A Line in the World, by Dorthe Nors

  A Line in the World: A Year on the North Sea Coast is a sort of a literary travelogue, describing a very subjective experience of the Danish coast. It has little touristic information, though, mostly focusing on feelings, art, history, childhood memories, feminist musings and the like. It does bring everything into beautiful context, but in the end it felt like there was mostly context.

  There are stories about proud British ships brought down by the might of the sea, World War II stories from the German occupation, present stories from the German tourist occupation, stories about the stoic and taciturn Danes, former Vikings, now just disgruntled folk, but still doing the shield wall in front of any outsider people or ideas. There are stories about hallucinations, described beautifully as places remembering things if the right people are present. Also childhood memories and experiences. A lot of cool stuff.

  I liked the book, but if it weren't so mercifully short, I would probably not enjoyed the experience. Reading it it's not like you're there there, it's like you're in Dorthe Nors' head, who just happens to be in Denmark, travelling the coast. The writing is poetic, full of form and feeling.

  However, not everything was perfect. I don't feel like I learned anything useful about the Danish coast! In that regard, it was more a love (is it love? can't tell) letter to being Danish than a travel book. And it certainly didn't feel like a year, only fragmented anecdotes.

  Bottom line: Perhaps more fun to Dorthe Nors fans than random people like myself, but a bad book, but wondering who is it for.