The Perfect Book

I think I have read Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods about five times. It could be, in all seriousness, the perfect book. No, Bryson is not a theologian (far from it), but he is one of the world's best living writers and is, quite possibly, the funniest. Erudition usually detracts. Not so here. Bryson has me gleefully looking up in a dictionary a good five or six words a page, just so I can get more immersed in his world. He writes in such a way that brings about quite a conundrum. His narrative is crafted so well that you want quickly to move to the next page, but at the same time begs you to linger amidst the long, perfectly structured sentences for fear you will miss some beautiful piece of prose. And, again, he is funny. And not kinda funny. The funniest. As I try and read sections out loud to my wife, I constantly have to stop to gather myself. I would be embarrassed if I were not so happy.

A Walk in the Woods is about his expedition on the great Appalachian Trail (running up the East Coast, it covers some 2200 miles). Along with his friend "Katz," he takes one of the most memorable journeys I haven't actually been on. And as I read it again, I do see some theology in it. No, nothing overt. But it is there. The grandness of God in his design of the earth, the subtleties of society and psychology, the ineffable nature of good friendship. The perfect book, I say.

For your enjoyment, here is the retelling of Bryson and Katz and their happening upon a woman named Mary Ellen:

On the fourth evening, we made a friend. We were sitting in a nice little clearing beside the trail, our tents pitched, eating our noodles, savoring the exquisite pleasure of just sitting, when a plumpish, bespectacled young woman in a red jacket and the customary outsized pack came along. She regarded us with the crinkled squint of someone who is either chronically confused or can't see very well. We exchanged hellos and the usual banalities about the weather and where we were. Then she squinted at the gathering gloom and announced she would camp with us.

Her name was Mary Ellen. She was from Florida, and she was, as Katz forever after termed her in a special tone of awe, a piece of work. She talked nonstop, except when she was clearing our 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. I have long known that it is part of God's plan for me to spend a little time with each of the most stupid people on earth, and Mary Ellen was proof that even in the Appalachian woods I would not be spared. It became evident from the first moment that she was a rarity.

"So what are you guys eating?" she said, plonking herself down on a spare log and lifting her head to peer into our bowls. "Noo¬dles? Big mistake. Noodles have got like no energy. I mean like zero." She unblocked her ears. "Is that a Sarship tent?”

I looked at my tent. "I don't know."
"Big mistake. They must have seen you coming at the camping store. What did you pay for it?"
"I don't know."
"Too much, that's how much. You should have got a three-season tent."
"It is a three-season tent."
"Pardon me saying so, but it is like seriously dumb to come out here in March without a three-season tent." She unblocked her ears.
"It is a three-season tent."
"You're lucky you haven't froze yet. You should go back and like punch out the guy that sold it to you because he's been like, you know, negligible selling you that."
"Believe me, it is a three-season tent."
She unblocked her ears and shook her head impatiently. "That's a three-season tent." She indicated Katz's tent.
"That's exactly the same tent."

WARNING: A Walk in the Woods is full of brilliantly 'colorful language' and should not be confused with 'Christian' works of fiction.