Notes from a Small Island
by Bill Bryson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Bill BrysonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1997-05-01
ISBN: 0380727501
Number of pages: 324
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Book Reviews of Notes from a Small Island
Book Review: Land of Milk and Bryson
Summary: 4 Stars
Mr Bryson, American by birth but British by choice for most of his professional life, built a thunderous reputation for his hysterically funny, gloriously opinionated and deliciously warped writing style. His brand is built on the comfort that comes from reliability, and Notes from a Small Island comes as close as you'll get to a pure distillation of the Bryson mini-genre.
Reading one of Bill Bryson's books is, ironically enough, a bit like stepping into one of the McDonald's he so loathes. His name on the cover is as much a signpost and promise as the golden arches. Before you've even digested the Library of Congress data, you already have a fairly good idea of how the rest of it is going to taste.
The ostensible subject is Mr Bryson's tour of the UK prior to moving briefly back to the US in the mid 90s, but this quasi-victory lap gets second billing next to Mr Bryson's own interior monologue of memories, acidic commentary on the state of modern architecture, and other off-the-wall thoughts. For such a brilliant travel writer, he again proves an appallingly bad traveler. Mr Bryson travels largely alone, often by rail or bus, frequently without checking the timetable and almost never with a reservation waiting at the end. He encounters Fawltyesque hoteliers, boorish trainspotters and man-eating Labradors - but the main threat to his health is his habit of trying to walk back to his hotel after about three pints too many.
Travel writing can sometimes feel like subsidizing somebody else's good time, to places you've never heard of at prices you couldn't afford; Andean backpacking, Andaman Sea scuba-diving, or pretty much anything in Conde Nast Traveler. Not so with Mr Bryson. Let other writers tackle the Bamiyan Valley or Borobudur - Mr Bryson takes you nowhere more exotic than Barnstaple and Bradford. But then, that's what makes reading his books so much like burrowing into a favorite sweater.
Not that Mr Bryson is without the power to impress. The awe he feels on viewing a Roman mosaic at a ruined villa in Spoonley Wood, intact and in situ, is palpable and moving. The anger and sadness he seems to feel at the cancerous corrosion eating away at small-town England feels genuine, as does his passion for the English countryside (and, unlike many weekend enthusiasts, Mr Bryson put his family where his mouth is, living first in rural Yorkshire, and more recently a small town in Norfolk).
Above all, in spite of his news-ticker stream of grumbling about almost everyone he meets, you get a strong sense of Mr Byson's love for the English themselves. He is full of praise for their politeness, good humor, their delight in life's small pleasures. That said, the book's one sour note is how pat Mr Bryson's observations of the English are. According to Wikipedia, in a 2003 BBC4 Radio poll, Notes from a Small Island was voted the book which best represented England, which probably says far more about the British self-image than the reality. At the very least, you have to think there's something other than good manners and jokes at work in the country that gave the world soccer hooliganism.
Just as the portrait of the English painted here somewhat lacking in perspective, Mr Bryson's coverage of the British Isles is on the teenager end of the spotty scale. Of the UK's great university towns, Oxford rates a visit, but Cambridge gets a miss (secretly gratifying to those of us whose parents went to the former). The famous white cliffs are notable primarily for their absence. There's a gaping hole where the center of England should be, and what bits of Wales make it into the book probably wish they hadn't.
However the greatest problem with Notes from a Small Island, as with Big Macs, is that comfort starts to wear after a bit, and you yearn for something a bit tangier, a bit zestier, something that will surprise. Just as his books are superficially similar to one another, so the individual episodes that make up Notes from a Small Island begin to run together - small towns, good, large towns, bad. Old buildings good, new buildings, bad. To paraphrase Mr Bryson himself, the trick to good travel writing is knowing when to stop, and here--even when presented with an obvious finale like the northern tip of Scotland--he fails to take his own advice. The end result is undoubtedly funny, but in need of some strategic trimming.
Perhaps even Mr Bryson began to feel he was recycling his own greatest hits, as he now writes on diverse subjects such as the English language, the history of science and the life of Shakespeare. Luckily, these books too are uproariously funny, and highly recommended once you've devoured Mr Bryson's travelogues.
Summary of Notes from a Small Island
After nearly two decades spent on British soil, Bill Bryson-bestsellingauthor of The Mother Tongue and Made in America-decided to returnto the United States. ("I had recently read," Bryson writes, "that 3.7 million Americans believed that they had been abducted by aliens at one time or another,so it was clear that my people needed me.") But before departing, he set out ona grand farewell tour of the green and kindly island that had so long been his home.
Veering from the ludicrous to the endearing and back again, Notes from a Small Island is a delightfully irreverent jaunt around the unparalleled floating nation that has produced zebra crossings, Shakespeare, Twiggie Winkie's Farm, and places with names like Farleigh Wallop and Titsey. The result is an uproarious social commentary that conveys the true glory of Britain, from the satiric pen of an unapologetic Anglophile.
"Suddenly, in the space of a moment, I realized what it was that I loved about Britain-which is to say, all of it."After nearly two decades spent on British soil, Bill Bryson-bestselling author of ,i>The Mother Tongue and Made in America-decided to return to the United States. ("I had recently read," Bryson writes, "that 3.7 million Americans believed that they had been abducted by aliens at one time or another, so it was clear that my people needed me.") But before departing, he set out on a grand farewell tour of the green and kindly island that had so long been his home.
Veering from the ludicrous to the endearing and back again, Notes from a Small Island is a delightfully irreverent jaunt around the unparalleled floating nation that has produced zebra crossings, Shakespeare, Twiggie Winkie's Farm, and places with names like Farleigh Wallop and Titsey. The result is an uproarious social commentary that conveys the true glory of Britain, from the satiric pen of an unapologetic Anglophile.
Reacting to an itch common to Midwesterners since there's been a Midwest from which to escape, writer Bill Bryson moved from Iowa to Britain in 1973. Working for such places as Times of London, among others, he has lived quite happily there ever since. Now Bryson has decided his native country needs him--but first, he's going on a roundabout jaunt on the island he loves.
Britain fascinates Americans: it's familiar, yet alien; the same in some ways, yet so different. Bryson does an excellent job of showing his adopted home to a Yank audience, but you never get the feeling that Bryson is too much of an outsider to know the true nature of the country. Notes from a Small Island strikes a nice balance: the writing is American-silly with a British range of vocabulary. Bryson's marvelous ear is also in evidence: "... I noted the names of the little villages we passed through--Pinhead, West Stuttering, Bakelite, Ham Hocks, Sheepshanks ..." If you're an Anglophile, you'll devour Notes from a Small Island.
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