Author Bill Bryson
writes prolifically on everything from household objects to language; he also writes
idiosyncratic travelogues. I’ve never regretted picking up a book by him, so I
had high hopes for The Lost Continent:
Travels in Small Town America. Bryson grew up in Iowa in the ‘50s and ‘60s,
but long has made his home in the UK; so, for this adventure he was coming home
but with an acquired outside perspective. It was a promising combination. Starting
in his hometown of Des Moines, he drove a circuit around the US in search of
the perfect small town of TV and movies. (I could have told him the only place
this exists: Main Street in Disneyland, and it isn’t real.) He didn’t avoid the big cities completely – it would have been silly to shun a city when it was
between where he was and where he intended to go – but his objective was small
town America. Despite the passage of time since publication, in fundamental respects
nothing much has changed about his way-stops.
To anyone who
hasn’t tried a road trip around the US, I recommend it; it takes a few months
to do it halfway properly, but you probably can cut this to one if you don’t
mind pausing at each stop only long enough to snap a photo. I did this the
first time as long ago as 1975. (See The
Roxy Caution at my Richard’s Mirror site for a brief account of one stop on
that journey.) Do it once and the road always will beckon.
The problem with Bryson’s
book is not the outside perspective but the “coming home” part. One always
feels free to be ruder about oneself and one’s countrymen than about others,
and that is as it should be. And yet… By analogy, we all complain sometimes about
our family foibles (or possibly even crimes), and such stories often make for
funny conversation, but there is a point beyond which the complaints get
off-putting to the listener. You know how some folks will carry on about the
mean sister, the unfeeling mother, the crazy father, the passive aggressive
brother, and so on so relentlessly that you begin to feel embarrassed for the
gripers? OK, Aunt Bessie has thirteen cats and Uncle Fred is a sneak drinker,
but is there nothing more to them? If there is, we never hear of it. It took
only a few chapters of The Lost Continent
for that kind of embarrassment to kick in. Mind you, I don’t take offense to
his commentary in some touchy patriotic way. I’ve said worse things about all
the places he mentions – albeit not in a cascade one right after the other – and I would be
just as uncomfortable with his tone (maybe more so) if he were writing about
Romania. And yet… is there nothing more to those places?
Examples—
Regarding Iowa
girls:
“Iowa women are
almost always sensationally overweight…I don’t know what it is that happens to
them but it must be awful to marry one of those nubile cuties knowing that
there is a time bomb ticking away in her that will at some unknown date make
her bloat out into something huge and grotesque, presumably all of a sudden and
without much notice, like a self-inflating raft from which the pin has been
yanked.”
On Ohio:
“In the morning I
awoke early and experienced that sinking sensation that overcomes you when you
first open your eyes and realize that instead of a normal day ahead of you,
with its scatterings of simple gratifications, you are going to have a day
without even the tiniest of pleasures; you are going to drive across Ohio.”
Making fun of
Southern accents:
“‘Yew honestly a
breast menu, honey?’...She might as well have addressed me in Dutch. It took
many moments and much gesturing with a knife and fork to establish that what
she had said to me was, ‘Do you want to see a breakfast menu, honey?’”
On Utah and Mormons:
“It makes you feel
a little like Kevin McCarthy in Invasion
of the Body Snatchers…”
On Nevada:
“What’s the
difference between Nevada and a toilet? Answer: You can flush a toilet.”
On Los Angeles:
“I think it is only
right that crazy people should have their own city, but I can’t for the life of
me see why a sane person would want to go there.”
You get the idea. Funny?
Yes. At least a kernel of truth? Yes. And, yet…
By the time he
completes his 13,978 mile circuit, however, he mellows. He hasn’t found that
perfect small town but he has found pieces of it scattered here and there. Sounding
a curiously sentimental note after all that went before, he writes about his
re-entry into Des Moines,
“There was just
something about it that looked friendly and decent and nice. I could live here,
I thought, and turned the car for home. It was the strangest thing, but for the
first time in a long time I felt almost serene.”
The Lost Continent is worth a read despite the sighs it provokes. Bryson writes very well,
he has a good eye, and his grouchiness can be amusing. But he has reminded me
to keep my own carping in check – or at least to balance those complaints about
Bessie’s thirteen cats with an observation that her petunias look nice.
Me and You and a Dog Named Boo
Hey bashing on Los Angeles always makes me sigh. Its too easy. ;)
ReplyDeleteStill I see what you mean. A little of that kind of thing goes a long way. It starts as observational humor and then goes beyond into a slightly nastier place. As you said, there is a truth there, but there are better ways to handle it.
I've enjoyed my visits to LA, and I like Nevada unflushed. In truth, outside of war zones, there are few places in the world where you can't find something something to like -- or to dislike.
DeleteSo I'm wondering what he said about Texas. Some of that sounds like it would be an interesting read. I've for a while now, wondered about the same thing--where would I want to live, if not where I currently am? I still don't have a clue. Like my brother said, it's hard to figure that out if you've not lived somewhere else because just passing thru or visiting some place for a while is different that actually living there.
ReplyDeleteI had niece that lived around Des Moines for a while and she enjoyed it. I'm sure it can be okay. But who knows? I could probably stand to see a lot more of the USA, which I'd like to do. Perhaps I can do more of that in the future. I think you can get a better view of the US by car. I used to think the town I used to live in had some strange characters (and it did), and now I think my current town does. As Morrison sang, people are strange. :)
Bryson somehow managed to bypass Texas, which is not easy to do when you visit New Mexico from someplace east of it. It is also a pretty big oversight both geographically and by population.
DeletePretty much anywhere in the so-called Boswash Corridor (Boston-Washington) feels more or less like home to me. I've spent enough time at each end and grew up in the middle. It has the advantages of a large urban/suburban area but it is expensive and the property taxes (esp. in NY and NJ) are simply ridiculous. Other parts of the country do exert pulls for various reasons, however, and one day I might let one of them pull me along.