Devouring Books: Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson

"It seemed to me strange that in all the words written about the fall of the Iron Curtain nobody anywhere lamented that it was the end of a noble experiment. I know Communism never worked and I would have hated living under it myself, but it seems to me none the less that there is a kind of sadness in the thought that the only economic system that appears to work is based on self-interest and greed."

That quote about Communism came right near the end of Neither Here Nor There, and, frankly, it made any problems that I may or may not have had with this book completely obsolete. Which is not to say I had millions of problems or anything, but I had a few qualms- something which is pretty much unheard of for me with a Bill Bryson book! So, I'm just going to get all of them out of my system in the next paragraph, so you can forget all about them by the time you get to the end of the review so that you still want to read this. (Definitely read it! It's good!)

So. Bryson seems SO grumpy in this book, to a greater extent than in any other book I've read of his, although it's possible I just think that because I haven't read a book of his for a while. I mean, I know he's usually pretty grumpy, and I like it, but in this it just felt excessive. There's also the fact that he was mostly grumpy at tourists, which is something he clearly was to be able to write this book, which smacks a little bit of... 'I'm more important than you, so I'm allowed to be a tourist, but NO ONE ELSE IS.' Having said that, he does a little bit go 'yeah, I know I'm a tourist so I'm totally being a hypocrite', and self-awareness? I approve of it a lot. And then, the other thing that slightly bugged me was that it's a really out of date account of travelling in Europe (it was published in 1990) so there are places he visited where I was like 'well, that's clearly different now' and 'the Swiss are NOT that boring!' but this isn't something that it's really fair to be annoyed at because, well, he can't exactly just change his experiences of the places like annually and just spend his life travelling round Europe! Or can he..?

Anyway. So, grumble grumble grumble. OH, and one final grumble- he was mean about Sweden! I'm basically convinced that Sweden is the greatest place on Earth (sorry, America) and so reading his 'yeah, it rained ALL THE TIME' and 'this guy peed in the street in Stockholm' and his basically not saying anything nice about Sweden at all made me really cross! But having said that I haven't actually been there, so... maybe it does suck (FORGIVE ME, SWEDEN!) But. Apart from Sweden? There were basically, as Bryson described it, good and bad parts to every country, as you would expect, and the bits that are good are described so beautifully that it makes you want to uproot and go to ALL THE PLACES, immediately. Honestly, I'm kind of desperate to go to Bruges now, and Capri sounds basically like heaven, and they're all so close to me! Damn you, Bryson.

Here's a little aside: I've just realised (having looked at a list of the places he visited) that he didn't venture into Spain once. This is kind of weird to me- it's a massive country, and whilst it's totally a tourist hotspot for English people (the awful kind) there are still places like Barcelona that have a lot of culture and things. Hmm. Now I'm really intrigued as to why he didn't go there! Answers on a postcard please.

Um. What else? Well, I liked the way Bryson tied in his earlier travels in Europe, when he first came over from America, with his modern day (HA! Old modern day) trip, and, as always, I enjoyed all the Katz anecdotes. I honestly want Bryson to basically have lived with Katz for the entirety of their twenties, just for the anecdotes he would have gotten! I mean, he also would probably have ended up murdering him, but what's a little murder compared to hilarity and Katz-isms? Nothing, that's what I say. As long as he'd gotten away with it and been able to still travel around and write books, obviously. Anyway, ignore the murder thing. But KATZ! He was great in A Walk in the Woods, and he remains awesome, albeit ridiculous, in this book.

So. A crotchety middle aged man (when has Bryson not been middle-aged? Really, tell me!) travels around Europe and complains about a lot of things, but also points out some magnificent European things that I should probably see someday. It's by no means an up-to-date guide of what's hip and happening in Europe (and, bless him, I doubt it was even when it came out. And also, you probably guessed that by the fact that some of these countries still had Communism! Jeez!) but there's still plenty to get out of it in a travel guide sort of way, and much more to gain in an anecdotal, awesomely written sense. As always with Bryson books, you should basically probably read this. Obviously.

I read this book as part of the Fuck the Patriarchy Readathon. If you'd like to donate to Rape Crisis, please visit this Justgiving page. Thanks!