Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods

In A Walk in the Woods two middle-aged men, one the author Bill Bryson and the other his friend Stephn Katz, set out to walk the Appalachian Trail. The walk, narrated through the 300 pages of the book, becomes an occasion for Bryson to describe the shrinking of the American wilderness, the history of the Appalachian mountain chain (geologically as well as culturally), the history of the Trail itself, the lives of the men who conceived and oversaw its creation, the flora and fauna which he observes, various people whom they encounter on the trail, stories he has heard, experiences he has had, and on and on.

Bryson has a wonderful narrative gift. This books gives it full expression. He also has what I think of as a syncretic, associative mind. As he walks along the trail, or lies in his tent at night, one thought leads to another, and Bryson deals with each one as it comes. The other book I've read by Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, showed his skill as a science writer, as an explainer of difficult concepts, as someone capable of bringing together into one relatively coherent account all the theories and scientific explanations for the history of the cosmos, the earth, and of life.

In A Walk in the Woods Bryson's subject is more focused. Not only does he write about the Appalachian Trail, but also he writes, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, of his own attitude towatds middle age and the limitations of his life. Walking the Trail is for him a way of trying to come to terns with those limitations, at first by transcending but finally by accepting them.

Bryson has an acute sense of history, of historical context, and of irony. He is quick to point out that the existence of the Appalachian Trail is a kind of accident, that the wilderness through which it passes is vestigial, that the wilderness itself is, on much of the trail, second growth forest that has overgrown farmlands once farmed by early American settlers. His fear of bears is comical and he honestly discusses it.

Bryson plays the straight man to Katz, perennially out of shape and seemingly always in search of a candy bar and a beer. We learn more about Katz than just about anything else in the book, including perhaps Bryson himself. Katz at first seems to be Bryson's comic foil and nemesis. Finally he emerges as a true friend, a doppelganger to the more serious Bryson, who discovers in his walking companion another image of himself. Bryson's dawning appreciation of Katz is one of the subthemes of the book.

Walking the Trail for Bryson is no macho challenge but a way of coming to terms with his life and with the fullness of human experience.