

[Roderick Mcgillis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bishop weaves reading, archival work, motorcycles, and riding motorcycles into a fascinating narrative. His evocation of libraries, archives, landscapes, meteorological phenomena, and food is lovely. This is a clever book. It also tells us something about practising experience, tasting life, and enduring adventure.

[Frank · Rating 2 out of 5]

There was too much description of what he saw on the road. I find this to be a common mistake among travel writers. The interesting parts of travel/adventure books is the description of interactions with locals, or descriptions of the traveller's experiences. But this book had little of the latter, a lot of the former.

Not recommended.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A professor of literature who focuses on the moderns (Joyce, Lawrence, Woolf) relates his travels from Alberta, Canada to Austin, Texas on his Ducati. Along the way he muses about the connection of his two loves--literature and motorcycles. Fun read.