Librarian Michael McGrorty thoughtfully discusses Melissa Holbrook Piersen’s book The Perfect Vehicle: What it is about motorcycles in his July 19th’s blog Library Dust. In it he explores a bit of the psychology of motorcycling and writers who write about motorcycling, too. And what woman motorcyclist couldn’t be charmed by his opinion that:
The very best thing about this book is that it has been written by a woman. Women have this refreshing tendency to understand that books can be about other subjects than themselves alone, and they write them with the reader in mind. Pierson’s book is about her experience with motorcycles, but only within the larger work at hand, which is communicating the experience and background of the machine and mileu.
The next best thing is that it is written by somebody who is primarily a writer who rides motorcycles rather than the other way around. Pierson’s work is pleasant, interesting and it flows well, which is a very good thing for a book whose job it is to explain a pastime which is foreign to most of the western world.
I especially like his journal entry, though, his own “what it is about motorcycling” that appears at the end of the blog. How familiar is this?
Outside of town now, there are few cars and much highway; the mountains raise a line against the pinpricks of the stars and the air flashes cold against my neck. This is the place where the world ends. The bike begins to drive itself, tracking between strands of strung diamonds made to blaze from my headlamp; we pass together into a long moment of night as we ride the gentle back of an invisible landscape: fifty miles, seventy-five, a hundred; then a sputter and a quick reach for the petcock and the spare tank. In a few minutes we are pulled over in a small island of this warm, dark sea, paying for gasoline with a gloved hand, walking again across the fine gravel to the place where the bike rests for the trip back home.
Michael McGrorty is a fine writer and a great addition to the library community. I’m disappointed that the links from this site don’t _really_ go to photos/stories of “motorcycles I’ve ridden,” but to manufacturer sites. I have photos of every bike I’ve had (ok, not of my first, a Zundapp 250 single dirt bike, but I do still have the head). It would make a good story…