A Tall Man in a Low Land: Some Time Among the Belgians

by Harry Pearson

Most British travel writers head south for a destination that is hot, exotic, dangerous or all three. Harry Pearson chose to head in the opposite direction for a country which is damp, safe and of legendary banality: Belgium.

But can any nation whose most famous monument is a statue of a small boy urinating really be that dull? Pearson lived there for several months, burying himself in the local culture. He drank many of the 800 different beers the Belgians produce; ate local delicacies such as kip kap (jellied pig cheeks) and a mighty tonnage of chicory and chips. In one restaurant the house speciality was 'Hare in the style of grandmother'. 'I didn't order it. I quite like hare, but had no wish to see one wearing zip-up boots and a blue beret.'

A Tall Man in a Low Land commemorates strange events such as The Festival of Shrimps at Oostduinkerke and laments the passing of the Underpant Museum in Brussels. No reader will go away from A Tall Man in a Low Land without being able to name at least ten famous Belgians. Mixing evocative description and low-grade buffoonery Harry Pearson paints a portrait of Belgium that is more rounded than a Smurf after a night on the mussels.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Belgium, Humor, Memoir

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1999

Reviews

[Aviva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat dated, somewhat scattered, and somewhat charming account of Harry Pearson's summer spent traveling with his wife and daughter around Belgium. I read this in the hopes of gaining a light-hearted insight into the country I will soon call my home. Pearson's telling, however, is a bit all over the place and even he seems bored by his own writing by the end of the book, which ends fairly abruptly. He can be witty, but although some of his prose made me smile, it was not as funny as I had hoped. The book also lacks a consistent narrative thread and I found myself on more than one occasion turning back one page to try to figure out why on earth he was suddenly writing about a cafe in Ghent a paragraph after arriving in Brussels.

The good: some amusing anecdotes, some interesting and informative tidbits about the Flemish/Walloon divide, and just enough history to make me want to read more about Belgian history.

The bad: written in the late 90s and thus relatively dated, scattered narrative, and (for my tastes) far too many pages devoted to sport. (He devoted 10 pages to the Tour of Flanders, for example, many more than to any other subject, including prominent artists, writers, and historical figures.)

[Piet Boels · Rating 4 out of 5]

When not strapped for cash or time, the best way, imho, to judge the general quality, tone and subject coverage of a publisher series of travel-guides in then old-fashioned book-format is to first read the one of your own country. If that activity results in more than one “Yes, indeed” or, even better, “I did not know that”, then it is probably a wise decision to buy the one of the country/region you intend to visit in order to get tailored information you want, need or simply must have. Thus, if you are a tolerant, inquisitive person with a sense of humour, an appreciation for the incomprehensible and an allergy for the standard travel-writing cliches, this is a book for you. Harry Pearson's observations are pertinent, his humour – forever bouncing between the ironic and the sarcastic – is never insulting and the information he shares goes beyond that contained in the corresponding Wikipedia pages. For opening times, exact locations, entry costs and further ad-hoc information, use your smart-phone. Read the book either before visiting, after having visited or maybe even if you are never going to visit Belgium. In all three cases, it will increase your knowledge, your understanding and your appreciation of this strange nook of the North European Plain. As a Belgian, I can now read other books by Harry Pearson on other countries or different things, in the safe knowledge that style, subject matter and subject coverage will appeal to me.

[Brad Benson (moving to StoryGraph) · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 1/2 stars

This book didn’t hold my interest and was arguably too personal an account of travel in Belgium —without relating that to a broader target. And it’s a bit random, focusing more on obscure towns and areas while barely touching on the main tourist circuit (a big miss, IMO). Also, his assessments border on mockery at points, which feel malevolent coming from a British man. You’re better off reading Bill Bryson for the information, entertainment, & wit.

[Maureen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't stop laughing or at least grinning while reading this book. Pearson looks at Belgium through a very different set of lenses. He is able to find the humor in things that most folks would find maddening--I want to try and adopt his attitude. Not just when it comes to things Belgian but in all areas. It would save a lot of heart ache. Find the humor.

This is my anti-"Columbine" (which I am also currently reading) book. Safe to read before going to sleep.

[Gary Anderson]

Humorous travel memoirs might just be my favorite niche genre. With that and an upcoming trip to Belgium in mind, Harry Pearson’s A Tall Man in a Low Land seemed like a perfect title to investigate.

Not only is Pearson indeed preturnaturally tall, he is also funny. As a Brit meandering around Belgium, he wryly observes cities and small towns, commenting on their people, food, customs, and celebrations. I had a good chuckle on almost every page, sometimes in every paragraph.

In addition to the humor, I also learned quite a bit about Belgium, especially the linguistic and cultural differences between the northern Flanders area and the Wallonia region bordering France. Each has its own language, attitudes, and distaste for its counterpart.

This book is hard to find in the wild, but I would recommend it to others who enjoy the genre or are considering a Belgian excursion.

[Windy2go · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. Disclaimer: I live in Belgium, and I picked it up to help me understand the country in which I am living. So there were plenty of vignettes and details that I could relate to, placed I visited (or wanted to visit) -- relevancy. But the genius of this book is the author's sense of humor and gift for a turn of phrase. I think even if I did not live in Belgium, I would have really enjoyed reading it. His style shines through here in this passage from page 21 of the version I read: "Beyond Nismes the countryside began to flatten out and lose its vaguely Alpine feel. Towns and villages, jumbled and compact in the valleys around Couvin, started to stretch themselves out along the roads until they interlocked with the elongated arm of the next settlement. In any other nation this might have led to a rather dull drive, but not in Belgium." His way with words was one-upped by his sense of humor. I regularly laughed out loud, an outcome I treasure. Here, for example, are excerpts Harry Pearson relays from a tourist brochure listing hotels around the country: "'Suitable for sailors, tourists and associations,' an establishment in Antwerp proclaims. 'Our multilingual receptionists are at your service all day long,' declares the Egmont in Mechelen. 'Green setting. Large collection of old-times (the 30s). Always welcome, all year round,' explains the Mollenhof in Mol enigmatically. The Keravic at Lichtaart, meanwhile, is closed 'from 24/12 through 8/1 and all construction holidays.' De Croone in sophisticated Ninove has 'excellent comfort and an advanced infrastructure,' while T'Witte Huis in the more stolid environs of Sint-Niklaas is a 'hotel with standing in calm area.' The Viane in Turnhout, on the other hand, advises that 'since April 1995 we have been working together closely with a local beauty parlour. bicycle rental available,' while the owner of an establishment at Zolder, seeking a catchy name, had cast his eye about the local Grand Prix circuit for inspiration and unhappily settled on The Pits. After I read the latter I went out and gave my neighbour's dog a biscuit. He deserved it." (I maybe should add that the barking of the dog while he was on the phone with the tourist agency played into the fact that he had the hotel brochure to begin with....) Lots of laughter, elegant and smart descriptions... I really enjoyed this book.

[Jennifer Pletcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of the author's own visit to Belgium in the late 1990s. He and his wife and young daughter spent many months in Belgium - traveling all over the country visiting as many cities as they could. He gives a recount of Belgium history, and speaks to many of the locals about their customs and cultures.



This was a pretty good book. It has a few funny parts, but I think it would have been funnier if I would have been 1) English and 2) up on English pop culture references of the 1990s. So some of the humor was lost on me. However - this did not really deter from the book - I enjoyed learning a lot about the different cities in Belgium and the history of Belgium as well. It was a good find for my Read The World Challenge. If you are planning on visiting Belgium, I would put this book on your list.

[Michael Adubato · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another book that I read years ago. I live in Belgium, so want to find more books about my adopted land and read up on it. I must admit that when I read it the first time I really enjoyed it. This time it was enjoyable but not as much. Perhaps it was because I didn't know all the places he mentioned and visited but seems I've been to most if not all of them now. It's not a big country.

Pearson offers some interesting insight and the best thing about the book is that it isn't a tourist book where he hands out in Brussels and Brugge and Gent and...

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laugh out loud fun

I do enjoy good travel literature and will be traveling in Belgium so thought it would be useful to read this. I had no idea I would be so thoroughly entertained. The mix of keen observations of everyday life, personal anecdotes, and history was all told with such humor. I definitely recommend this book and plan on rereading it.

[Jaime · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can't wait for Belgium

Reading this was like talking to a funny British cousin in town after he returned from Belgium. I learned about the country's history through the travels of the author and his family and have made quite a list of places to visit there.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit out of date now but still hilarious. Too bad he was tired of writing when they arrived in Antwerp, but he still caught it in a few sentences.

[Michele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Should be required reading for all English-speaking expats in Belgium!

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit dated now but still a fun read. Even though I've lived in Belgium for a while now, I think I understand it a bit better, even just historically.

[Ronny De Schepper · Rating 2 out of 5]

Volgens chatgpt is dit "een van zijn meest opmerkelijke boeken waarin hij zijn eigen ervaringen beschrijft als een lange man die leeft in een land waar mensen over het algemeen korter zijn", maar in werkelijkheid staat “a low land” uiteraard voor België (denk aan “pays bas”) en dan wel degelijk BELGIE. Daarmee bedoel ik dat Pearson inderdaad door heeft dat dit land uit verschillende entiteiten bestaat (hij spot terecht met onze ingewikkelde staatsstructuur die ervoor zorgt dat wij het meeste ministers per inwoner hebben over de hele wereld!). Hij heeft het dan ook zowel over Vlaanderen en Wallonië als over Brussel en zelfs over het Duitstalige landsgedeelte. Daarbij neemt hij het traditionele “politiek correcte” standpunt in. Met name zijn bijdrage over de IJzertoren vond ik stuitend. Hulde aan Jef Turf die destijds met de KP ook een bezoek aan dit monument heeft gebracht om te bewijzen dat dit niet enkel extreem-rechts toebehoort. Dat hij zelfs de dood van koning Albert I in de schoenen van de flaminganten schuift, is nieuw, net als het feit dat Leopold III een “Paul McCartneytje” heeft gedaan (hij zou samen met koningin Astrid zijn omgekomen, maar “replaced by a Nazi imposter named Oldendorff”, p.209).
Pearson is vooral sportjournalist en het is dan ook via zijn belangstelling voor het wielrennen dat hij in ons land is terechtgekomen. En, toegegeven, op dat vlak heeft hij zijn bronnen goed nagetrokken (Eddy Merckx natuurlijk, maar ook Rik I en Rik II en alle andere grootheden op dat vlak tot en met 1998, het jaar dat het boek is verschenen), maar soms kan hij er toch ook goed naast zitten. Zo is het mij een raadsel waar hij het haalt dat onze televisiezenders live duivenwedstrijden zouden uitzenden! En hoe zouden ze dat wel doen? Drones bestonden in die tijd immers nog niet!

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

This the first book of Pearson's I've read that isn't about sport, although it mostly followed the same formula and replaced sports grounds with museums as he reported on turns of phrase and sometimes implausible bons mots.

As a result it was an entertaining read and covered the good and bad of towns across the country, with wit and warmth as well as more informative sections on artists and figures from history. The balance of these asides was good, but as with a lot of Pearson's writing I felt it leant more into entertainment than accuracy, and the finish seemed very abrupt. There wasn't much general reflection on the country beyond each topic as it was covered.

Nonetheless I still got a feel for the quirks of places and how it is similar to, and differs from, its neighbours, and there was little obvious filler. The sudden ending was slightly odd and not every joke landed, but I'd have been happy if the author had done other travel books.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/a-tall-man-in-a-low-land-some-time-among-the-belgians-by-harry-pearson/

Pearson is apparently a well-known UK sports journalist; he wrote this book about exploring Belgium with his girlfriend and their baby daughter in 1997 and 1998 (so the baby must now be almost 30). It’s a slightly frustrating book. There are some memorable turns of phrase and neat anecdotes. Internally the book is very disorganised, jumping around in space and time somewhat jerkily within chapters. There’s a bit of “aren’t foreigners funny”, but there’s also a fair bit of defensiveness towards Belgium. In summary, I was a bit disappointed. The book has its moments, but needed to have them better connected to each other.

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

An easy enough read. A little dated, as it's over 20 years old, but the main problem is the lack of structure. It's very scattershot, with Pearson zooming from one side of the country to the other within the same chapter and often the same day. Large parts of the country are barely touched upon, and Antwerp is left out entirely. There are plenty of info dumps, many of which are interesting, and a few half decent observations. The best humour comes from character observation; at other times the jokes seem a little forced.

[Jeannie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is now a little out of date (published 1998) but still has some interesting background information for those curious about Belgium e.g. about history, language and customs. For me it was a little too heavy on amusing anecdotes - genuinely funny but distracting from what I was really after.

[Anne Haack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant writing, piercingly funny—often in the laugh aloud sense. I finished this in anticipation of an upcoming adventure through Belgium and really appreciated the nuance, detail, and opinion. Honestly there is something refreshing about books written in the 1990s. My list of beers to try to find and taste has been updated. This is a wonderful complement to anything Rick Steves from that era.

[Britnyla · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m giving up on this one at page 84. I was looking for a book about Belgium but will have to find another that appeals more. One positive - I learned about the bike race ending in Bruges while they we were visiting just before the race.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for our Belgium trip per Rick Steve’s reading list. Very scattered travel log that jumps between times and cities. Barely talked about the cities I had planned to visit. Very difficult to follow. Not very informative or interesting.

[Colin Winter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great fun

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting, quirky & amusing book. I've been to Belgium several times & could relate to all the stories.

[Newfad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok, interesting but as eccentric as Belgium was/is its not gripping.

[Fiona · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author, who is British, spends a few months in Belgium and retells his visits in the different parts of the country.

At first, I didn´t understand his British humor but as I continued to read, I began to understand his dry humor. He often reminisces about a previous visit to the country with a mate of his. Quite hilarious stories about the different speaking/cultural lives of the Belgians.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not at all familiar with Pearson--I picked this up because I saw it mentioned and there aren't a whole lot of books out there about traveling in Belgium. By 2013 this is a bit dated and hit-or-miss. Pearson assumes the reader is familiar with British popular culture (football teams and television personalities) as well as with at-the-time current events in Belgium (the Dutroux murders, which I looked up to make sure I spelled right but which I'm not going to read anything else about, be my guest in that regard.) He's traveling in Belgium in around 1996-7, the early days of the EU--and it's interesting to see it in the rear-view mirror. And of course it's always fascinating and depressing to see how prices change over the course of almost twenty years.

Pearson spends most of his time noodling around Belgium's smaller, lesser-known cities. Antwerp only gets half a page at the very end of the book, while Sint Nicolaas, for example, gets a whole section. He likes Namur (the gastronomic capital of the country, if you like snails and hare) and Brussels. A lot of other places depress him. Along the way he visits various museums and monuments, muses on the WWI killing fields of Flanders and King Leopold's manic depredations of the Congo, eats multiple mattentaarten (cheese curd-filled pastries, delicious) and pains au chocolat, and almost falls out of a cable car. Throughout, he maintains a jokey running patter--sometimes amusing, sometimes trying a bit too hard. There are also long digressions about football and a few other topics--maybe interesting to some, but I'm a grumpus and would have preferred more details about the places he visited.

Overall, this is an idiosyncratic travelogue with a Bryson-esque tone that may not have filled in all the blanks in my knowledge about Belgium, but at least gave me some more starting points. Next on my list, I think, is King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa, which ought to be a doozy.

[Marie De Coster · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thus book is not funny, but it is badly written with many grammatical mistakes that a journalist should have known better. I guess this is from being a Northumbrian who currently sues dialect terms and nuances that are commonly known in the Nort East. The book is offensive to the Belgians being the 'stomach of Europe, calling them fat, tasteless and are inept in DIY. I live in Belgium and married to a Belgian who also finds this book very distasteful and offensive to the people that the author met in his travels. He clearly does not understand the history of the country as he gets many historical facts wrong. He also has no idea about art, and yet he is being seen as another Englishman who calls any nudity vulgar and pornographic. Belgium has much more to offer than cycling, beer and cuisine.
Pearson misses to draw attention how the Belgian people are so compromising and yet still comes out of any verbal altercations with much more than they began with. This is the heart of being Belgian and they do not see it as a weakness but a strength. As usual, Pearson is another English baffoon who only speaks English, Belgians are proudly known for speaking at least three languages. He is a little 'englander' (with a small 'e'). If you expect to learn anything about Belgium and be entertained at the same time...you will be mostly disappointed.

I would recommend this book to all Nazis who then can go ahead and burn it.

[Kenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit average overall. It's nearly 20, and so obviously dated. There are some good personable bit of writing, but I found it a bit strange to avoid most of the major cities and sites in Belgium for the book, instead concentrating on villages and smaller towns and things that amused him during a couple of months stay. There are a few good jokes, and in a few places he does have passages that really do get under the skin of Belgium. But obviously not as much as, well I'd guess there would be dozens of dazed bloggers somewhere out there doing the same. It's not unusual for me to need to recap a travel writers last few pages after a weekend. Much more so if it's just the next day.

A bit of a shame, as the best part of the book was the chapter or so he devoted to Eddy Merckx and cycling which was passionate and informative - also quite funny. I see most of his other books are related to sport. I'd try one sometime, as that is obviously where his best writing would be.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was recommended reading for a. Upcoming trip, but it had very little to do with the cities we will be visiting.

[Veronica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would not recommend this book to someone wanting to visit Belgium, his descriptions of dirty train stations, dingy hotel rooms and musty museum exhibits are far from appealing (maybe it's supposed to be funny?). Nevertheless, I was very impressed at how good he gets the Belgians and the cultural differences between the north and the south. Add to that a very generous sprinkle of history and interesting anecdotes (that include interesting beer names), and suddenly this book transforms into a really great read.

My only problem was that the author seems to go out on tangents that go on for pages, only to abruptly return to the point, which makes sometimes for a confusing read.