Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe
by Bill Bryson
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Book Reviews of Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe
Book Review: Almost Unforgivable
Summary: 1 Stars
I jumped on the Bryson bandwagon after reading "A Walk in the Woods" a few years back. I loved his self-deprecating humor, his factoids and quirky side-notes, as well as his anecdotal style. I continued on that bandwagon with "I'm a Stranger Here Myself," which was laugh-out-loud funny. Since then I've read most of his books, and although my enjoyment of them has varied, I've never been disappointed.
Until reading "Neither Here nor There." Perhaps my expectations were too high, having traveled in over half the places Bryson details in his travelogue. But "details" and "travelogue" are both too kind in their description of this book. From his first whiny, self-centered moments in Norway, Bryson makes it clear that his story will be more about him than about the peoples or places he visits. His chapter on Oslo is a sham, barely even mentioning the city. He spends a good deal of time complaining about lack of beauty in Brussels instead of telling us what the city has to offer instead--though I agree, it's not a pretty city, in general. He makes all the usual comments about Amsterdam's seedy side, but provides little insight into the mindset or history. Frankly, he seems grumpy throughout the book, as though held at gunpoint to meet a contract with his publisher. He's the humorous uncle who shows up at Thanksgiving dinner drunk, and then makes the entire meal uncomfortable with his self-congratulatory humor and lack of manners. He talks about the complete waste that he believes dogs are--and says he would personally shoot poodles. He even has the nerve to compare Belgian spa treatments to Josef Mengele's horrors in WWII concentration camps. Not exactly the most suitable comparison when a few pages later Bryson points out the number of Belgians killed by SS stormtroopers in one particular confrontation.
I will continue to read Bryson's work, based on his track record, and on the fact that he can be funny when he's not drunk on his own clever sentences and feigned knowledge of his location. This book, though, is a forgettable almost unforgivable waste of his talents, Europe's richness and intrigue, and my time.
Book Review: Not Bryson's best
Summary: 2 Stars
Bryson's best book is "Notes From a Small Island," about traveling in Great Britain. It's one of the funniest books I've read. The British are funny, and Bryson knows them well after living in Britain for 20+ years.His book about Australia, "In a Sunburned Country," is also entertaining. He studied Australian history, met many interesting locals, etc. After reading it, I feel like an expert on Australia and its people.
His book about Europe, "Neither Here Nor There," isn't so good. The problem is that he speaks no languages other than English. He didn't talk to anyone on this trip. Wwithout any characters (other than Bryson) the book isn't engaging. The book has only one joke, which he repeats: "The waiter/hotel clerk/taxi driver didn't speak English so I tried to make him understand that I needed..." Some of these moments are quite funny, but they don't constitute a book. Bryson didn't study the places he visits. Unlike the Australian book, you learn almost nothing about the countries he visited.
Bryson's book about America, "I'm a Stranger Here Myself," failed to make me laugh. It reads like a series of Erma Bombeck columns. Bryson comments about various aspects of his life in a small town in New England. Not other people's lives, which might have been interesting, but only about his domestic life.
I got only a few chapters into his book about the Appalachian Trail, "A Walk in the Woods." I wasn't amused that two people with no backpacking experience would attempt a six-month hike. After several chapters of Bryson repeating one joke -- "I know nothing about any of this!" -- I stopped reading.
This suggests that the old advice "write about what you know" is worth following. It also made me realize that traveling is only enjoyable if you do two things: meet interesting people, preferably by speaking their language; and studying the area you're visiting.
Review by Thomas David Kehoe, author of "Hearts and Minds: How Our Brains Are Hardwired for Relationships"
Book Review: The sexual humour and bad language ruined a gem.
Summary: 2 Stars
There is no doubt that Bill Bryson can make me laugh. Out loud even! Bryson's whimsical description of his stop and go tour through Europe constantly entertains. I learnt about Europe, the idiosyncrasies of its places and people. Probably one of the highlights was Bryson's hilarious description of his desperation to reach the toilet of his hotel room while his terribly overfull bladder is bursting. Without giving my belly a chance to recover from laughing, this account was immediately followed by the equally hilarious description of Bryson's efforts to find food in the hotel to satisfy the urgent needs of his terribly empty stomach, an attempt which involved dead end fire-escapes, three drunken Japanese men in blue business suits, a stubborn elevator that keeps returning to the same floor, locked doors, and an over-zealous waiter who takes away the very peanuts that our starved hero so desperately needed.
What I find most disappointing about this book, however, is that Bryson frequently sees the need to resort to a brand of humor below the waist and above the knees. Such gutter humour, sexual jokes and innuendos are hardly necessary given Bryson's incredible talent with words. Although there are chapters without this foul-mouthed and low-down humour, on the whole Bryson has painted the whole book with this gutter-style brush of sexual humour. In my view this negative cancels out all the positives of the book. If it wasn't for this, "Neither Here Nor There" would be a brilliant book. As it is, however, Bryson has successfully allowed his book to be re-classified amongst a great deal of "trash" in the humour section. Too bad.
On the bright side, this book is one of Bryson's early works, and he seems to have matured with age. The weaknesses of this book are much less evident in his most recent work, "In a Sunburned Country", which describes his trip to Australia. If you are going to buy only one Bill Bryson book, I would recommend purchasing this latter title instead.
Book Review: A tailspin into mundanity
Summary: 2 Stars
after reading "A Walk In the Woods", I was extremely excited to get my paws on another Bryson book. I was dissapointed. "Neither here nor there" has about half the humor, one tenth of the adventure and even less of the overall appeal of "A walk in the woods". It is a book that starts off on a promising note, with a description of his quest to see the northern lights in northern norway in the middle of winter; it had me thinking, 'great, here we go, typical Bryson, doing whacky things that come to him on a whim'. However, as the book progresses it digresses into a mundane journal of the rather ordinary wanderings of a solo traveler. Part of the problem is that he makes very little effort to interact with others. Because of this there is an awful lot of, " I went from the train station, found a hotel, had some dinner, drank a coke, went to bed" kind of "action" that even Brysons astounding propensity for making ordinary situations seem extraordinary cannot save it. One other major flaw it seems is that Brysons trip had no ultimate goal, no purpose. It seems to me that most satisfying travel literature begins with the author expressing a desperate need to find or achieve something, then chronicles the pursuit and struggle to meet those ends, cope with failure, and come to some kind of grand catharsis. My all time favorite, "tales of a female nomad" is the story of a womans need to find something fufilling in her life and in herself after essentially losing the "family woman role" that had come to define her. Her travels are not planned to a T, but she does travel cognisent of purpose/goal/need, and this makes that book very compelling indeed. I am not saying that travel literature must have all of those elements, but at least a little dose of purpose would have gone a long way towards making this book compelling. Do yourself a favor and put the 15 bucks you would spend buying this book in savings toward your own trip to Europe.Book Review: neither here nor there
Summary: 4 Stars
"Neither here nor there" by Bill Bryson
In the book "Neither here nor there" the American writer Bill Bryson tells about his adventures during his trips to Europe. The hole book is divided into twenty two chapters and every chapter tells the reader about a different place. In the first two chapters he describes his trip to the northernmost European town Hammerfest and in his typical sarcastic way he tells about the exhausting bus ride and the people he get to know. After an apparently endless journey by bus he finally arrives at Hammerfest. At first he is really bored in the small town as nothing ever seems to happen there, but after he have spent some weeks in the dark Hammerfest, he starts to enjoy the easy way of living there. He gets to know the advantage of having time for things you usually can't do. Furthermore, he starts making friends with the Mayor and some other inhabitants. So at the end of his stay in Hammerfest he doesn't only has got to know most of the people there, but even has seen Northern Lights, which had been the reason for that trip. After the fascinating event of the spectacular Northern Lights, that impressed him deeply, he decides to return to Oslo, although for a moment he has doubts if he should leave Hammerfest so quickly
He also remembers his first trip to Europe as a young man in the seventies, where he went by plane and got impressed by Europe and its people as it seemed to be so different from everything he had known before. He got to know the hospitality of a couple from Belgium and their Citroen 2CV as he hitch-hiked to find a room for the next few days. Although the wife didn't really trust him, the man was fascinated of him and wanted to spend more time with him, but Bryson himself thought that they had been very strange. So he was glad when he finally found a small hotel where he could stay. That summer he also tramped through Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Italy.