Neither here nor there: Travels in Europe

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In the early seventies, Bill Bryson backpacked across Europe—in search of enlightenment, beer, and women. He was accompanied by an unforgettable sidekick named Stephen Katz (who will be gloriously familiar to readers of Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods). Twenty years later, he decided to retrace his journey. The result is the affectionate and riotously funny Neither Here Nor There.

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Reviewer: artemis 1291
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A tell-tele accounts of travelling in Europe
Review: When John Steinbeck, who wrote The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and Travels with Charley: In Search of America, met a young man in traveling across America in his converted camping car named Rocinante, he met a young man who longed to travel to Europe with the idealization of the continent as he had seen in magazines and books. Steinbeck, being already weary of the existential dealings on the road, advised him, “What’s the need when the world is conveniently at your fingertips in colors without all those travel-related hassles? You can see the world in books and films and still keep your ideal images of Europe.” Which is exactly why Bill Bryson, an American- born British writer renowned for his great sense of wit and superb command of the English language, decided to embark on his journey once again twenty years after he and his pal Katz backpacked across Europe. Bryson wanted to see Europe in itself with a tabula rosa and write something about the cultures that seemed at once so different and yet so oddly similar in his own eyes. The result is the touchy-feely, impetuously hilarious, and astonishingly insightful Neither Here Nor There.Bryson’s journey began and ended in the two geographical outposts of Europe, Hammerfest and Istanbul. By virtue of his narrative both so inviting and vivid with the use of languages both colloquial and literal that are so characteristic of his writing style, readers will easily and willingly follow his train of travel through the chapters, as he first takes us to Hammerfest to watch the beautiful shimmering gossamer of Northern Lights. We find Bryson feeling not-so-attractive while sitting on a bench at a park in Copenhagen, where all people looked handsome and beautiful. Such existential estrangement became heightened in Belgium, for all along he felt homesick, reminiscing about an old diner in Iowa and its cantankerous but hearty old waitress he frequented. In Amsterdam, he was concerned about the country’s “oddly wearisome” social conventions in regard of its complacency toward untenable political stance under the banner of tolerance. We see Bryson in the streets of Stockholm disappointed in the perfect socialist country littered and defiled by wastes mindlessly thrown away anywhere by its civilized residents without a shade of shame.And who would not but sympathize with Bryson’s pathos in Florence? Here in this City of Flowers, Bryson saw the ubiquitous Gypsies importune everyone, with their haggardly clothed little children as an instrument for orating their poverty to passers-by at which Bryson was righteously indignant. He questioned himself why the police were not making any efforts to stop the Gypsies from harassing people. Further in Austria, we feel for him as his idealization of Austria as the epitome of all things European was ungraciously punctured by unfriendly services, an irritatingly slow mode of business operation, and a lack of charming coffeehouses where he could rest his spent body and spirit for a time. What a Don Quixote-like journey full of episodes it was.Bryson’s cultural notations of each country he visited were, however, devoid of malicious sarcasm or jingoistic ignorance of its customs or social conventions. Things that he experienced in his travel in Europe was a clash of cultures he came from – originally Iowa, The U.S. and England afterwards – and cultures he had imagined in his mind, all of which spellbound him like a Boy in Wonderland. In fact, what fascinated him in Europe was his discovery that the world could be full of variety in which there were many different ways of doing essentially identical things, such as eating and drinking and buying movie tickets.Unlike other travel writers who only write about the sunny sides of the countries and peoples in their interests, Bryson is unafraid of telling readers his observations through his experience with a certain kind of fraternal or even paternal affection with his trademark wits wonderfully interwoven with intelligence and humanism.The travel ends in Istanbul with his hope of seeing more of the world, his everlasting wanderlust still luring with a vision of Asia across the Bosporus Bridge. He’s all up for the unforseeable happenings awaiting for him to encounter because that’s the glory of foreign travel, a travel to a terra ingonita where anyone can become a stranger, a wanderer blissfully ignorant of almost anything. To Bryson, the whole existence of traveler is to be constructed by a series of instantaneous guesses and endless actions. Notwithstanding all the woes of a lone traveler who was culture-bound, Bryson’s travels in Europe was something of his experience in Wonderland filled with a great sense of childlike wonder and appreciation of the wonders of each country in its own colors. Neither Here Nor There is his tale of veni vidi, vici experience and entertaining accounts of the world through his eyes with amusing and telling details resembling none other than themselves.

Reviewer: Owl
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: It Was the Best of Times; It was the Worst of Times–Both Times
Review: Around 1990, Bill Bryson felt a yen to wander lonely as a cloud in Europe. A middle-aged, generally uxurious fella, it irked him that in 17 years of living in Great Britain, he’d only been across the Channel for three brief visits.So off he went, pack on his back, but not alone. With him were some understandably indelible memories of 20 years earlier when he and his friend, Katz, lit out for the old country. Bryson, 1990, follows mostly in the footsteps of Bryson & Katz, 1970.Readers may recall Katz as his companion on the Appalachian Trail in “A Walk Through the Woods.” There, Katz’s direct action against whatever ailed him (like lightening his pack by throwing most of their food over cliff) and briskly-to-the-sharp-point complaints played well with Bryson’s more positive (or at least determined) spin for really funny, now iconic book.This time, Bryson goes it alone as traveller & writer. He has to be both Katz & Bryson for the re-run. Now & again, Bryson not only recalls Katz but seems to be channeling Katz’s kvetches. However, kvetch or not, much is really, really funny and rarely, rarely dull. This 1990-2 trip seems both the best of times and the worst of times.There were plenty of the best of times and few write as deftly as Bryson.–After 16 days in Hammerfest, selected solely to see the Northern Lights, his magnificent reward for bitter cold & not much to do: “…a display of lights that went on for hours. There was only one color, that eerie luminous green you see on radar screens, but the activity was frantic. Narrow swirls of light would sweep across the great dome of the sky, then hang there like vapor trails…”–In Copenhagen, “Is there anything..to beat finding yourself at large in a foreign city on a fair spring evening, loafing along unfamiliar streets in the long shadows of a lazy sunset, pausing to gaze in shop windows or at some church or lovely square…deciding whether that cheerful & homey restaurant you will remember fondly for years is likely to lie down this street or that one…?”–And in the Netherlands, an exchange between a kind-faced hotel-keeper & his wife, Marta, (in Dutch) about the availability of a room for Bryson, as Bryson heard it. Many readers may find this episode really, really, REALLY funny. Its’ punch line is, “Most heartily” and the dialog which can not be reproduced in this review may leave susceptible readers, like Marta, most m**st.The worst of times are frequent.”I took a place in one of the lines. Progress was glacial. It was hot. I was tired, I was sweaty, I was hungry, My feet hurt. I wanted a bath. I wanted a large dinner & several beers. There wasn’t a single part of me that was happy.”Bryson calls them as he sees them, with an acerbic comment (or many) a la Katz. Occasionally, the innocents get caught in a blast intended for the guilty.Readers can think of “Neither Here Nor There” as a sometimes fretful guide to Europe. Most travellers have had times like that & may admire Bryson’s way with words in expressing their own eerie flashes of occasional fury.A lot of skies get changed in this 30 chapter, 240 page book including those over Oslo, Paris, Brussels, Belgium, Aachen & Cologne, Hamburg, Gothenburg, Stockholm, Rome (which delighted our traveller), Naples, Florence, Milan, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Bulgaria (which did not delight).Readers approaching these pages knowing what to expect will enjoy “Neither Here Nor There” most heartily and most m**stly. At the low used book prices, a fine value!

Reviewer: Bryan Meadows
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Meh. not bad but not great either.
Review: I like Bill Bryson a lot, don’t get me wrong. This book was good but I definitely wouldn’t say great by any means.It still has his usual sarcastic humor that I usually adore and admire and I have to admit I laughed out loud a few times while reading this book.What made the rating low is his consistent “crapping” on most of the countries he visited to an almost annoying point.If you like to travel so much, and enjoy it, why take a verbal dump on every country you visit? He does praise certain things about each country here and there but that’s just mostly the scenery.As a person who eventually (hopefully next year or 2024) is going on a European tour, I’m not discouraged by his words, but rather curious to see (in his opinion) how bad these places are. I’ve never been out of the US so I’m sure my opinions and experiences will mostly (hopefully) quite contrary to his.Overall not a bad read, but it’s walk in the woods, pun intended.

Reviewer: Barb
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: a laugh on every page
Review: A very entertaining take on travel through Europe. In m6 life, I have only ever taken trips to destinations, never wandered through Europe, and this book inspired me to be spontaneous, to travel on a whim, not to a particular destination.

Reviewer: Raghav Bhatt
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I had read Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything and simply loved it. That was a few years ago. Recently, I picked up this present book by the author, having visited Europe some time ago myself. It is hard to keep up a standard, and given how much I enjoyed A Short History, I would have been ok had this one been lesser in the enjoyment it gave me (of course, this one predates A Short History). But the book lived up to Mr. Bryson’s image, and more. It is a quite simply magnificent tour through the heart of Europe. Geography, History, Food, People and their behaviour, you name it, the author has not left anything untouched. All with a brilliant sense of humour. If you don’t want to travel across Europe yourself after reading this, in the style and with the enthusiasm of Bill Bryson, it would be a surprise. Thrilling read. I am going to read his book on Australia, Down Under, next.

Reviewer: MissMancunian
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Genial libro, Bill Bryson es un genio. Tengo ya varios libros de el y aunque este no me parece el mejor, es igualmente bueno. Lo peor es que no incluyera España en sus viajes por Europa.

Reviewer: Laura
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: What a wonderful book!!! Absolutely hilarious, my favourite of Bryson. It makes you want to travel and experience all this for yourself. I loved it.

Reviewer: Anne
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Genau wir bescheieben, klar und deutlich

Reviewer: Martin Kuskis
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This book first came out in 1991; more than 30 years later it remains highly enjoyable. Much of it now seems almost quaint to us now – traveller’s cheques, no smartphones or internet – but the humour remains fresh and the national characteristics which Bill Bryson amusingly identifies seem little (if at all) different now.

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