Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe
by Bill Bryson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Bill BrysonEdition: Paperback
Published: 1999-04-06
ISBN: 0380713802
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Harper Perennial
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Book Reviews of Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe
Book Review: Full of clich?s but entertaining
Summary: 3 Stars
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 clich?s 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 Nor does the book, written in the early 1990s, generally feel out-of-date.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.
Summary of Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe
Like many of his generation, Bill Bryson backpacked across Europe in the early seventies -- in search of enlightenment, beer, and women. Twenty years later he decided to retrace the journey he undertook in the halcyon days of his youth. The result is Neither Here Nor There, an affectionate and riotously funny pilgrimage from the frozen wastes of Scandinavia to the chaotic tumult of Istanbul, with stops along the way in Europe's most diverting and historic locales. Like many of his generation, Bill Bryson backpacked across Europe in the early seventies--in search of enlightenment, beer, and women. Twenty years later he decided to retrace the journey he undertook in the halcyon days of his youth. The result is Neither Here Nor There, an affectionate and riotously funny pilgrimage from the frozen wastes of Scandinavia to the chaotic tumult of Istanbul, with stops along the way in Europe's most diverting and historic locales.
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