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Jeff 's Reviews > Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe
Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe
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by
Three and a half stars rounded up.
It’s never a good idea to read Bill Bryson on public transportation. Stifling belly laughs can be painful and the resulting noise sounds like something between strangling an aardvark and air rapidly escaping from a balloon.
The benefits: Fellow commuters won’t look you in the eye and go out of their way to avoid you, so I practically have the whole train car to myself.
This is one of Bryson’s earlier books, so it’s long on humor, random observations and anecdotes, and short on insight. He comes off as a lightweight Paul Theroux; however, I was in the mood for laughs and there are plenty contained here.
My previous Bryson book was A Walk in the Woods, so it was nice to hear more about everyone’s nightmare travelling companion, Stephen Katz, even it was via flashback. Not only does Katz have awful luck with bird’s crapping on his head, but he has the singular worst pick up line ever.
It’s never a good idea to read Bill Bryson on public transportation. Stifling belly laughs can be painful and the resulting noise sounds like something between strangling an aardvark and air rapidly escaping from a balloon.
The benefits: Fellow commuters won’t look you in the eye and go out of their way to avoid you, so I practically have the whole train car to myself.
This is one of Bryson’s earlier books, so it’s long on humor, random observations and anecdotes, and short on insight. He comes off as a lightweight Paul Theroux; however, I was in the mood for laughs and there are plenty contained here.
My previous Bryson book was A Walk in the Woods, so it was nice to hear more about everyone’s nightmare travelling companion, Stephen Katz, even it was via flashback. Not only does Katz have awful luck with bird’s crapping on his head, but he has the singular worst pick up line ever.
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Neither Here nor There.
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Reading Progress
September 26, 2013
– Shelved
June 1, 2015
–
Started Reading
June 1, 2015
–
7.48%
""I tried to think what the beer put me in mind of and finally decided it was a very large urine sample, possibly from a circus animal.""
page
19
June 1, 2015
–
7.48%
""It seemed an agreeable enough town in a thank-you-God-for-not-making-me-live-here sort of way." \n \n You're killing me Mr. Bryson!"
page
19
June 2, 2015
–
18.5%
"About crossing the streets in Paris: “The problem is that pedestrian crossing lights have been designed with the clear purpose of leaving the foreign visitor confused, humiliated, and if all goes according to plan, dead.”"
page
47
June 3, 2015
–
27.95%
"“The (dog) owner says: “Is he bothering you?” I answer, “No, Jim, I adore it when a dog gets his teeth around my balls and frantically rubs the side of my head with his left leg.”\n \n I had a girl friend who had this very dog."
page
71
June 4, 2015
–
41.34%
""I strolled back to the city center past...an avenue interestingly named Gorch-Fock-Wall (which sounded to me like the answer to the riddle: "What does Gorch do when he can't find his inflatable doll?")\n \n After a page and a half about looking at inflatable women packaging in Hamburg, Germany, this caused a belly laugh on the train this morning. *sigh* I guess you had to be there."
page
105
June 18, 2015
–
Finished Reading
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Jun 03, 2015 06:37AM
This is why I have a cat.
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...and Gavin has a dog.
Jeff wrote: "...and Gavin has a dog."And peanut butter. Lots and lots of peanut butter, from what I hear.
GAAAAK! There's no substitute for peanut butter, not even maple syrup.
Jeff wrote: "It’s never a good idea to read Bill Bryson on public transportation."I was reading In a Sunburned Country for the second time in the Bethesda Maryland Metro subway elevator, a long ascent from train to street. 2 guys were also in the elevator. I had collapsed laughing in the corner. To other readers of Sunburned Country, one word early in the book: Drool. I think the other passengers were Turkish. I tried to explain my joyful hysteria: "This book..." We reached the street and they fled.
Another Goodreader (Roy) noted that Bill Bryson's books improved as he wrote them, one after the other. Neither Here nor There was published in 1993, Sunburned in 2000. The latter was a jewel. Neither Here has a surfeit of crude adolescence -- which befits Bryson's recollections of his 1973 tour of Europe with Katz and shows that two decades later, on Bryson's reprising trek, his frontal lobes had not quite matured. But I still got a lot of laughs from Neither and in 2019 -- Bill Bryson, thank you, thank you, thank you. And I enjoyed the tour, too.
You can certainly tell how Bryson's humor evolved over the years by reading his books - Sunburned was good, but I thought A Walk in the Woods was better.
