The first thing that strikes me in On Two Wheels is the effective use of language, and I guess it is partly because the choice of the right words in my own pieces is what intimidates me most. Usually finding myself at a loss for active, descriptive words, I would have most probably squeezed a narrative about riding motorcycles in fog and rain in barely a paragraph. Gutkind, however, devotes entire two pages to this simple activity and writes about it in such a perfect and engaging way that I do not realize when I have reached the last sentence.
Although my first association with descriptive language is the profuse almost abusing use of adjectives and adverbs, Gutkind’s short hardly has any. Yet, it tremendously helps the reader to envision the scene. This is so because when building the story, Gutkind relies heavily on conveying the intensity of what is happening through lots of verbs of motion. While Gutkind and his friend progress on their motorbikes, everything around them moves as well: in all sorts of different ways and all sorts of different directions. “Flapped”, “shivered”, “swept”, “spilling” are just a few examples of his playful language, in which “is” or anything else, which evokes images of immobility and dullness, is forbidden.
I find it particularly interesting how certain verbs that are imperative to be in a story like this do not describe only what comes first to mind. The properties of the things and the people in the short are blurred and intermixed. The two friends roll on their motorbikes, but so does the rain down their necks. Fog floats in the air, but so do the friends right through it. Although air leaks only under high pressure (in a liquid state), here it does so under normal conditions too. The rainy, foggy weather is part of Gutkind and his friend, and they are part of it.
It is important to note that Gutkind uses a bunch of comparisons and metaphors at the right places, which are worth a dozen of adjectives. In Gutkind’s shoes, I would have produced a considerable amount of sweat, thinking which words would describe best the sound resulting from the interaction of the plastic and the fierce wind. He solves the problem in an easy yet powerful way: “The rainsuit collar flapped fast in the wind, plastic against plastic, sounding like the propeller of a small airplane.”
On balance, On Two Wheels teaches me that I should not be afraid of the power of language, that I can describe the world around me in almost any imaginable way, as long as I set myself free from my own restrictions. I should not be confined to building images only in the traditional way. I should get a little crazy, experiment, and play around with strong words. Trucks do not just throw mud at Gutkind; they actually punch him with that mud. I should be able to see that when I write my own piece.
