The wicked but charming wit of an Anglophile abroad

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	• The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America Bill Bryson Harper Perennial, 1990 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 281 reviews view larger image
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The wicked but charming wit of an Anglophile abroad

As soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he packed his bags left the place of his birth, the little known Des Moines and headed for Europe, he didn't intend to return back home but eventually after many years, a marriage and a family Des Moines did lure him back and with a caustic sense of nostalgia and dry wit in abundance he returned to the land of his childhood, and drove across what for him because the lost continent that perhaps never really existed in the first place...

This book was recently broadcast on BBC7 over a series of days, late at night I might add, which was not a good thing because I laughed so much I couldn't get to sleep afterward!

What a wonderful way of getting into Bryson, hearing it read out to you, and though he is totally irreverent about the country of his birth, you are also aware that he has a great deal of affection for the land he choose to leave for Europe's chilly shores.

Yes Mr Bryson can come across as being very judgemental about "hicks" "chicks" and we won't say the other word that rhymes with "hicks" and "chicks" but there is something quite charming about the way he rambles his way across the USA, visiting and critiquing places you and I will never probably get to see but he made me aware of a very important fact whilst I was laughing hysterically, for many of us there is a "lost continent" waiting to be rediscovered and I for one will one day go back to the place of my birth, "up north" we call it here an England and I can't wait because I know I will probably feel the same way that Mr Bryson did only on a MUCH smaller scale!

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PERFECT FOR THE RECREATIONAL BIGOT

This easily could have been a 5-star piece of work, and in fact it started out that way. Bryson's glimpse of America by car can be funny, instructive, wistful, and a good argument for seeing more of this country. Unfortunately, he clearly has some mean-spirited baggage to dispose of, because there are few people he encounters along his journey for whom he doesn't express outright contempt. Overweight women and gay men in particular seem to come in for the lion's share of ridicule. I lasted up through the phrase "mincing little fag" before I moved on to something else.

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Razor wit or dyspepsia?

By his own calculation, Bryson traveled over 13,000 miles across America. He complained through every one, and logged those complaints in this book. Sometimes it's funny. After he says he is colossally disappointed by Yosemite, you may think "Isn't he EVER happy?" I'm not sure if it's the British lack of exposure to sunshine that eroded his optimism, but he complained about the South, the North, the East, the West and the Midwest. My recommendation: Skip this book and read "Walk in the Woods", which is laugh-out-loud funny without the constant bellyaches.

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The anatomy of a road trip...

I picked this book up after reading "A Short History of Nearly Everything" and "Mother Toungue," both amazing books that broadened my appreciation for life and nourished me with laughter. This older book was not up to par with his newer writing. I won't re-hash the premise and mechanics of this book (it's already been done well), but I will say that I laughed through the first third, smirked through the middle third, and dutifully soldiered on to the end. I got the impression that he was too tired to appreciate part two of his trip, and perhaps would have been more charitable (or at least funnier) had he put more time between the two trips. Whereas the first half was imaginative in its snarkiness, the second half read like a flight log penned by an AM Talk Radio host (Very rough paraphrase): "Went to Bilgewater, MT and found the most convenient (sic)ho el and the waitress at the only restaurant was a gum-chewing twit. What a dump. Went to Muffinthatch, KS and found the most convenient hotel and I was afraid the waitress would spit in my food." And so on...

On the other hand, the tone Bryson gradually affects in the book mimics beautifully the weary, inarticulate crabbiness you'd experience at the end of a long road trip, the kind of curmudgeonly disdain for all which we would all begin to feel after the seventeenth dive diner in nineteen days of a roadtrip across the American West.

Bottom line: Don't pay full price for this book. Find it at a library or bargain bin, read the first half for painfully frequent bouts of laughter, and then set it aside before it gets tedious.

A final note: one should not search for great small towns in America by aimlessly traveling the interstate. The sort of small towns that might have uplifted Bryson were probably lurking on nearby state and local roads. For anyone considering a great American roadtrip who is looking for a shade of De Toqueville, try looking up cities that have won various civic awards like "All American City," and "Most Livable City." I think you'll have better luck.

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