Of beetles and buddies

I’m currently reading Rachel Joyce’s Miss Benson’s Beetle, and although it is a novel, the humor of the story is reminding me of Bill Bryson’s dry, self-deprecating wit in A Walk in the Woods.

Middle-aged Margery Benson–a hapless home economics teacher who wants to find the fabled golden beetle of New Caledonia–is as ill-prepared for a natural history expedition as Bryson was for a hike on the Appalachian Trail. Both Benson and Bryson do extensive research before their respective expeditions, and both discover their research did not prepare them for the reality of back-country camping.

You can’t have an adventure story without a loyal but annoying sidekick: both Miss Benson’s Beetle and A Walk in the Woods are ultimately buddy books. Miss Benson’s assistant, Enid Pretty, is as absurd as Bryon’s fellow hiker, Stephen Katz. Both Enid and Katz have shady backgrounds, both know nothing about hiking, and both are perpetually on their “buddy’s” last nerve with their irreverent indifference toward the presumed goal of the journey. But since buddy books are an intrinsically upbeat genre, both Enid and Katz prove invaluable, as teamwork and camaraderie are just as important as comic relief is.

I don’t know if Miss Benson will find the beetle she’s looking for, but I’d argue it doesn’t really matter. At the end of A Walk in the Woods, Bryson and Katz disagree about whether they achieved their goal in hiking the Appalachian Trail: Katz says they did, Bryson says they didn’t. Is an expedition’s success judged by its product, its process, or the simple fact of living to tell the tale? I suppose every adventurer must decide for themselves.