On Bill Bryson

It is clear that there are only two acceptable ways of doing travel writing, (now at this point you must realise that I am speaking out of my bottom. I have no interest in travel, and consequently travel writing holds little attraction for me. In fact any kind of writing predicated on the notion of a journey for pleasure or discovery strikes me as not just wholly pointless, but also rather suspect. So I know nothing about, and wish to know nothing about, travel writing. Nevertheless, allow me some latitude...), the writing that tries to experience a place, and sympathetically feel its presence, and that which appraises each location on the journey and judiciously reflects on its competency.

Bill Bryson is clearly in the latter camp; this means that when considering his Notes on a Small Island (which I've just finished, after buying it not realising that it was a travel book at all but rather hoping for some kind of comforting polemic), the question that remains uppermost is: Is he talking bollocks? Or rather, how much do I agree with his judgements, and how well does he convince me of his views if I'm a bit iffy about them. Does he make any kind of sense? Failing that, he can be entertaining and very funny (but he must be very funny), or he can be purposefully, outright annoying and offensive, and that is OK too.

But Byson doesn't do any of this. He writes an irritatinging journalese, stringing together a patchwork of short-run incidents, but with no consistent thread, or, indeed, personality. He is shallow without being either avuncular, entertaining or even (the easiest) enjoyably rude. When you disagree with his notions, it is all a bit tepid and dull. And when you align with his perspective, it doesn't really seem to matter.

Just to give one example: He is unquestioningly, unquestionably and correctly enthusiastic about Durham. Especially the cathedral (and he is now the Vice-Chancellor of the University, so he must mean it, and have convinced someone, somewhere). But when I read that passage in his book I thought: 'Humph, so you noticed then?' I should have been pleased, and/or proud that our opinions coincided, but by that point I'd lost patience with his views without being really bothered about it. All a little lame really - I'm sure his other books are better.