Who would think a hike across the wintry Appalachian Trail with two grumpy, middle-aged men could be so entertaining? And yet, A Walk In the Woods by Bill Bryson is one of the most amusing books I have read in years.
This mismatched hiking duo is a recipe for laughter. Bryson’s out-of-shape Little Debbie cake-loving friend, Stephen Katz, delivers much of the book’s laugh-out-loud dialogue.
Bryson’s way with words sets the scene so vividly the reader becomes part of the adventure or misadventure, as it were. The banter and quips of these two old high-school friends grow funnier with their rising frustration levels as they tramp through the cold, damp woods in 1996.
There are so many humorous examples, but one comes readily to mind. When Bryson and Katz cross a bloated stream, Katz “lost it altogether and plunged with wheeling arms and an unhappy wail into the murky water.” Bryson asks him if he’s okay. “Just peachy,” Katz snaps. “I don’t know why they couldn’t have put some crocodiles in here and made a real adventure of it.”
Katz is the Perfect Foil
Bryson constantly waits for his struggling friend to catch up on the trail. One of the times Bryson goes in search of him, we are privy to his less-than-charitable thoughts: “My grandmother could have got this far.” Finally, when Katz emerges “wild-haired and one-gloved and nearer hysteria than I have ever seen a grown person,” Bryson is incredulous that in a fit of rage, Katz has thrown away most of the food in his backpack to lighten his load.
Rash decisions have consequences. The next day, Bryson awakes to find Katz filtering their morning coffee with toilet paper. Katz had tossed the coffee filters with the pepperoni, brown sugar, and Spam. So there they sat, forlornly, in the cold, drinking their sugarless coffee with floating flecks of toilet paper and grounds.
A Break In The Story
This comic relief page-after-page makes the book. I missed Katz terribly when the two took a month-long break to attend to personal affairs back home. At this point, they’d had their fill of wretched bunkhouses and mouse-infested shelters. They would return, presumably refreshed.
Despite their ambitions, they have yet to join the annals of the thru-hikers who walk from Georgia to Maine in one season. While waiting for Katz to rejoin him, Bryson comes to terms with their failed plans and decides to hike a section of the trail alone.
To fill the Katz-less pages, Bryson delves into the geology, natural history, and American history of the places he visits on his solitary hikes. The stories and facts he shares will bring to mind your favorite teacher who had a way of making history or science come alive.
We hear the backstory of the abolitionist John Brown, who briefly captured the federal armory in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. We learn about a heinous AT murder of two young women. Then we travel with Bryson by car to Pennsylvania. We accompany him to a Pennsylvania ghost town abandoned because a coal mine inferno rages eternally in the deep seams below. He mentions that a little boy “was nearly swallowed by the earth in his granny’s backyard.”
Our Favorite Character Returns
When Katz returns to hike the trail, the laugh-out-loud humor returns. Katz decided they didn’t need heavy camping gear, so he presented two new Des Moines Register newspaper delivery bags to replace their heavy backpacks. “When was the last time you saw a paperboy with a hernia,” he asks Bryson.
In his usual unsparing assessment of his hiking companion, Bryson notes that “ideas are not Katz’s strongest suit.” He retorts, “have you considered what a source of uncontained mirth you would be to every person you met?”
“Don’t give the tiniest shit,” replies Katz.
Bryson tries another tact. “Do you know [rangers] have the power to detain anyone they think is not mentally or physically fit?”
Eventually, Bryson’s reasoning prevails.
Colorful Characters and Trail Fodder
The Appalachian Trail has its share of colorful people. We meet Chicken John, a real-life AT celebrity who “was forever losing the trail and ending up in the most improbable places,” and characters like Mary Ellen, who says just about anything that pops into her mind. “You’re too fat,” she tells Katz. Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for us, she camps and walks with them for several days.
Bryson doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and Mary Ellen bears the brunt of his satiric pen. When Bryson and Katz can’t shake her, she becomes fodder. Katz gets his share of digs in, but Bryson paints a picture of Mary Ellen that we can’t forget.
“She talked non-stop, except when she was clearing out her eustachian tubes (which she did frequently) by pinching her nose and blowing out with a series of violent and alarming snorts of a sort that would make a dog leave the sofa and get under a table in the next room.”
Humor Aptitude Test
There’s a generational and cultural divide in what people find funny these days. Some Goodreads reviewers and bloggers don’t appreciate Bryson’s scathing wit. Still, Bryson is an equal opportunity critic. He pokes fun at himself, too.
Take, for example, his explanation of why he decided to tackle 2,200 miles of Appalachian wilderness “when the American woods have been unnerving people for 300 years.” He says it’s a chance to get fit “after years of waddlesome sloth.” It would also give him credibility. “When guys in camouflage pants and hunting hats sat around in the Four Aces Diner talking about fearsome things done out-of-doors, I would no longer have to feel like a cupcake.”
Iowa-born Bryson spent years walking the Yorkshire dales in his adopted country of England. His dry sense of humor is undoubtedly a match for any Brit. Bryson has the understated sarcasm and self-deprecating humor many attribute to the British. So, if you’re like me, an anglophile, you’ll appreciate the creative barbs.
And lest we forget, Bryson wrote the book in the 1990s. That’s light years away from today’s politically correct culture.
The "Why Of Things"
Bryson opens our minds to the “why of things.” He has a way of taking arcane pieces of information and making them fascinating. In less skillful hands, information sharing of this magnitude would be a science class snooze fest. And yet, through evocative vignettes, we learn things that may save our lives someday. For instance, did you know hyperthermia takes more victims in temperate climates with sudden temperature changes? Make sure you bring layers on your next hike.
And when was the last time you saw a chestnut tree? Bryson tells a story about the demise of the mighty American chestnut trees.
He notes that by the 1990s, the eastern United States had lost forty percent of its songbirds since 1948. Occasionally, these digressions border on information overload, but the humorous anecdotes are never far behind.
So, dear readers, I’d be surprised if any of our hikes will ever be the same again as Bryson observes the effects of man’s impact on what was once indeed wilderness. Bryson’s interest in the environment is surprisingly forward-looking for a book written in 1998.
That said, the book left me with little desire for more exertion than a walk around the block. However, I would like a Little Debbie cake and another Bryson book.
Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org and will earn a commission if you click through and purchase. Bookshop.org connects readers with independent booksellers worldwide.
For more travel book reviews from Travel The Four Corners, please see “Journeys in Travel Literature.”
2 Comments
I love Bill Bryson, and plan to read more of his books. He writes outside the travel genre. His last book was The Body: A Guide for Occupants.
Yes, I want to read that one too. He has such an inquiring mind.
Discover more from Travel The Four Corners
Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.
Continue reading