Cory Mortensen describes his first memoir, THE BUDDHA AND THE BEE (Biking through America’s Forgotten Roadways on a Journey of Discovery), as being “based on actual occurrences,” which allows for a little sleight-of-hand in the telling of his cycling trip from Minnesota to northern California in August and September 2001 on the forgotten roadways of the book’s title. During five weeks on the road Mortensen visited a variety of cities, towns, state parks, and, as he puts it, stops along the road that are “no longer needed as cars now [get] hundreds of miles to the tank”. Mortensen’s writing style is punchy and accessible, though the detailed descriptions of his riding style get a bit tiresome after a while (fellow cyclists may find more of interest here). Likewise, Mortensen’s faux-self-aggrandizing manner – he refers to himself as his readers’ “hero” – amuses on first reading, but could have been dialed down as the narrative of places and passers-by takes center stage.

“Forgotten roadways” is, of course, a loose term. It would be a simple enough business to argue that the actual number of such truly forgotten routes is in today’s digital world minuscule anywhere in the contiguous forty-eight, or at least, to be found well away from the interstates (Mortensen stuck to I-80 for much of the second half of the journey). The trip’s stakes therefore have to be thrown into sharper relief, and Mortensen accomplishes this by revealing that he set out with no plans in place for exactly how he was going to get to California. This by no means invalidates the endeavor. The Chris McCandlesses of this world know full well the value of starting a journey with no idea of the road one will take, or how to take it, and Mortensen intuits this. “I never liked planning,” the author writes of his lack of forethought in taking on the trip; “I always end up disappointed.”

But as so much of the drama in the book derives from the unplanned nature of the journey, it seems churlish to complain about the hardships that arise. Mortensen set out with no rain gear, and with the idea of picking up food from convenience stores along the way. All of that is, in its way, fair enough – for example, although Mortensen admits he got lucky in not seeing any rain at all until the second week of September, he set out in late summer, and so it feels like a calculated risk. However, it’s difficult to care about suffering that the author brought upon himself by, say, finding himself having to complete over 100 miles of cycling in a day with nothing but a Snickers bar to sustain him. “Your hero was very moody,” Mortensen informs his readers in the middle of this plight. No kidding; but what would anyone expect for putting themselves through needless privations?

It’s hard to gauge how much of this was the product of a truly lackadaisical approach to the trip and how much was premeditated, as a way of injecting drama into the narrative. In fact, the most interesting parts of the book revolve around Mortensen’s interactions with those he meets on the way. He describes in detail the peculiar experience of first hearing about 9/11 not on TV or on the radio, but from a drunkard sitting in a parking lot in Colorado. This passage is in many ways the most resounding, coming as it does from a time when being online regardless of location was not a possibility for large numbers of people, and it was still entirely possible for news to travel at one’s own speed through the landscape. Mortensen describes the strangely liminal atmosphere in the days that followed – the sudden profusion of American flags from every establishment; the slogans depicted on chain-link fences in remembrance of those who died and solidarity with those who survived; conversations with strangers who thought carpet-bombing the entire Middle East wouldn’t be enough vengeance; the feeling of an outlook on life coming to an end – with an honest detachment. This part of the book culminates with Mortensen in tears on an anonymous hotel bed, not quite able to believe that the footage of the attacks, still being shown on a loop on TV, weren’t a product of Hollywood. Slavoj Žižek would be proud.

In the end, with no special preparations and lacking even the basic equipment, Mortensen came through in fine style, and ditched his day job back in Minneapolis in order to “let the world revolve underneath me”. It’s a fitting end for a journey that was as central to Mortensen’s journey of personal growth as it was grueling. THE BUDDHA AND THE BEE has its faults, but offers a heartfelt account of what travel in the pursuit of self-discovery can look like in twenty-first century America.

Though the narrative’s reliance on contrived drama sometimes falters, Cory Mortensen ‘s memoir THE BUDDHA AND THE BEE (Biking through America’s Forgotten Roadways on a Journey of Discovery) offers a thoughtful meditation on travel and self-discovery in twenty-first century America.

~Craig Jones for IndieReader