Grand Tour: The European Adventure of a Continental Drifter
by Tim Moore
Overview
FROM THE PUBLISHER
The tradition of the Grand Tour was started in 1608 by an intrepid but down-at-the-heels English courtier named Thomas Coryate, who walked across Europe, miraculously managed to return home in one piece, and wrote a book about his bawdy misadventures. With The Grand Tour, Tim Moore proves not only that he is Coryate's worthy successor but one of the finest and funniest travel writers working today. Armed with a well-thumbed reprint of Coryate's book, Moore donned a purple plush suit and set off in a second-hand and highly temperamental Rolls-Royce through France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Holland. Like Coryate, Moore possesses an astonishing ability to land himself in humiliating predicaments. His account of his hilariously memorable misadventures on Venice's canals on one fateful afternoon is by itself worth the price of admission. Moore brings new life to the Old World and in the process sends readers into paroxysms of laugher and delight.
My thoughts
Eeeyyyyeee. This book is ... odd.
The reviews tout it as a hilariously funny book. So funny you'll fall on the floor and won't be able to get up. "Snorts of laughter." "Brilliantly funny." "First Class Travel Writing." Yeah, uh, not so much.
I considered invoking Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50. But I got to page 50 and the book seemed to be getting better so I kept reading. I swear, authors know about Nancy Pearl's rules and they make pages 48-52 really, really good! :-)
Let's just take the section on Paris, shall we? Paris has been written about how many times? A thousand? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? Well, a lot anyway. Everyone has something to say about Paris. Except Tim Moore. I learned some interesting tidbits about the Eiffel Tower but I just didn't get much else out of his trip to Paris.
The book could be described as blokey humour, perhaps. Or maybe the problem is the American/British divide where we Yanks just don't get good British humour. I'm all for chalking it up to that. Regardless, I made it through to the end of the book and I'm proud that I trudged my way through it!
A Passage
George Coryate died in April 1607. There was no will, and Thomas and his mother couldn't even scrape together enough for an immediate funeral. At least I hope that's the reason why his father's corpse was left in a cave for six weeks before being buried. I suppose after a month and a half above ground you wouldn't need such a big coffin. A particularly mild Easter and you could have got away with a bucket.
