Quite a few clichés but entertaining
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Neither Here Nor There is probably more for the novice than the experienced traveller, but it is entertaining and has a usefully broad scope. Bill Bryson, an American resident in London, takes his readers from the Arctic Circle to Istanbul in something like a couple of months, mixing in parts of Scandinavia, the Benelux, France, Germany and Italy among others before passing through the Balkans.
Inevitably a lot is about finding hotels and places to eat, misplaced reservations and the pitfalls of communicating with strangers. This is travel writing, after all. And inevitably there tends to be quite a few clichés and national stereotyping. The commentary ranges from insightful (e.g. different perceptions of Amsterdam) to expected but fun (the police episode in Florence), to downright vulgar ("Quick restaurants - as in quick, pass the bucket!"). I found the first and last chapters, set in northern Norway, then Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, the most interesting. Bryson has more to say in out-of-the-way settings. And having travelled to the latter two at about the same time, I thought his observations both original and to the point. Nor does the book, written in the early 1990s, generally feel out-of-date.
Bryson's style combines a wide descriptive vocabulary with a matter-of-fact, colloquial tone. It drips with irony and evinces plenty of sniggers. The same note is held too long, though, which may explain why one doesn't laugh as much as one would expect: the jokes and witticisms eventually lose an essential element of surprise.
Perhaps not unusually for the genre, the book ends up saying as much about the observer as the observed. It provides a snapshot of how an educated and informed American views the European continent. That may be a reason for Europeans to want to read it.
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Very Enjoyable ... Runs out of steam towards the end
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This is the sort of book that makes you want to chuck in your job, pack a rucksack, cash in the savings and just go. The itinerary is extensive as are the anecdotes that accompany each trip or place. Its also very funny in parts. However I found that when Bill hit eastern Europe in the last few chapters he and the book ran out of steam. Having said that, at the time of the trip those places were pretty dire anyway.
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Extremely funny
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The first time Bill Bryson travelled around Europe was in 1972, when everyone on the flight from America was a hippy and his seatmate asked him if he had found Jesus ("Uh, no, it's a quarter", responds Bryson, retrieving a coin from the floor). The following year he returns in the company of his friend Katz - "the best thing that could be said for travelling abroad with Katz was that it spared the rest of America from having to spend the summer with him".
Neither Here Nor There is mainly about an extensive journey through Europe twenty years later, from Hammerfest where he waits sixteen days to witness the Northern Lights, to Istanbul; where he decides it's time to return home after his wife informs him his chidren are addressing all grown men as daddy. There are also reminiscences back to the Katz journey, which are some of the funniest pages in the book.
This is a real "traveller's book", with all the tedium, grotty hotel rooms, communication problems, unidentifiable food and frustrations. It is also brilliant at seeing the hilarious side of these - often using gross exaggeration and frequently very crude; but although dated there are very few books that have made me chortle so long and so loud.
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the ugly american
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As an american expat living in Italy for the last 9 years, I found this book extremely difficult to read. If you want to actually learn something about Europe, do NOT read this book. If you want to read about Bill's eternal problems in finding a hotel that doesn't suck and a decent meal, okay go ahead, but I don't find that particularly interesting. On top of being boring, this book is incredibly venomous and mean-spirited. Basically everyone comes under attack as Bill trots out every road-weary stereotype we've heard a million times before, the french are rude, the swiss are precise, the italians are disorganised. Blah Blah Blah. What a yawn. And let me stress that I read previously another Bryson book that I quite enjoyed, so I wasn't coming at this with some chip on my shoulder.
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Loved it!!.
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This book is a influential look at Europe from an American writers [Bill Bryson] eye-view: how Europeans treat an American, see an American - and how an American sees Europe.
It is written in Brysons rich, Funny and intelligent style...oh! what can i say...i listened to the [Beach Boys] when reading the book, and now when i listen to the Beach boys - i crave to be reading another Bryson book...i'm just gonna buy all the ones i haven't read yet and read them one after the other.
Read this book!.It's fantastic and some of the stories made me laugh for hours after reading them...and i still laugh when i think about them to this day...highly recommended!!.
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