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| What I'm reading now. |
From the back of the book:
After nearly two decades in Britain, Bill Bryson took the decision to move back to the States for a while, to let his kids experience life in another country, to give his wife the chance to shop until 10 p.m. seven nights a week, and, most of all, because he had read the 3.7 million Americans believed that they had been abducted by aliens at one time or another, and it was thus clear to him that his people needed him.
But before leaving his much-loved home in North Yorkshire, Bryson insisted on taking one last trip around Britain, a sort of valedictory tour of the green and kindly island that had so long been his home. His aim was to take stock of the nation's public face and private parts (as it were), and to analyse what precisely it was he loved so much about a country that had produced Marmite, a military hero whose dying wish was to be kissed by a fellow named Hardy, place names like Farleigh Wallop, Titsey and Shellow Bowells, people who said 'Mustn't grumble', and "Gardeners' Question Time."
I've been loving this book. For one thing, I always love travel writing. Secondly, I feel like I can sort-of get some of the jokes, but since there are also lots of references (especially to famous/infamous Brits) I don't get, I've had fun Googling some of the pop-culture and historical references (see Marmite and Gardeners' Question Time, above!). Thirdly, Bryson is a snarky but endearing writer with a great and very readable style and a sharp wit. And lastly, as an American he's frequently prone to making comparisons that I identify with; so many of the observations he's made are things I've thought as well (like how the English have such a different sense of distance than Americans--who, as Bryson says, "think nothing of driving three hours for a taco.").
On page 19, remembering when he first arrived in the U.K., he writes:
I didn't know anything really, which is a strangely wonderful position to be in. Everything that lay before me was new and mysterious and exciting in a way you can't imagine. England was full of words I'd never heard before--streaky bacon, short back and sides, Belisha beacon, serviettes, high tea, ice-cream cornet. I didn't know how to pronounce "scone" or "pasty" or "Towcester" or "Slough." I had never heard of Tesco's, Perthshire or Denbighshire, council houses, Morecambe and Wise, railway cuttings, Christmas crackers, bank holidays, seaside rock, milk floats, trunk calls, Scotch eggs, Morris Minors and Poppy Day. For all I knew, when a car had an L-plate on the back of it, it indicated that it was being driven by a leper. I didn't have the faintest idea what GPO, LBW, GLC, or OAP stood for. I was positively radiant with ignorance.
I so related to that passage! Funny thing was, about half of the references (and all of the acronyms!) are still lost on me. It made me remember how, when we'd been here just a week or two, I went to the butcher shop and needed help from the man behind the counter telling the difference between a 20-pence coin and a 50-pence coin. Talk about radiant with ignorance!
