I can understand where Naomi is coming from with her assertion that the repeated economical rambles by Bryson are depressing. However, I don’t think the author meant them to be so. Take for example the long aside occurring at the beginning of chapter ten concerning the destruction of the American chestnut. Though the topic is a dark one, Bryson ends the aside by stating “there wasn’t a day in the Appalachian woods when I didn’t give passing thanks for what there was,” a clear indication of the author’s attempt to show the lighter side of everything.
I agree with Ford’s statement about how intriguing some of the deviations by Bryson can be. The relation of the different thru-hikers was one of my favorite sections in these last few chapters. However, I disagree that the asides transition badly back to the story of Bryson and Katz. At the end of each of these asides, or in the middle depending on how lengthy, Bryson always spends a few sentences explaining his view on the information he just related, the jump from third to first person therefore cradled by continuing the same subject through both. A good example of this is actually directly after the description of the thru-hikers in chapter nine when Bryson spends a decent sized paragraph discussing Katz and his views on why skipping bits of the trail was okay, even when compared to such persevering souls as the overweight Woodrow.
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