Talk:Notes from a Small Island

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BetacommandBot (talk) 16:07, 8 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Land's End

He doesn't go to Land's End at all. This is a tricky one because that expression is fine just to mean "all over the country" (although that has already been said) but specifically he did not (though he did to John O'Groats). Unless I have a different edition from you. He gets as far south-west as exeter then heads northwards. So this is simply factually incorrect. As I say, I don't mind it as a metaphor but it could be misleading here. Thoughts?

SimonTrew (talk) 21:44, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Disappointing and then not so disappointing!

Having read 'Mother Tongue' which is Bill Bryson's fascinating linguistic journey through the history of the English language - a course which I actually have to teach at my university in Poland - I was very disappointed with 'Notes from a Small Island'. Unfortunately, the humourous upbeat vein of Bryson's travels around Britain make it completely unrealistic of how the country actually is - all the grungy little houses that exist in most of Britain's cities and towns, the appalling traffic everywhere you go, the same brand-name shops that have overtaken Britain's high streets and the remorseless spread of the supermarkets that are now a dominant feature across the entire country.

O.K., I now need to revise this initial comment. The beginning of the book seems far too upbeat but as you read you start to feel that BB is making more astute observations about life in Modern Britain. He correctly bemoans the fact that most of Britain's towns now look identical owing to the same shops dominating their high streets, and also how ugly most of the modern architecture is that replaced the beautiful older architecture ripped out during the 1960s/1970s (for example, hideous shopping centres and modern office blocks dumped in town centres). However, I still feel that a fault of the book is that it embraces the places he visits very well but fails to capture the grey commuter-filled world that much of Britain has become - a Britain, in fact, which is morphing itself into one huge road grid. He describes most of the places he visits in a rather charming 'Ye Olde England' fuzzy/warmish glow (a world of Marmite, afternoon tea, holidays by the seaside, people being nice on trains (try the Clapham Junction to Waterloo line at 7am in the morning, Bill!) which a foreigner to Britain might genuinely feel, but which unfortunately no longer represents what Britain has become in the 21st century.

In fact, for those readers who are interested in travelogues about Britain, try reading Jonathan Raban's 'Coasting (book)' which is a much more satirical/ironic view of a rapidly changing Britain during the era of Thatcherism. Raban, who finally ended up leaving Britain for Seattle, takes a critical look at the land he lives in and actually sees all the values that BB likes so much disappearing fast, being replaced by the 'chavvish' chattering-classes culture that dominates the Modern Britain of today.

Ivankinsman (talk) 12:22, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But this has little to do with the article itself. This is the place to discuss the article, not the subject of the article. SimonTrew (talk) 16:24, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The article is simply a description of BB's travels around Britain. It needs a lot more revision in terms of his personal thoughts and whether these are valid. Not everyone sees Britain in such a romanticised light as he does. Ivankinsman (talk) 16:27, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]