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22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Bryson does Europe" as only Bryson can.., 21 April 2003
I'd heard all the hype about Bill Bryson being the best travel writer of the current generation so I figured I should read some of his stuff to make my own opinion. The first Bryson book I bought was this one and in all probability (at time of writing) I think it's my favourite. Bryson is an American who settled in Britain in the late 70s (and has since returned to the US). The basic style of a Bryson book is simple - get a train to a place, wander around aimlessly, check into an average hotel, wander round a bit more, sit in a pub on your own and go to bed. And yes, many people will say that's all there is to a Bryson book. I'd have to disagree with that though - what makes this book is the humour.. a strange combination of British sarcasm and American expectation make Bryson's commentary on the places he visits and the people he sees really rather good. In this book Bryson decides it's high time he ventured beyond Britain and visited as much of Europe as he can. To this end, he starts in Norway although he manages to visit when it's permanently dark, returns to England before venturing away on a longer trip, taking in Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Rome, Florence (probably the funniest part of the book for me), before travelling further south-east towards Sofia and Istanbul. If you're only going to read one Bill Bryson travel book, I'd probably recommend this one. Yes, there may be better travel writers, there may be funnier writers, but in terms of humorous travel writers I think Bryson is probably the best (although Peter Moore may come close).
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57 of 72 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Europe is so wonderful! So picturesque! (Too bad it's inhabited by all those Europeans.), 25 Jul 2006
In 1990 Bill Bryson set out to "do Europe". He says that his motivation was to relive his experiences from tours in Europe in 1972 and 1973 when he was a young student wandering around Europe with a backpack.
In reality it seems as if the primary reason for Bill Bryson to do this trip was so that he could then write a funny book about the trip.
"Neither Here Nor There" is, in fact, a very funny book, at least in the beginning. Bill Bryson can describe situations in a very humorous way, and he's willing to make fun of himself, as well as everything around him.
Unfortunately, after a while the humor wears thin. Then it wears very thin. Then you begin to dissect the humor, and realize that you've been had.
Bill Bryson's method of traveling is to emulate the kind of tourism we all like to ridicule. He typically arrives by train in a new city in the evening. He has no hotel reservation so he has to spend time finding a hotel that is not really what he wanted. He sees "the sights" that one is supposed to see in that city. He makes no effort to get in touch with the local people, to learn about their lives, or to understand their country and society. He spends typically 2-3 days in each city and then goes to work on figuring out how to get to the next city or country on his list, which often leads to further complications.
This is obviously not the way to travel if you're writing a travel book. Nobody in their right mind would want to read about this kind of traveling.
But Bill Bryson is not writing a travel book, he's writing a funny book, and he has a sure-fire recipe:
1. Do things in problematic ways, and then make fun of all the trials and tribulations that result.
2. Mix in lots of flashbacks to the trips of your youth, with much juvenile humor related to the drives that young men are so driven by.
3. Feign incomprehension about everything foreign and satirize everything that is unfamiliar.
4. Make funny remarks intended to reinforce national prejudices.
This last type of humor can be especially tiring.
In conclusion, if you're someone who "did Europe" in your youth and you want to relive fond memories in a humorous way, then you may well like this book. Most other readers will probably start out laughing, then smiling, then wondering why the jokes seem to have lost their appeal, and finally ending up wishing they'd picked a real travel book or a real humorous book.
Rennie Petersen
PS. Just for the record, here is a list of the places covered: Norway (Hammerfest, Oslo), France (Paris), Belgium (Brussels, Bruges, Spa, Durbuy), Germany (Aachen, Cologne, Hamburg), Holland (Amsterdam), Denmark (Copenhagen), Sweden (Gothenburg, Stockholm), Italy (Rome, Naples, Sorrento, Capri, Florence, Milan, Como), Switzerland (Brig, Geneva, Bern), Liechtenstein, Austria (Innsbruck, Salzburg, Vienna), Yugoslavia (Split, Sarajevo, Belgrade), Bulgaria (Sofia), Turkey (Istanbul).
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11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
So Unbelievably Funny, 5 Jun 2001
This is a book which everyone should read. It is Bill Bryson at his funniest, wittiest, observant and most abstract.Some of the things he notices, for example the conversation in the Dutch hotel, are so skilfully written that they make you feel as if you are there with him. No other author on the planet is this funny. This book will make you laugh until your sides split and tears roll down your cheeks. Some of the other reviews on Amazon have stated he complains excessively and, to some extent, this is true. But if someone can make me laugh out loud by describing how they complain I would be happy to buy a book full of their complaints. Do you see?
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