skygiants | (no subject)

My feelings on Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island are very, very mixed.

It cannot be denied that Bryson can be very funny, and I enjoyed the first half a lot! I liked the format he started out using, where he would go to a place and flashback about is arrival there in the 70's and then flash forward again to the present - that was cool and interesting! And he has a trick on every so often lighting on exactly the question you have asked yourself many times (for example: "who on earth figured out the ridiculously complicated procedure of making glass out of sand? And HOW?" I too have always wondered about this!) or observing a peculiar thing you have also observed, and then you laugh and feel like you are sharing a joke and all is well.

ON THE OTHER HAND: as the book continued, I began to feel an increasing need to write Mr. Bryson a letter. The letter would look something like this:

Dear Mr. Bryson,

THE UK DOES NOT EXIST FOR THE PURPOSE OF LOOKING PICTURESQUE FOR YOU. GET OVER IT.

Respectfully yours,
Becca

Seriously, I did not mind the first time he went off on a rant about how terrible it was about all the historic houses being destroyed. But by the tenth or eleventh time he launched into his diatribe about how it was A TERRIBLE CRIME and WHY was this building SO UGLY it RUINED the skyscape, SOMEONE SHOOT THE DESIGNER and THE BRITISH DID NOT APPRECIATE THEIR HERITAGE and HERE IS MY GENIUS PLAN FOR RELOACTING ALL INDUSTRY TO PRETTIER LOCATIONS and LEAVE THE HEDGEROWS ALONE! LEAVE . . . THE HEDGEROWS . . . ALONE!, I started wanting to shake him. Look, I appreciate old buildings and preservation of history as much as anyone, but there's something so incredibly condescending about this assumption that everyone's MOST IMPORTANT CONSIDERATION should be whether the scenery is picturesque and pretty. I mean, it's probably your standard (American?) tourist mindset, but that does not make it the attitude any less entitled. Or annoying.

Speaking less crankily of international travel: there is a tiny travel bookstore directly across from where I work. I knew it specialized in international books, but, to my shame, I had never gotten around to visiting it. Yesterday I went in for the first time, and, guys, it is AWESOME. It is super-tiny and arranged in two rooms; non-western places are in the first room and European places are in the second and every country, from Mexico to Burma, has several shelves to itself on which are stocked everything from novels (both from inside and outside the country) to travel guides to history books. I find this kind of a wonderful way to arrange things. I did not buy anything there yesterday but I am determined to do so soon!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

newredshoes

Bill Bryson makes me ferociously angry. I wanted to like his books so much, but he's just such a self-important, uncurious little snot. (I like your word "condescending" better. He just. AUGH.)

From:

skygiants

I liked A Short History of Nearly Everything - I think because in that one he knows that he has no idea of what he's talking about and so the book isn't about him, it's about the people he's talking to and what he's learning, and that's cool. But in this book, when we actually have to follow him around for a while as a person, he pretty much just comes off as a prat!

From:

newredshoes

Ahh. The one I tried was The Lost Continent, and he just had so much disdain for the people he saw, and made absolutely no attempt to engage with their lives or living situations. I think I actually threw that book across a room, and I never do that.

From:

skygiants

Oh man, I believe it. Towards the end of the book, I was making a mental list of Places Bill Bryson Is Never Allowed To Write a Book About. Because it's one thing for England, where he lived for a long time (as

shoroko mentioned below) and which has pretty decent representation in the US - that's dealable - and it would be another thing altogether for places not so familiar to him, or to most readers.

From:

ashen_key

Ooooh, that was a BAD one to start with. I hate that one - it's his first book, and it SHOWS.

But A Short History and Mother Tongue are both really good, because they aren't travel, and aren't about HIM. So, you get the humour without the condescension.

From:

newredshoes

But see, I feel like with the works of Studs Terkel in the world, I have no reason to give second chances to anyone who makes me so violently resentful. :)

From:

areyoumymemmy.livejournal.com

I actually have A Short History of Nearly Everything out of the library as my second try at Bryson. First was his Shakespeare book, which was entertaining enough, but I got a little tired of his glee at pointing out how we don't really know anything! There is no evidence! I might not even be actually writing this book!

He's not wrong, and it is useful to remind people what a lot of accepted "facts" have or don't have as a historical basis, but he doesn't add anything to the discussion. Like maybe why do so many people believe these things, what do the popular misconceptions say about the cultures that produce them, etc.

Instead, he's just all about pointing out how much other people don't know. It's that kind of attitude that got Socrates a hemlock smoothie, you know?

From:

skygiants

Hahaha, tangent: I get so frustrated with the vast majority of books on ~Shakespeare's Life~ that are not just out-and-out admitted fiction, because either it is all "WELL THIS IS CLEARLY TRUE," and then you have to go "no! No it's not! WE DON'T KNOW ANYTHING," or it is centered on "WE DON'T KNOW ANYTHING" and then you are like "so . . . why did you even write this book?"

. . . however, I have a feeling I would gladly have read a book about Socrates traipsing around England and bitching about random things. I bet Socrates was a super entertaining bitcher.

From:

areyoumymemmy.livejournal.com

Yes! *high-fives* I am so glad we share the same rather specific gripe on books about Shakespeare. I am fine with books that are like "WE DON'T KNOW ANYTHING" if there is something else to them, or complete fiction (because then we get things like Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter which I swear one day I will write).

....Clearly I must now write a book where Socrates is this dryly acerbic bitcher traipsing around England that turns into an Agatha Christie novel when he stops at a country house for the weekend and someone puts Hemlock in his tea. One of the houseguests will be noted author BILL BRYSON.

From:

skygiants

*high-fives back* (Romeo and Ethel the Pirate's Daughter! I named my first laptop Ethel the Pirate's Daughter. *nostalgic*)

. . . NEXT PROJECT. *_* I will buy a million copies and give them to EVERYONE I KNOW, because it will clearly be the best book ever!

From:

kattahj.livejournal.com

Look, I appreciate old buildings and preservation of history as much as anyone, but there's something so incredibly condescending about this assumption that everyone's MOST IMPORTANT CONSIDERATION should be whether the scenery is picturesque and pretty. I mean, it's probably your standard (American?) tourist mindset, but that does not make it the attitude any less entitled. Or annoying.

Oh dear. I tend to take that attitude to houses around me. I love my apartment, but seeing it from the outside, I go "WHY DO I LIVE IN A BOX, WHY WHY WHY?" and every day as I pass the Entré Malmö shopping center (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Entr%C3%A9,_Malm%C3%B6.jpg) on the bus I go, "WHY WOULD ANYONE BUILD THAT!?" Even my journey to Istanbul I spent lamenting that modern public buildings aren't as pretty as the Hagia Sofia.

Possibly I am a very annoying person.

From:

skygiants

*giggles* No, you're allowed! Uh, I think especially one is allowed to bitch in one's own city about the ugly architecture, because it's your ugly architecture and you can damn well critique it if you want. And I too regret the hideousness of many modern buildings - and really I would not have minded if Mr. Bryson had mentioned a few wistful regrets about lost buildings and left it at that. It's the fact that he spent about a third of his book going "THE STUPID BRITISH ARE SO UNAPPRECIATIVE OF THEIR HERITAGE! WHY must they have things like STORES in their cities!" that got me facepalming.

From:

kattahj.livejournal.com

Maybe he's trying to compensate for not having a heritage to be unappreciative of? ;-)

From:

skygiants

Hey, we have at least something of a heritage! :P And from what I understand, he is equally bitchy about it, having made some of his fame from traipsing around the US and complaining about that.

From:

aberration

I don't have any particular affection or anything for Bryson (I read 'I'm a Stranger Here Myself' once for school and all I really remember from it is... something about diners), but I'd kind of mildly point out that he's lived in the U.K. for about 30 years altogether and even has an OBE. I mean, I just imagine he's not thinking of himself as a tourist passing judgment on the British, he's practically an expat.

From:

skygiants

I would agree, except that in the book he seems pretty clearly to be presenting himself as an outsider - to a degree that's actually a little strange, for someone who lived in the UK for so long. Like, he very much has this 'the British are so cute with all their incomprehensible habits!' thing going on in the book. And occasionally he'll talk about himself as someone who's who participates in these customs, and the rest of the time he is presenting himself as very much an outsider - it's odd.

From:

aberration

I don't know, I'm a Stranger Here Myself, was about his returning to the U.S. (until he went... back to Britain), so I'd say that still kind of comes off more as a general gimmick than 'omg I'm an American Brits are weeird.' I guess it just makes me feel a little ehn to say 'well, it's not his heritage to comment on' when he pretty clearly does have a strong background in it, and that's been recognized in England.

From:

skygiants

That's fair to say! (And I haven't read I'm a Stranger Here Myself so I can't really tell whether the attitude is different or not.)

Either way, it's still pretty annoying when he goes on his twentieth rant about it, though. *grins*

From:

aberration

Yeah, but that's why I don't read travel books by Bill Bryson o____o

From:

skygiants

Heh - I probably will not be either so much. Maybe the English language one, though! Because I am curious about that.

From:

ashen_key

I like him, and adore A Short History, but, yes, the man can get annoying. And I always take his observations with a grain of salt after he cocked up Canberra *rolls eyes* Everyone finds Canberra annoying, and the comment about finding no restaurants, no pubs, is just...ugh.

Anyway. I find in books - except for A Short History and Mother Tongue - he needs to be read with other things.

From:

skygiants

I'm not sure I'll be picking up any of his other travelogues, but Mother Tongue is one that is still on my list - I have heard good things, and, like you said above, I think he is definitely better when focused on something that is not himself!

From:

magharabi.livejournal.com

The little bookstore sounds charming. Though I wonder if maybe Mr. Bryson's entitled attitude isn't that of the tourist in general? After all, the whole point of (most) tourism is to go and look around... Take a few pictures. Maybe buy some souvenirs to brag with later...

Then again, I'm from the U.S. So it really isn't fair of me to comment on U.S. stereotypes.

From:

skygiants

The bookstore really is adorable. And it's really cool to be able to look by country! I like it way better than sorting by genre, though obviously it would not work for a mass-market chain.

As someone from the US also, I always feel like it's good for me to have the reminder when I'm on vacation to try not to act like a jerk (although of course I'm sure I often fail.)

From:

magharabi.livejournal.com

*wants one in my town*

Hm. Yeah, it is good to remember that the world doesn't always think the same as we do. ^_^

From:

genarti

There is a tiny travel-and-maps bookstore in Harvard Square which is similar! I haven't been in in ages, but IIRC it's arranged alphabetically by country within regional sections. Also they have gorgeously designed big bookshelves that I covet enormously.