Synopsis Of The Lost Continent

Chapter one of Bill Bryson's book left me chuckling from paragraph to paragraph. His snide sense of humor was greatly effective with his way of making fun of people from Iowa. This sense of humor propelled me through the text. Bryson knows how to tell a story and how to set up a joke, possibly unintentionally sometimes. Bryson gives you a great feeling of what the characters that he speaks of are like. His neighbor was by far my favorite, inserting politics and any troubles he deems necessary to bring up at any whim. Everyone knows someone that is like that, and Bryson depicts the person perfectly. Bryson tells stories and inserts great snide humor in the first chapter of his book, recalling his time living in Iowa.

Chapter four left me a snide myself. I was looking forward to this chapter, having enjoyed and previously read chapter 1 two hours earlier. I sat back and found the stories to be interesting. I did not, however, feel that his sense of humor was as clever as before. He still made jokes of the towns and the people he visited, but they seemed a little dull for my taste. Again he recalls a fake sign claiming that Illinois still cannot punctuate. It seems like that joke had already been visited and didn't produce a smile for me. The stories, though, have improved. In chapter one I felt the urge to keep reading so I can get from joke to joke; now in chapter four I was following the text for the stories he was explaining.

Bryson does a great job depicting people and experiences that he has encountered. His humor, although sometimes over-bearing a bit lacking in "freshness", is some of the humor in literature I have read. This was a fantastic read and hope to read more.