Bergen Spring
About the value of travels abroad, Bergen Spring is a warm coming-of-age novel.
Following his brother’s death, a man goes on a backpacking trip in Michael Cummings’s contemplative novel Bergen Spring.
In 1973, Erik, a theater student, yearns to find himself “among the citizens of the world.” His brother, Charlie, was killed by a land mine in Vietnam. Guilt-ridden because he thinks that Charlie was a better person and shouldn’t have died, Erik ventures to London, where he prepares to explore Scandinavia. He indulges in a few affectations in the process, including donning a tweed cap in England.
Uncertain about his future, adventuresome Erik is fleshed out best through his narrative-intrusive italicized thoughts and journal entries. Some of the latter are addressed to Charlie. Erik’s thoughts, in contrast, are devoted to frequent self-explanations, doubts, and advice to himself. He proves to be somewhat naive about other cultures, but his free-spiritedness is heartening.
Erik’s travels unfold in stages, with each chapter named after a city. These markers are used as a loose scaffolding to explore his growth from an American tourist into an independent man of the world. However, the individual settings are only sketched in, with the narrative evading cultural depth. In London, Erik stays in a hostel and meets other travelers; in Durham, he reflects on his college classmates rather than fleshing out his surroundings. His encounters with others are convivial but fleeting; he interacts with old friends, a veteran, and a man who quotes Ecclesiastes, but few are embodied in full. Even the time period is established in shorthand, in terms of popular songs and conversational mentions of current events.
Further, the narrative moves with ease through accounts of Erik hitchhiking, sleeping outdoors, and encountering friendly strangers who offer him their help. He faces few complications, and those that do arise are fast resolved, as when he misses a ferry. Even in Denmark, when Erik’s girlfriend makes a pivotal decision, its implications feel too removed from his own life, as though she is already in his past. All that he experiences exemplifies the warm but overpronounced notion that “it’s good to look for the good and always be optimistic.”
Late in the book, Erik spends an extended amount of time in Oslo and Bergen, where his stage ambitions are developed with greater care. He learns Norwegian, is enriched by the local theaters, and takes a minor role in a Henrik Ibsen play. Still, the ending is most focused on his fond reminisces, reinforcing the book’s overarching themes about the value of travels abroad.
A man works to achieve internal peace across his international travels in the episodic novel Bergen Spring.
Reviewed by
Karen Rigby
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
