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 Jeg tar nok en pause fra U- og leser litt i Bill Brysons Made in America, om hvordan amerikansk engelsk utviklet seg til å bli slik det ble. I dag skal jeg være så orginal at jeg serverer en fotnote som smakebit:
Why the -s termination rose to prominence is something of a mystery. It came from northern England, a region that had, and still has, many dialectal differences from the more populous south, none other of which has ever had the slightest influence on the speech of London and its environs. Why the inhabitants of southern England suddenly began to show a special regard for the form in the late sixteenth century is unknown.
(side 25) Språk er gøy.
Flere smakebiter finner du hos Flukten fra virkeligheten.
Not to be avoided, obviously.
The Great Western Beach by Emma Smith – charming.
The Rune Blade Trilogy by Ann Marston, consisting of The Kingmaker’s Sword, The Western King and Broken Blade. Engaging, well worth the time. My one gripe, if you can call it that, was that I’d have preferred to stay with the same protagonist throughout the trilogy. But I suppose that’s more of a “the books were too short” kind of complaint, which isn’t neccessarily a bad thing. Picked up the whole set as bookcrossing copies and have been meaning to release them, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. Must see about picking up further books from Marston.
One of our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde. A delight as usual, even more twisted than its predecessors, though I’d hardly have though that possible.
At Home by Bill Bryson. If anyone can tip me off about other authors who are as good at collecting, organising and relating anecdotes as Bill Bryson, please, please do.
That Old Cape Magic and The Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo. Both quite magical in a very everyday, humdrum sort of way, if that makes any sense. Confirms Russo, again, as one of my all-time favourite authors.
And that’s mostly what I read during the holidays. Now, what did I read between March and July I wonder? Think, think, think.
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Update number 1: Well, of course, I reread the whole Harry Potter series. That took a couple of days.
Update number 2: The School at the Chalet by Elinor Brent-Dyer. I’ve never read any of the Chalet School books before, and found this copy by chance so thought I’d try it. It’s niceish. I’ll probably buy more from the series if I come across them second-hand, but I doubt I can be bothered to search very hard.
Update numer 3: Karin Lindell, better known as Ketchupmamman, of course. I even registered it on Bookcrossing before passing it on. Her blog is hilarious at times and thought-provoking at times, which is a good mix. The book follows along the same lines, and is highly reccommended as a present for any new parents.
I’m in the middle of (at least) two other books, really, but Bill sort of snuck in. Neither Here nor There is in Bryson’s inimitable and delightful style and I was glad to finally get around to rereading it.
While ill, I was looking for something to read that wouldn’t be to taxing and found Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Big Country to fit the bill exactly. I’ve read it before, of course, so I knew it would. The nice thing, you see, about Bill Bryson, is that his writing is lightweight while at the same time he seldom makes the glaring mistakes (either gramatically or factually) that makes me fume at the edges when reading other authors’ works. Notes from a Big Country is highly entertaining and was a nice counterpoint (though sometimes making exactly the same arguments) as some of the other books on the USA I’ve been reading lately. It also has a nice echo of my own (increasingly problematic) homesickness for Britain, which can only help the comforting feeling of relating well to the author’s point of view – crucial for this sort of book, methinks.
It’s not been that long since I last read Notes from a Small Island, but I suddenly got the urge to reread and decided that it would be a good idea to do so when I could look forward to setting foot in Britain within a few weeks. Reading this sort of book at other times will just make me profoundly “homesick”.
There’s not much to say that I haven’t said already. I love this book. I want Bill Bryson to go back and spend more time in Scotland. After that he could tackle larger parts of Wales. This would make me very happy indeed. As it is, I will have to be content with quoting:
Suddenly, in the space of a moment, I realised what it was that I loved about Britain – which is to say, all of it. Every last bit of it, good and bad – Marmite, village fêtes, country lanes, people saying ‘mustn’t grumble’ and ‘I’m terribly sorry but’, people apologizing to me when I conk them with a careless elbow, milk in bottles, beans on toast, haymaking in June, stinging nettles, seaside piers, Ordnance Survey maps, crumpets, hot-water bottles as a necessity, drizzly Sundays – every bit of it.
 In which we look for travelling companions.
Following Faintheart, I succumbed and reread Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island, despite the fact that very little of it concerns Scotland (Scotland being the topic I’m supposed to be covering). It really is an excellent book. I think one of the reasons I like Bryson som much is that he’s as batty about Britain as I am. And in precisely the same way, too. We may complain about the plumbing (or ask “What plumbing? You mean they have plumbing?”) and we may be bewildered by bus queues and picnics on the beach in a gale, but we love even the plumbing and the queues and the picnics, simply because Britain wouldn’t be Britain without them. (Cue the librarian walking into a B&B and exclaiming with delight: “Look! Separate taps for hot and cold water!” though if someone suggested she install such a system at home she’d be horrified, naturally, just think of the impracticality!) Which doesn’t mean that Bryson likes every place he visits, and it certainly doesn’t mean he doesn’t say some pretty cutting (though mainly quite funny) things about people and places, but at least you get the feeling that, on the whole, he actually likes travelling. What a nice change from Mr. Jennings.
I then ventured on Native Stranger, my other haul from amazon. This one is written by a Scot (his name, in fact, is Alastair Scott), and is as much an examination of how history has affected the Scottish mind and the Scottish landscape as it is about travelling, as such. I learnt a lot. On the whole, a very interesting account, but again, I found something lacking. I have no reason to think that Scott did not enjoy his trek, he seems interested in the people and places he meets, but the contrast to Bryson is there: he doesn’t convey any enthusiasm to the reader. Bryson can make me want to go places I had never even contemplated before. Having read Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods, only a strong dose of self-discipline kept me from packing my bags set off to walk the Appalachian trail just as soon as I could find a travel agency willing to sell me an airplane ticket. In fact, I was this close to just up and walking there, I was in Detroit at the time and it seemed like the experience would be worth a walk across a couple of states…
So I guess maybe that’s what I am missing. I am missing the ability in the author to make me sigh “I wish I were there too!” Not, like Jennings, “I wish I were there instead!” I want the author to give me the impression that I would like him/her as a travelling companion, and I guess a measure of enthusiasm is one of my prerequisites for travelling companions. And with that in mind, statements like these put me off:
“Lunchtime would se me turn Viking, invading a grocer and pillaging milk, pies, cheese, bananas and Mars Bars; and stocking up with Cup a soups, tuna and spaghetti for the evening. My diet seldom varied. Since I began travelling the taste of food has ceased to have much importance and my tolerance for monotony usually lasts a journey.”
Fine, so food isn’t the be-all and end-all (at least, interesting food isn’t) of life in general or travelling in particular, but one of the joys of travelling is to sit down to a good meal at the end of the day, with a good companion (a person or a book, I don’t mind either way). Or to have a picnic consisting of slightly dry bread and flat fizzy water on a cliff in a downpour. The food doesn’t have to be good, but it has to be part of the experience. I don’t know. Somehow, that one comment about food set the mood of the whole book for me. I never got in tune with the author after that.
Still, as a grounding in Scottish history and modern sensibilities it was a good read, not to be sneezed at.
Bill Bryson, if you ever read this (I don’t know why you should, but if you do), please, please, please write a ‘Notes from a Small Island 2′, and spend a little more time in Scotland and a little more in Wales.
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