Oh yes. Another top turn from tour-de-force travel typist Bill Bryson. I didn't have much choice about reading this one, since it's a two-parter with "The Lost Continent", but that doesn't mean that I didn't want to read this one. If anything, I believe that Mr. Bryson's trip around Europe will be, if anything, more exciting and full of fun than his grand tour of America. And, just to indulge my bad habit of quoting great chunks of text to my loved one, try this on for size on your funny bone:
"...the odd thing is that when you hear Dutch people speaking to each other they hardly hack at all. In fact, the language sounds like nothing so much as a peculiar version of English.
"Katz and I often noticed this. We would be walking down the street when a stranger would step from the shadows and say, 'Hello, sailors, care to grease my flanks?' or something, and all he would want was a light for his cigarette. It was disconcerting. I found this again now when I presented myself at a small hotel on the Prinsengracht and asked the kind-faced proprietor if he had a single room. 'Oh, I don't believe so,' he said, 'but let me check with my wife.' He thrust his head through a doorway of beaded curtains and called, 'Marta, what stirs in your leggings? Are you most moist?'
"From the back a voice bellowed, 'No, but I tingle when I squirt.'
"'Are you of assorted odours?'
"'Yes, of beans and sputum.'
"'And what of your pits - do they exude sweetness?'
"'Truly.'
"'Shall I suckle them at eventide?'
"'Most heartily!'
"He returned to me wearing a sad look. 'I'm sorry, I thought there might have been a cancellation, but unfortunately not.'"
It's this sense of humour that would allow me to reread all of Mr. Bryson's work over and over again. Unless you are the sort of person that doesn't care if people see them sniggering and rolling their eyes to the ceiling, then don't take this book on public transport with you. Well, you can, but don't read it. Splendid.
Conclusion: Bill does it again. For next year's holiday (if I ever get one), I'm determined to visit Italy nd mooch around the country for a bit. At the end of the book he turns up in Turkey nd almost wishes he could crry on into Asia, and there I was, wishing the same thing. I guess that qualifies this as a great book - one that you don't want to finish.
| Ben gives it: | | | | |
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Price: (This is a two-part Hardback book containing Neither Here nor There and The Lost Continent) �9.99
Published by: Secker and Warburg