Sur la route du Danube

by Emmanuel Ruben

Dans une chevauchée de l'Europe à vélo, le long du Danube et de ses paysages époustouflants, Emmanuel Ruben compose un portrait fort et sensible de la mosaïque européenne. À l'été 2017, en 48 jours, Emmanuel Ruben et son ami Vlad entreprennent de remonter le cours du fleuve depuis les rives de la mer Noire, en Ukraine, jusqu'à sa source dans la Forêt-Noire, en Allemagne. En chemin, c'est l'histoire complexe d'une Europe oubliée que les deux amis traversent. Et, dans les entrelacs des civilisations déchues et des ethnies décimées, affleurent les portraits poignants des hommes et des femmes croisés en route, le tableau vivant d'une Europe contemporaine.

Genres: Bicycles

256 pages, Paperback

First published March 6, 2019

Reviews

[cvigneron]

Le roman de voyage à vélo par excellence. Géographe, poète, europhile, dessinateur, cycliste, Homme (!), l'auteur remonte le fleuve de la mer Noire à la Forêt Noire avec ces multiples regards pour embrasser de la manière la plus large possible ce superbe périple. Divin !

[Paul Norwood]

There were parts of the book I enjoyed a lot, such as some of the evocative historical references and the advocacy for refugees, but the uneven patches were just too rough or annoying to save the narrative. The section on his accident is awkwardly inserted into the middle and tries to provide mysterious depth but instead just confuses. Also, the one and only map is bad, and he doesn't show the parts where he rode a train instead of a bike. He keeps speaking of huge distances covered when his average seems to be around 70Km days with breaks - a very mellow pace, and without much weight. He is also weirdly unprepared. For example, he complains about not being able to find a spoke (should've brought one to begin with), then buys one but not a spare (WHY?), then wonder of wonders, needs another, then another spoke as the shoddy repair jobs fail. On a tour it's his job to fix his bike, not everyone else's. The author sees nothing good about the EU, and everything evil about it. The only things he seems to like along the way are downtrodden slavs, good-looking women, and food. Unfortunately there aren't many food sections so I was disappointed to hear way too much about his political views about everything from glyphosate to Putin. Like me when I was younger, and many other young people, he has strong ideals and that's fine. However, he gets to ride a bike around and not work and criticize all the stuffy bourgeois people who educated him and built the bike trail and hire police forces to protect him along the way, and the same old bourgeois people he mocks built the "bad" capitalist system that means he can pay for food and housing everywhere he goes. If I didn't know any better I would have finished the book thinking that all Germans and Austrians are closet Nazis, all bike tourists idiots, all other tourists overweight old white people, etc... The author writes well but in a disorganized fashion, and needs a decade or so to mature and get some richer perspective on life.

[Ludovic Iribarne]

Dans ce remarquable "récit d'arpentage", Emmanuel Ruben a entrepris de remonter le majestueux fleuve Danube avec Vlad, son ami ukrainien. En vélo, car c'est le meilleur moyen d'admirer les paysages arides ou foisonnants, de provoquer des rencontres authentiques et se laisser imprégner par les vestiges de cette Europe en déclin. Une véritable odyssée géographique, historique et profondément humaine.

[Guillaume Frasca]

Roman d’arpentage comme le décrit son auteur, il nous porte d’Odessa à la source du Danube en Allemagne, à rebours du courant et à la rencontre de tant de peuples oubliés, d’auteurs et d’histoires. Avec en ligne de mire un portrait de l’Europe à travers son plus grand fleuve.

[Ciprian Bujor]

Excelenta

[Laure]

Plutôt 2.5 - il y a 150 pages de trop dans ce livre… Dommage.