I hope not! Bill Bryson can really *write.* For the uninitiated, try "A Walk in the Woods," "Notes from a Small Island" and, my favorite, "In a Sunburned Country."
Also, "The Lost Continent" includes one my all-time favorite passages of writing....
theguardian.com/books/booksblo…
Also, "The Lost Continent" includes one my all-time favorite passages of writing....
theguardian.com/books/booksblo…
Bryson, touring the US in the 1980s, is talking about Cleveland's "Renaissance," which did not overly impress (The city has obviously improved since then, so don't be upset if you're from Cleveland, just enjoy the prose).
He writes:
He writes:
"What I can say is that the view up the Cuyahoga as I crossed it on the freeway was a stew of smoking factories that didn't look any too clean or handsome. And I can't say that the rest of the town looked such a knockout either. It may be improved, but all this talk...
...of a renaissance is clearly exaggerated. I somehow doubt that if the Duc d'Urbino were brought back to life and deposited in downtown Cleveland he would say...
'Goodness, I am put in mind of fifteenth-century Florence and the many treasures therein.'"
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