A Walk in the Woods : Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail (Official Guides to the Appalachian Trail)
Bill Bryson writes charmingly. He seeds his books with actual technical and historical information, but within the framework of a story that is interesting, funny, and deeply compelling.
I've been powering through this book in the last day, forcing myself to get up and take a break from reading it so it doesn't get used up too fast (I only have one more Bryson book unread on the shelf, and I wanted to bring that on vacation with me).
The story is quite simple: Bill Bryson decides to walk the Appalachian Trail (a hiking trail that runs from Georgia to Maine). He starts off planning to hike the whole thing, and like most hikers, and quickly discouraged by his lack of sufficient progress. So he hikes the first part of the trail, then does several months of day hikes, then (presumably; I haven't finished the book yet) finishes off in Maine.
Along the way he meets some interesting characters, and there's the recurrent theme of fear of bear attacks (he managed to scare the pants off himself with a book on the subject before starting off). But mostly it's about the trail. The history of the trail, what it's like in various sections, the experience of hiking it (including elaborate fantasies about fried food), and some of the politics.
Reading through the reviews on Amazon, I was amazed to see that people were angry because Bryson did not completely the trail. First of all, none of those people indicated that they had completed the trail, and Bryson himself talks about the number of people who begin the trail and drop out. Not to mention that in the end he walks 870 miles that season, which is not exactly nothing. Also, it's a travel book. It's not a first-hand experience of somebody who did hike the whole trail, but rather a book about the Appalachian Trail and what it would be like for an average person. If we want an adventure book, maybe we should consider consulting a source other than Bill Bryson, OK?
I was also surprised by the number of people who simply were unable to understand his sense of humour. Clearly, Noel's statement that Americans don't understand sarcasm has never been truer. People complained that Bryson complained the whole length of the trail, but reading the book, well, I don't see that. Of course there are the amusing anecdotes, the depiction of his struggle with a different kind of walking. But the impression I got was that he enjoyed much of the time, with the occasional preference for one part of the trail over another.
In addition, people complained of how he protrayed Southerners (because he mentioned Deliverence, I guess), but they completely ignored the similar way he treated Mainers. But I find Southern people have blinkers about that: ever so ready to find offense in anything a "Yankee" might say about them, they never notice even the meanest things that "Yankee" says about others. ("Yankee" in quotes because as far as I can tell ther term has been extended from the residents of the Union states to include just about anybody from anywhere, including the South, who says anything remotely critical of the South.)
So if you're touchy about Southerners, have no sense of sarcasm at all, and insist that an author be the last expert on a subject before you'll read his work, this is not the book for you. But if you want a light, fun read about a journey and its context, I recommend it.
# Posted by ayse