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.
不知道为什么要用“食蚁猬”而非更常见的译名“针鼹”,烤焦国这个名字也相当生硬。不过除掉翻译的各种问题以及水平完全不相当的第三方照片,这书就很完美了。作者有开阔的视野,幽默的心态和充沛的好奇心,想不出有谁会比这样的人更适合做游记作家。看完以后,印象最深刻的地...
評分Have been deeply immersed in Bryson's world for quite a few years. I just love the writing style of this old bloke - humorous, witty, while immensely informative. This morning I've just finished listening his audio book "Down Under" - for the whopping 4th ...
評分One would think “how hard can it be to write a travel book”? As a travel book writer, you go to a fascinating place, do a bit sightseeing and record what you see. You then go back to your hotel room and jump on Google.com to search for anything about this...
評分还行是说译文还行。不针对原著。 总算是出中文版了。现在买中文版的书总让人战战兢兢,不靠谱的译者太多了,寒心。这个还凑合。其实,翻的再烂,老布的书也是会全收的。为什么不推有声版呢? 还行是说译文还行。不针对原著。 总算是出中文版了。现在买中文版的书总让人战战兢...
評分2019年2月23日我把这本几乎十年前读完的书又通读了一遍,距我们从阳光明媚的昆士兰州回来仅为一个礼拜。 澳大利亚就是一个没有什么需求的时候不会让人有感觉的地方。然而,他是如此的宽敞和未知,国民是如此充满活力。 布莱森的游记是如此不同,十年前毫无感觉的文字如今读来如...
Bill Bryson的又一部傑作,我看過他的另一本遊記"THE LOST CONTINENT-Travels in Small Town American",覺得他的語言非常風趣幽默,在作品裏不斷穿插一些趣聞軼事,夾雜著他風趣幽默的評論,讓他的文章栩栩如生,如同身臨其境,讓你覺得看他的遊記是一種享受。 這本書裏記錄瞭澳大利亞的一些獨特的曆史,從最初的殖民者一直到土著居民,荒蕪的沙漠,獨特的惡劣氣候,和澳大利亞人樂觀豁達的性格,已經很多的奇特的自然景觀,緻命的毒蛇,水母,各種其他有毒的植物,動物蟲子,鰐魚,讓你在增長知識的同時也獲得瞭樂趣,強烈推薦大傢讀一下這本書,本書的有聲版本用標準美式口音閱讀,聽他的有聲版本更是一種享受。
评分279
评分難得有個讓Bill Bryson贊不絕口的地方啊!雖然該吐的槽還是要吐的。這本蠻好看,在我看過的10本左右Bill Bryson裏top 5。
评分難得有個讓Bill Bryson贊不絕口的地方啊!雖然該吐的槽還是要吐的。這本蠻好看,在我看過的10本左右Bill Bryson裏top 5。
评分the very very frist i brought with me ..to the downunder !
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