Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe

Paperback - 06 April, 1999 - Harper Perennial
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By: Bill Bryson and Bill Bryson
ISBN: 0380713802

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Reviews by readers

Brilliantly funny!

Although Bill Bryson books are very popular (and deservedly so!), what originally prompted me to read one was a comment in a review of John Donoghue's book called Shakespeare My Butt! which likened John's style of writing and humor to that of Bill's. Since I'd enjoyed John's hilariously funny book so much, which is in part about his own escapades around the strangely named places in the North East of England, I thought I would give one of Bill's books a go too. I was certainly not disappointed. What a great book `Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe' is.

It chronicles Bill's escapades as a solo traveler around Europe in a hilariously funny way. Being pick-pocketed in Florence, food ordering dilemmas in Germany, hotel nightmares in Luxembourg, lethal motorists in Paris, and more - much more. It's all in there, and we've all been through similar situations too on our own travels. Bill's observation of Europe is spot-on, and the wit that he uses to relate his traveling experiences to his audience takes no prisoners. It's pure comic genius and certainly had me laughing.

Now the only problem is that I can't decide who my favorite author is, John or Bill - so I guess they will both have to take joint pride of place on my bookshelf!

Neither Good nor Bad

Bill Bryson has a talent for turning his travel adventures into a humorous celebration of the obscure, the bizarre and the frustrating. He has a keen and often sarcastic eye for what will entertain the seasoned armchair traveler, and books like `Down Under' and `Notes from a Small Island' are filled with hilarious anecdotes and interesting insights into the areas he is exploring. Unfortunately `Neither Here nor There' is not as engaging or amusing as many of Bryson's other efforts, and seems like a rather hotch-potch attempt to fill a book with as many destinations as possible.

With around 25 destinations visited in `Neither Here nor There', Bryson does not have the time or room to exercise his trademark ability to unearth unusual facts and figures. He seems to rush around Europe and not greatly enjoy his travels, although a large beer and a big meal often appears to soothe his frazzled spirits. One thing that surprised me was that Bryson proudly refuses to learn even the most basic foreign phrases, which seems a little rude and ignorant. I started to suspect that this is partly because he relies upon language-barrier humor a little too much. He also does not meet with locals a great deal in this book, denying us the Bryson knack for meeting people who are either a little odd, or filled with fascinating information.

Although I did still enjoy parts of `Neither Here nor There' immensely, I found myself occasionally wanting to skip a chapter or two, which saddened me as I am a great admirer of many of Bryson's other books. I ended the book feeling I didn't know a great deal more about the cities he visited, and that the book was more an attempt to gather enough material for publication rather than a great travel story that needed to be shared.

Europe is so wonderful! So picturesque! (Too bad it's inhabited by all those Europeans.)

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. Here are a few examples to illustrate what I mean:

"Let's face it, the French Army couldn't beat a girls' hockey team." (pg 32)

"The (German) women still don't shave their armpits. ... They all look so beautiful and stylish, and then they lift up their arms and there's a Brillo pad hanging there." (pg 91)

"In Norway, three people and a bottle of beer is a party; in Sweden the national sport is suicide." (pg 97)

"But the most preposterous law of all, a law so pointless as to scamper along the outer reaches of the surreal, is the Swedish one that requires motorists to drive with their headlights on during the daytime." (pg 110)

"I love the way the Italians park. You turn any street corner in Rome and it looks as if you've just missed a parking competition for blind people." (pg 123)

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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