Psychological thriller set in Berlin
Authors on location – Bill Bryson
14th July 2018
#AuthorsOnLocation – BILL BRYSON
For some writers location is as integral to their story-telling as plot or character. TripFiction takes a look at some of these authors, for whom a sense of place has helped to define their literary output. For the eleventh in the series we have chosen Bill Bryson.
Bill Bryson was born in Iowa in 1951. He has written books on the English language, science, the summer of 1927 in the US and other entertaining non-fiction books. But it is his travel writing that brought him to global prominence, arguably redefining that genre for a whole generation, with his wry observations about places, people and circumstances.
We take a look here at some of his ‘travel books’, although it is dangerous to try and pigeon-hole his early literary output so simply.
The Lost Continent – travelogue set in the USA
‘I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to’
And, as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he left. Des Moines couldn’t hold him, but it did lure him back. After ten years in England, he returned to the land of his youth, and drove almost 14,000 miles in search of a mythical small town called Amalgam, the kind of trim and sunny place where the films of his youth were set.
Instead, his search led him to Anywhere, USA; a lookalike strip of gas stations, motels and hamburger outlets populated by lookalike people with a penchant for synthetic fibres. Travelling around thirty-eight of the lower states – united only in their mind-numbingly dreary uniformity – he discovered a continent that was doubly lost; lost to itself because blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; lost to him because he had become a stranger in his own land.
Neither Here nor There – travelogue set in Europe
The Lost Continent, was unanimously acclaimed as one of the funniest books in years. In Neither Here nor There Bill Bryson brings his unique brand of humour to bear on Europe as he shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet, and journeys from Hammerfest, the northernmost town on the continent, to Istanbul on the cusp of Asia.
Fluent in, oh, at least one language, he retraces his travels as a student twenty years before.
Whether braving the homicidal motorists of Paris, being robbed by gypsies in Florence, attempting not to order tripe and eyeballs in a German restaurant or window-shopping in the sex shops of the Reeperbahn, Bryson takes in the sights, dissects the culture and illuminates each place and person with his hilariously caustic observations. He even goes to Liechtenstein.
Neither Here nor There was also the first of Bryson’s books I had read, and I vividly remember chortling loudly in public, in appreciation and envy at his comic timing and perceptive prose.
Notes from a Small Island – travelogue set in the UK
Our best loved American travel writer, resident in the UK at the time, decided to write this book before disappearing back to his homeland.
This is a delightfully funny and irreverent trip around the island, a lovingly crafted social commentary about Brits in Great Britain.
A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail – autobiography/travelogue set in the USA
The Appalachian Trail stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America–majestic mountains, silent forests, sparking lakes. If you’re going to take a hike, it’s probably the place to go. And Bill Bryson is surely the most entertaining guide you’ll find.
He introduces us to the history and ecology of the trail and to some of the other hardy (or just foolhardy) folks he meets along the way–and a couple of bears. Already a classic, A Walk in the Woods will make you long for the great outdoors (or at least a comfortable chair to sit and read in).
Down Under – travelogue set in Australia
It is the driest, flattest, hottest, most desiccated, infertile and climatically aggressive of all the inhabited continents and still Australia teems with life – a large portion of it quite deadly. In fact, Australia has more things that can kill you in a very nasty way than anywhere else.
Ignoring such dangers – and yet curiously obsessed by them – Bill Bryson journeyed to Australia and promptly fell in love with the country. And who can blame him? The people are cheerful, extrovert, quick-witted and unfailingly obliging: their cities are safe and clean and nearly always built on water; the food is excellent; the beer is cold and the sun nearly always shines.
Life doesn’t get much better than this…
The Road to Little Dribbling – travelogue set in the UK
Twenty years earlier, Bill Bryson went on a trip around Britain to celebrate the green and kindly island that had become his adopted country. The hilarious book that resulted, Notes from a Small Island, was taken to the nation’s heart and became the bestselling travel book ever, and was also voted in a BBC poll the book that best represents Britain.Now, to mark the twentieth anniversary of that modern classic, Bryson makes a brand-new journey round Britain to see what has changed.
Following (but not too closely) a route he dubs the Bryson Line, from Bognor Regis to Cape Wrath, by way of places that many people never get to at all, Bryson sets out to rediscover the wondrously beautiful, magnificently eccentric, endearingly unique country that he thought he knew but doesn’t altogether recognize any more. Yet, despite Britain’s occasional failings and more or less eternal bewilderments, Bill Bryson is still pleased to call our rainy island home. And not just because of the cream teas, a noble history, and an extra day off at Christmas.
Once again, with his matchless homing instinct for the funniest and quirkiest, his unerring eye for the idiotic, the endearing, the ridiculous and the scandalous, Bryson gives us an acute and perceptive insight into all that is best and worst about Britain today.
Andrew for the TripFiction team
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Hi Jane
Thanks so much for taking the time to comment on our Bill Bryson ‘Authors on Location’ piece.
I enjoyed ‘The Road to Little Dribbling’, but not nearly as much as ‘Notes from a Small Island’.
Thanks for recommending ‘The Lost Continent’. I haven’t read it in full yet, but loved ‘Neither Here nor There’, and perhaps that shines a Brysonesque light on lesser known parts of Europe, in the same way that ‘The Lost Continent’ did on the US?
I suspect he ran out of steam a little on the travel writing by the time he arrived in Little Dribbling. Hardly surprising, given the brilliance of his wit and wisdom in the earlier books, and perhaps he enjoys writing his non-fiction books more now?
A wonderfully engaging writer, in any event.
Andrew for TF
I’ve not read The Road to Little Dribbling yet although I loved Notes from a Small Island, so I really should! But my favourite was The Lost Continent because I learned so much about a face of America we don’t usually get to see.