Fat, Rich and Lazy American Writer Visits Australia and Disparages National Heroes
Written: Feb 15 '01 (Updated May 02 '01)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Bryson visits many places in Australia, provides many laughs
Cons: Skips many great places, lacks detail, inaccurate representation of Australia
The Bottom Line: Overall, In A Sunburned Country is a half-arsed effort. Bryson rests on his laurels and serves up the literary equivalent of fast food.
|
|
|
| Nathanael73's Full Review: Bill Bryson - In a Sunburned Country |
As an Australian and a big fan of Bill Bryson I began reading In A Sunburned Country with great excitement. Upon finishing the book, however, I felt great disappointment. One of my favourite authors had taken upon himself the gargantuan task of writing about my homeland and failed.
Before I get into all the reasons why In A Sunburned Country is not a very good book, I will tell you the good news. It’s not all bad. Firstly, Bryson succeeds in visiting many out of the way places. Over the course of a few months he manages to see more of Australia than most Australians see in their lifetime. He visits five of the six states (skipping Tasmania for some inexplicable reason) and both of the territories.
Secondly, Bryson, as usual, provides many, many humorous anecdotes. I am not usually the laugh-out-loud type, especially not in public, but Bryson had me laughing out loud for most of a 2-hour flight (my apologies to anyone who may have been on that flight). Thirdly, Bryson has once again done his research and provides fascinating statistics and history about Australia. I learnt several things about my homeland from Bryson.
And fourthly, I must thank Bryson for reminding his readers around the world of what a great place Australia is and how it really doesn’t deserve to be so terribly neglected. Having lived in both Europe and North America, I am well aware of how rarely the international media turns it’s attention to Australia.
And that’s it for the good stuff in the book, I’m sorry to say. Now for the down side.
I understand that a travel writer can’t visit all the important places, especially in a country as vast as Australia, but he neglected some very important places, yet visited some totally unimportant ones. For example, he does not visit Ballarat, which, during the gold rush of the 1850’s, was the richest city on earth, and the site of the Eureka Stockade (the closest Australia ever came to Civil War).
On several occasions Bryson mentions towns that he passes through, but doesn’t bother going into any detail about them. He writes, “I spent the night in Port Fairy,” and then moves right along to the next topic. He doesn’t bother to say why he stayed there, where he stayed, or what it was like. Why bother mentioning it in the first place? His laziness in this instance particularly bothered me, not just because both my parents grew-up in the town, but also because Port Fairy is one of the oldest settlements in Australia and with a fascinating history and many beautiful buildings and beaches.
Because Bryson took several trips within Australia, each weeks or months apart, the narrative is often disjointed. He could have done a much better job of the transitions, or at least explained why he has suddenly jumped from Broken Hill to Sydney. Bill Bryson is undoubtedly a very funny man and a fine writer, but I think he has become too aware of this fact, and spends too much time describing his own antics, rather than giving insight into the lives of the locals.
Bryson also managed to offend me, and probably many other Australians, by blatantly disparaging several of Australia’s national heroes, namely the legendary bushranger Ned Kelly, and the explorers Burke and Wills. In this case he was extremely culturally insensitive, and behaved like the typical “Ugly American” that he so likes to mock. Whilst making fun of tourists, he often forgets that he is one of them.
I feel that Bryson spends too much time in his car, in pubs and bars, and in hotels, and doesn’t get into the outdoors much, as he did in A Walk In The Woods. After traveling all the way to Uluru (aka Ayers Rock), he only spends two hours there and doesn’t bother climbing it. This incident is indicative of his overall failure to connect and interact with the country and the environment. He ponders the difficult issue of the Aboriginals and how (or if) they fit into society, but doesn’t bother to talk to a single Aboriginal and get their point of view. He is content to merely observe them from a bench in downtown Alice Springs and provide statistics about how terribly they have been treated.
In my opinion Bryson didn’t really get to know Australia. He didn’t spend enough time in any one place to become intimate with it. The result is that he produces a series of snapshots, rather than a feature film, if you will. He then relies on his statistics and anecdotes pulled from secondary sources to fill in the gaps. While I must admit that Bryson’s description of listening to a cricket match on the radio is one of the funniest passages I’ve read in all my life, I was disappointed by his failure to make the effort to attend a single game of cricket, rugby, or Aussie Rules football, even though he recognizes that sport is Australia’s religion.
Although an impressive bibliography is included at the end of the book (a list which includes many classics of Australian history), I seriously doubt that Bryson actually read all of the books he lists. If he did, it doesn’t show. One can’t help but think Bryson and his publisher were trying to ride the media wave of interest in Australia stirred-up by last year’s Olympics (the book was published just before the event), and were more concerned with making a few bucks than delivering a decent book.
Overall, In A Sunburned Country is a half-arsed effort. Bryson rests on his laurels and serves up the literary equivalent of fast food. If you are really interested in reading a good book about Australia, read Robert Hughes’ The Fatal Shore or John Pilger’s A Secret Country. If you are a Bryson fan, I recommend Notes On A Small Island, written before he got lazy.
Recommended:
No
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
Nathanael73
|
|
Location: Michigan
Reviews written: 85
Trusted by: 89 members
About Me:
Traveler Reader Writer
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.