Skip to main content

Down Under by Bill Bryson

Originally published in July 2005, on my original 52 Books blog.

This is the account of Bill Bryson’s (broken up) journey around Australia, to visit its biggest cities and some interesting sights, natural and man-made.

Bryson is obviously an australophile. This book is a virtual love letter to Australia, especially its natural beauty, and in a lesser way to its people. Even though he writes in his usual humorously mocking style, and criticises certain things, especially environmental policies and the less than helpful staff at hotels in a certain city, the book is for the most part a very positive and affectionate, sometimes glowing, account of this interesting country. Besides covering his impressions and travel experiences, Bryson gives some account of Australian history and the country’s attractions, and the book can, in fact, be used as an informal guide to some of the places he visited. He seems to have been very diligent in hunting down and exploring unusual little museums and sights, some of which may not even be mentioned in guide books.

I have previously read four of Bryson’s other books: Made in America and Mother Tongue, both of which are about the history of the English language, and two travel books, Notes From a Small Island and The Lost Continent. I liked the language books - they were funny and good reads, even if some of the etymology was a bit suspect, but I didn’t particularly like the travel books. I found them to be so overloaded with Bryson’s signature self-deprecating humour that it went over the top and started sounding like whining. I would also have liked to read less about him and more about the country he was supposed to be writing about. There was also something, some spirit or spark that was missing from The Lost Continent (not to mention the hostile, almost sarcastic, undertone) and I had to force myself to finish it.

The American title
Here, finally, is a travel book from Bryson that deserves all the praise that has been heaped on him as a funny travel writer. He writes about the country and people and has toned down the self-deprecation to an acceptable level so that it is actually funny instead of “here-he-goes-again” tedious, but it is rather sad that he should feel the need to make some rather mean-spirited comments about people who are supposed to be his friends. Don’t get me wrong, I sometimes couldn’t help laughing, but I still think they are mean. Of course, I don’t know what the people in question are like - maybe they are mean right back at him, but it doesn’t feel very friendly to me. But these are minor faults in an otherwise good book.

Rating: A great and sometimes funny introduction to Australia, its people, cities and sights. 4 stars.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book 40: The Martian by Andy Weir, audiobook read by Wil Wheaton

Note : This will be a general scattershot discussion about my thoughts on the book and the movie, and not a cohesive review. When movies are based on books I am interested in reading but haven't yet read, I generally wait to read the book until I have seen the movie, but when a movie is made based on a book I have already read, I try to abstain from rereading the book until I have seen the movie. The reason is simple: I am one of those people who can be reduced to near-incoherent rage when a movie severely alters the perfectly good story line of a beloved book, changes the ending beyond recognition or adds unnecessarily to the story ( The Hobbit , anyone?) without any apparent reason. I don't mind omissions of unnecessary parts so much (I did not, for example, become enraged to find Tom Bombadil missing from The Lord of the Rings ), because one expects that - movies based on books would be TV-series long if they tried to include everything, so the material must be pared down ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Icelandic folk-tale: The Devil Takes a Wife

Stories of people who have made a deal with and then beaten the devil exist all over Christendom and even in literature. Here is a typical one: O nce upon a time there were a mother and daughter who lived together. They were rich and the daughter was considered a great catch and had many suitors, but she accepted no-one and it was the opinion of many that she intended to stay celebrate and serve God, being a very devout  woman. The devil didn’t like this at all and took on the form of a young man and proposed to the girl, intending to seduce her over to his side little by little. He insinuated himself into her good graces and charmed her so thoroughly that she accepted his suit and they were betrothed and eventually married. But when the time came for him to enter the marriage bed the girl was so pure and innocent that he couldn’t go near her. He excused himself by saying that he couldn’t sleep and needed a bath in order to go to sleep. A bath was prepared for him and in he went...
Post a Comment
Read more

List love: 10 recommended stories with cross-dressing characters

This trope is almost as old as literature, what with Achilles, Hercules and Athena all cross-dressing in the Greek myths, Thor and Odin disguising themselves as women in the Norse myths, and Arjuna doing the same in the Mahabaratha. In modern times it is most common in romance novels, especially historicals in which a heroine often spends part of the book disguised as a boy, the hero sometimes falling for her while thinking she is a boy. Occasionally a hero will cross-dress, using a female disguise to avoid recognition or to gain access to someplace where he would never be able to go as a man. However, the trope isn’t just found in romances, as may be seen in the list below, in which I recommend stories with a variety of cross-dressing characters. Unfortunately I was only able to dredge up from the depths of my memory two book-length stories I had read in which men cross-dress, so this is mostly a list of women dressed as men. Ghost Riders by Sharyn McCrumb. One of the interwove...
Post a Comment
Read more