As his many British fans already know, bearded Yankee butterball Bill Bryson specialises in going to countries we think we know well, only to return with travelogues that are surprisingly cynical and yet shockingly affectionate. It's a unique style, possibly best suited to the world's weirder destinations. It's helpful here: Bryson's latest subject is that oddest of continents, Australia.
For a start, there's the oddly nasty fauna and flora. Barely a page of Down Under is without its lovingly detailed list of lethal antipodean critters: sociopathic jellyfish, homicidal crocs, toilet-dwelling death-spiders, murderous shrubs (yes, shrubs). Bryson's absorbing and informative portrait is of a terrain so intractably vast, a land so climatically extreme, it seems expressly designed to daunt and torment humankind.
This very user-unfriendliness throws up another Aussie paradox. If the country is so hostile how come the natives are so laid back, so relaxed? As Bryson shuffles from state to state, he seeks the key to the uniquely cool Australian character and finds it in Australia's tragicomic past, her genetic seeding of convicts, explorers, gold diggers, outlaws. This is a country of lads and mates, of boozy gamblers--nowadays mellowed by sunshine and sporting success.
Down Under is a fine book. So it may not be quite as deliciously malicious as Bryson's The Lost Continent, nor as laugh-out-loud funny as Neither Here Nor There. But so what? A Bill Bryson on cruise control is better than most travel writers on turbodrive. --Sean Thomas --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
It was as if I had privately discovered life on another planet, or a parallel universe where life was at once recognizably similar but entirely different. I can't tell you how exciting it was. Insofar as I had accumulated my expectations of Australia at all in the intervening years, I had thought of it as a kind of alternative southern California, a place of constant sunshine and the cheerful vapidity of a beach lifestyle, but with a slightly British bent - a sort of Baywatch with cricket…' Of course, what greeted Bill Bryson was something rather different. Australia is a country that exists on a vast scale. It is the world's sixth largest country and its largest island. It is the only island that is also a continent and the only continent that is also a country. It is the driest, flattest, hottest, most desiccated, infertile and climatically aggressive of all the inhabited continents and still it teems with life - a large proportion of it quite deadly. In fact, Australia has more things that can kill you in a very nasty way than anywhere else. This is a country where even the fluffiest of caterpillars can lay you out with a toxic nip, where seashells will not just sting you but actually sometimes go for you. If you are not stung or pronged to death in some unexpected manner, you may be fatally chomped by sharks or crocodiles, or carried helplessly out to sea by irresistable currents, or left to stagger to an unhappy death in the baking outback. Ignoring such dangers - yet curiously obsessed by them - Bill Bryson journeyed to Australia and promptly fell in love with the country. And who can blame him? The people are cheerful, extrovert, quick-witted and unfailingly obliging; their cities are safe and clean and nearly always built on water; the food is excellent; the beer is cold and the sun nearly always shines. Life doesn't get much better than this.
在图书馆中闲来无事,本着放松身心的想法,随意的从书架中抽出了这一本书,结果歪打正着,好悬没把自己笑岔气。比尔布莱森 实在是是一位优秀的作家,看着轻松幽默却又勾起人想马上放下书,,背着行囊远走四方的冲动。这本书应该适合茶余饭后或者旅行途中轻松休闲的读物,要是在...
评分看过的几本BB书里最最喜欢的一本,不知道是不是因为本身就很喜欢澳洲的缘故(最不喜欢小不列颠游记难道是因为本身对英国没什么感情?)。除了澳洲及其人民本身很好玩(所以有料,“好写”);这本感觉有点像BB为写万物简史作的准备—— 很多地理/地质方面的科普/故事。 写道他...
评分开始看Bill Bryson是因为听说他很幽默,在最初我也觉得是这样的,各种小笑话层出不穷,倒也可以看个热闹。 这几天看完了几本他的书,看多了就会发现他的幽默种类有点单一:基本上全是讽刺,有时候言过其实,而且总把自己摆在受害者的位置,看起来就是个whiny baby。而且有时候...
评分布莱森的游记系列绝不可错过! 他那幽默风趣的语言,已经不只是看书的感觉了,更多的时候你是觉得这位走遍世界各地的人,风尘仆仆的来到你的面前,扑通坐在你的对面,喝上一口咖啡,就开始了滔滔不绝地讲述。 像一个久未蒙面的发小,聊着这些年不见时他遇到的好玩的事和有趣...
评分看过的几本BB书里最最喜欢的一本,不知道是不是因为本身就很喜欢澳洲的缘故(最不喜欢小不列颠游记难道是因为本身对英国没什么感情?)。除了澳洲及其人民本身很好玩(所以有料,“好写”);这本感觉有点像BB为写万物简史作的准备—— 很多地理/地质方面的科普/故事。 写道他...
可爱的美国佬,典型的美式幽默,可是又透着些许悲天悯怀的普世价值观。在描写人的时候往往能一两句话就勾勒出AUSSIE。对于土著的描写和感受,深有同感
评分279
评分难得有个让Bill Bryson赞不绝口的地方啊!虽然该吐的槽还是要吐的。这本蛮好看,在我看过的10本左右Bill Bryson里top 5。
评分279
评分吐槽土澳太歡樂了,這個神奇的國度,神奇到總理去海邊散個步就離奇消失了,太不靠譜了!!!
本站所有内容均为互联网搜索引擎提供的公开搜索信息,本站不存储任何数据与内容,任何内容与数据均与本站无关,如有需要请联系相关搜索引擎包括但不限于百度,google,bing,sogou 等
© 2025 book.quotespace.org All Rights Reserved. 小美书屋 版权所有