I have been laughing a lot recently. By laughing I mean laughing out loud. Explosively. Not just a narrowing of the eyes and a quiet nod of appreciation at an amusing point well-phrased. I mean tea and snot shooting out of my nose.
Some of this convulsing has been caused by blog-reading. There are a lot of funny people out in the gabbling mega-canteen that is the blogosphere. However, a great deal of the laughter has been produced by my reading Bill Bryson’s new book.
Bill Bryson is the best anecdotalist since Peter Ustinov (whom he succeeded as Chancellor of Durham University) and his “Lost Continent” had a profound effect on me: It made me give up any thought I may silently have nurtured of writing anything other than dull books about Law. The book had exactly the tone I had longed to be able to produce and was radiantly funny in a down-trodden self-deprecating way. Every couple of pages was comedic set-piece deployed without apparent artifice and with disarming charm.
I knew, so to speak, that I was beaten. His “voice” was my voice, the one I had been nurturing but mature and natural and funny whereas mine was squeaky and forced.
He moved back to the US from Britain a few years ago (and has since returned) and once, on our way to a holiday in Vermont, we stopped in his new home town for a meal. I decided that we should go visit him. In that crazed way that fans have of seeing their heroes I assumed he would welcome a group of English tourists, freshly full of meat and fries, arriving on his doorstep. Surely the warmth of my regard for him would immediately counter his annoyance at being descended upon and his latent fear that he had finally met the psychopathic reader who would finish him off? I explained my plan to P and my companions who edged away from me on the restaurant benches and explained what “stalking” meant.
Then, one day about 2 years ago, I was walking up a staircase at St Pancras tube station when Bill Bryson appeared at the top of the flight. I immediately recognised his somewhat dumpy ruffled charm. My brain edged up a gear. “It’s him” I thought, superflously. “I should say something to him”. I reasoned that anyone who publishes must appreciate feedback. I know I scour the comments page after every blog entry craving the affirmation that a comment brings. But what to say? I thought hard. Nothing came. I thought harder still till you could almost hear the brain cells squeaking as they rubbed together. Nothing. At that moment I snapped out of it. Bill was now about 2 foot away from me and from the unnerved look on his face it was apparent that I had spent the whole climb staring fixedly at him while my brain tried, unsuccessfully, to do it’s thing. In a moment he was gone and he and I were spared the torturous embarrassment of my actually speaking.
I carried Notes From a Small Island with me when I was trekking in Nepal and, like you, spent much of my time laughing out loud as I read it. Brilliant stuff.
NOTHING like a good read. Hmmm… explains why I stop by here so often.
Going straight to the library to check out the book. Nothing like laughter, the belly kind, to make the worries of the world recede.
I need to read more of him…
Alas, for your Bill & Moobs ‘Livingstone & Stanley moment’.
….
Clever guy, Mr Bryson. He writes so well, so readably, playing up his weaknesses and emphasising his pratfalls and bumbling unculturedness, wheras he’s actually a well-respected scholar and wordsmith.
…..
Bill Bryson and Michael Palin should go for a long walk, about 320 minutes, which should be recorded and then released on 4 CDs, each CD released every 3 months…..
There’d be queues for the last CD like for the next Harry Potter book.
I read Notes from a Small Island, and he does indeed portray a persona in it of a friendly Yank who would be happy for a friendly glance from an English stranger or a chat about the state of the weather, but I guess you’re lucky that you didn’t come out with something really banal like, “I really like your book.” Probably wouldn’t have impressed him very much. Did a brilliant sentence occur to you moments after Bill Bryson had gone?
Being that you are my new literary hero….I can’t imagine you NOT writing something clever and be JUST as witty as that guy.
Don’t give up.
Like a mindnumb follower of a cult, I finished reading this and ordered the books. See what you’ve done to me!
I’m feeling rather smug because Bill is coming to my local town theatre to do a ‘show’ – recounting his books etc, and I managed to get tickets!!! He was sold out damned quick, too.
Might I be controversial and say that I don’t like Bill Bryson all that much? Garrison Keillor is funnier. And that I’m not being sycophantic but I prefer reading Moobs than any of Bryson’s books. I find a lot of his work somwhat insincere and at the same time overly sentimental. Plus politically he is a little bit too Daily Mail for my liking.
So don’t give up the idea of writing a book. I think youre quite different from Bill Bryson, thank goodness!
Bill Bryson is my hero. Laugh-out-loud people usually are.
Moobs! After staring at the man an entire flight of stairs, he probably thinks you are either: 1) a stalker, 2) in love with him, or 3) completely unstable.
Growing up in LA, where there are more stars per capita than anywhere else in the world, we use this funny little phrase, which I’ll share with you. We say: “Hi”. It works every time.
(Except the time we saw Sean Penn and his family in the Denver Airport and he was feeling particularly hostile – so don’t try it with him!)
Claudia, I have tried Hi before but only inadvertently – when you see a face you recognise but can’t place it say “hi” and keep moving because you are sure it is a firend of a friend of a friend and you don’t want to get caught chatting. Then laer you realise it was a pop star/film star/ pope etc.
lol, I’m just the opposite; I would have blurted out something for sure, some line of complete adoration and would have had to live with the tortuous embarassment after he politely nodded at me.
You know, I could use some full-on gaffawing, and will check out that book next time I’m at the book store, thanks 🙂
Jouette, I retracting my recommendaiton as it made me laugh out loud on the Tube train today. That is simply not done in London and can result in a medical intervention.
I recently got a letter from someone after I wrote a few columns for a BBC publication. She said she hadn’t laughed so much since reading Notes from a Small Island. Honestly, she couldn’t have made my head any bigger with a big head pump.
* The audio books are wondeful too, especially those read by Kerry Shale.