Let’s say you happen to be traipsing about in your local bookstore and you chance upon a little novel pressed in among the rest but this one, in its glorious good luck, catches your eye. You pick it up, give it a flip, and begin perusing the story summary on the back. This book, you read, is about a middle-aged man named Bill. So far so good, eh? Bill, it seems, is about to move back to his hometown in Iowa after living twenty years in England. Intriguing still. And (bless your soul there’s more!) Bill has set his heart upon a six-week journey through the vast countryside of his expatriate homeland—trains, taxis, and hiking galore—before leaving for The States. Certainly a fine foundation! This must be a delightful tale of a man in love with a country: its people, its land, and even its faults. Yes, this is a fine book indeed. The only problem is that no such book exists, only a slatternly substitution: “Notes.”
Notes From a Small Island, you see, is not Bill Bryson’s adoring though unflinching look at the country he called home for twenty years, so much as it is the journal of an arrogant American prick who finds it his right to dismiss train-loving old men, harp on hoteliers because they do not meet his own schedule, and insult young fast-food workers as a cure to his own poor mood. Do you doubt it? I’ll admit there are other scenes besides, of course. When Mr. Bryson isn’t criticizing his fellow citizens, he’s harping ceaselessly on the inadequacy of his surroundings, most notably the architecture, saying generally that the English seem too thick skulled to understand what makes their townships beautiful as they seem to erect only buildings that Mr. Bryson deems unworthy and eye-sores. And somehow (I say somehow because the fact weighs overwhelmingly on my stores of faith to believe it) the English people have voted this book the most representative of England in 2003 according to the BBC News. Perhaps it is their English courtesy that allows them to so graciously overlook Mr. Bryson’s haughty disdain.
Overall: C -- Funny and mildly informative if you can avoid imagining having to endure so much as a meal with its author.
2 comments:
yeah, this book hasn't been as funny yet as the critics make it seem like he is. I see how he is supposed to be funny, but I haven't laughed out loud yet. He seems to be too much in love with his own humor to actually be funny.
Hello, sorry to burst in! Just found your review and found it more clever than Bryson's book. I think I enjoyed about a quarter of it before it got repetitive in his whining and persisted only because I expected it to get better. You've made a good assessment (the bit in Edinburgh with the fast-food worker was also particularly appalling to me.)
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