The aforementioned tree-lined street where I now live
Another nice thing about the high street is that there are about four charity shops, or thrift stores as we call them Stateside. One thing I truly missed about the States when I first came here was the lack of charity shops. Apparently, however, I had been looking in the wrong places--they abound in this country, and are just as bursting with delightful odds and ends to be had at low prices as their American cousins. I do love a good charity shop. The best one I have ever been to was a Salvation Army in Newark I used to frequent when I was an undergrad. For some reason, it always had the best collection of quality, stylish clothes, and I still have some of the clothes I bought there--the pants I'm wearing right now, actually. Anyway, I was tickled to find there was no shortage of charity shops in the new 'hood.
Last week I finished the remainder or my semester assessments, which finally gave me some free time for the first time since September. For nine months now I've wanted to read a book for pleasure, one which doesn't involve theory or tables and figures and all of those dreadfully boring bits that abound in academic texts, so now I finally had some time to read for myself. I had brought some books with me from home when I came here, but a look at my bookshelf left me feeling uninspired. I remembered from my mother and sister's visit that the charity shops on the high street we popped into on a rainy day seemed to have a good mix of books, so I decided to investigate. The Oxfam, the UK's equivalent to the States' Salvation Army, appeared to have a good selection, so I rolled up my socks and braved the high street crowd.
Browsing the bookshelf, I came across a tattered copy of Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island, a travelogue in which he documents his journey around Britain via public transport about sixteen years ago. I kind of like Bill Bryson, I thought, and I live in the UK, so I'll have a read and see what the chap has to say about this country.
Bryson's repertoire generally consists of either travelogues or those sort of books that are packed full with quirky miscellaneous facts--as well as some factual errors--about nearly everything. Indeed, A Short History of Nearly Everything is authored by him. Critically, I would say that he is, for some reason, either loved or loathed by readers. Personally, I've enjoyed other stuff I've read by him, so I thought, why not.
Although in Notes Bryson is not as nearly as curmudgeon-y or scathing as Paul Theroux is in his travelogues, I wouldn't put the two authors in separate classes. He makes broad, rash generalizations of a place he's never been before based on his experience in a visit of several hours (but then, who of us doesn't?); he is easily offended and frequently belittles the locals; and his descriptions of places are rather redundant (he describes no less than eight different places as "fetching"). However, his quirky, innocent sense of humor and the way he appreciates the smallest things with childlike wonder make the book readable. One other thing I like about Bryson is his inclusion of--surprise!--interesting bits of trivia and fascinating little-known facts about the places he visits in his writing. It spices up what would otherwise read as a pensioner's holiday tour of backwater Britain.
However, the thing I like most about Notes is Bryson's observations of the English. As he's lived in the UK for more than 20 years and counting, his assessments are far from arbitrary--he's spot on according to my experience, and describes the strange nuances of the English in a comical but endearing way. I found myself chuckling in agreement with many of these observations, although I wonder what an English person would make of all it. I'm sure though that if they did have an opinion about it, they would keep it to themselves and harbor a quiet, raging grudge against Bryson until their dying days (another truism of the English Bryson points out), probably because they'd hate to admit he's right. The English know what they are all about, but they hate it when it comes from a foreigner (note that when I say 'the English' I mean English). Once, out on a tipsy evening in a dim pub with some of my English classmates, I said to them, "What is wrong with you people? You won't open up until you have about 9 pints in you, you're too polite for your own damn good, and unless you're on holiday you're miserable. Not to mention you hate yourselves as well." Looking into their glasses with this argument laid clearly before their drunken logic, they agreed--"Yeah, it's true,"--but not without adding a grumbling "...bloody Americans..." rant before downing the final dregs of Guinness in their glasses. That's one other thing about the English--they're always going on about us being "bloody Americans", but they sure do love the States; almost all of them have been on holiday someplace in America, and they loved it.
But anyway, I'll leave the cultural stereotypes to Bryson. Looking at the back cover of Notes the other day, I saw a picture of Bryson in the corner, bushy-bearded and smiling happily. Although it was only a head shot, he looked like a big gruff Oregon lumberjack, someone who was barrel-chested and had a booming, hearty, jovial laugh. I wondered what his voice sounded like, to see if he was like the image I had formed in my head about him from his words and picture. Doesn't that ever happen to you? You see someone's photo and you want to know what their voice sounds like, how they talk? I headed over to YouTube to see if I could find a video of the guy giving an interview or something about one of his books.
I found what I was looking for, but the real-life Bryson I found could in no way be the same one who I followed around England, up the Appalachian Trail, and who taught me the history of various slices of Americana; he was rather mid-mannered and soft-spoken, with an accent that was a butchered mix of middle America and RP. I wasn't sure if this was just for show or the result of living in England for so long, but it irritated me a bit, seeing as how he's always going on about being American and whatnot in the book. Anyway, my search also found a recent BBC documentary he narrated about litter in Britain. Highlighting how Britain's countryside risks being choked by an increasing tide of garbage by its piggish and lazy citizens, it was depressing. Even worse, it was lucidly factual. You'd think that a modern industrialized country, one known for punctuality, precision, and organization, would have clean streets and forests and a slue of laws coercing people to put their trash in the bin and recycle, but this is not the case in Britain. Maybe it's because I've been in the biggest city for most of my time here, but I can vouch for the copious, disgraceful amounts of litter that defile the environment in this country, as well as the lazy ignorance of people who don't put their rubbish in the bin. Now I know America is not the cleanest place either, but I think it is much worse here. You wouldn't believe the amount of people on public transport who just throw trash right on the ground or leave it on the seat, just like that in front of everyone, or toss things right on the sidewalk. I've never seen such carelessness and ignorance. And it's a problem that goes beyond the Tube car or High street sidewalk. Dumping, known here as 'flytipping', is an equally serious problem. Near our house is a set of stairs that leads to the main road, with a trash can at the bottom. Every time you pass by, there is a huge pile of garbage spewing out of the can and into the nearby bushes. The poor garbagemen ('binmen') always clean this up, but across the sidewalk there is a metal fence, on the other side of which resides a mountain of garbage, which is never cleaned up. It's sick. And it seems everywhere in London you find a green spot, if you look closer you'll see it's full of rubbish. I can't say this about every borough, of course (Haringey, where I live now, is particularly dirty), but it is nonetheless a common feature across the city. It's hard to say whose fault all of this is. It could be blamed on the local councils: litterers and flytippers are, if caught, almost never fined, and across the city and Underground system it is almost impossible to find a trash can (or 'rubbish bin', as they are known here). However, I'm inclined to blame people just as equally. When we were searching for flats last year and this year, we were shocked at the state of some of the flats we saw. In some of them, I couldn't believe that people were actually living in them: grubby linoleum, moldy bathrooms, greasy kitchens, counters encrusted with food, and furnishings and shelving halfheartedly tacked together. In one place, two rooms had been made from one by putting up a few 2x4s, tacking drywall to them, and cutting a hole in the middle for a door, the frame of which was supported by staples. The adjacent wall to the door of this 'room' was in fact a sliding glass door to a garbage-filled patio which didn't close all the way. They wanted £500 per month. You'd think that if you were renting the place out you would try to make it halfway decent looking, a quick paint job, maybe clean the place up a little. But no. Almost all of the places we saw were dirty and grubby. In retrospect, I suppose that the last place we lived in we broke our own rules and took the place simply because it was newly renovated and fairly clean, the first and only one we saw. Nevermind that our live-in landlords were arbitrarily picky nutjobs who directed their marital misery towards us. But anyway, the domestic practice of accumulating garbage in your house and yard and not cleaning appears to be widespread in this country. Of course, this may be because the properties are rental properties, which generally tend to be scuzzy, but I can't say for sure because I've never been in a proper English home for comparison. That'll be a cold day in hell when that happens, because these people are so guardedly introverted. But you know, how hard is it to clean up a bit? When I lived in Istanbul, it was equally disgusting--the streets were flooded with rubbish because, like here, there were no bins and there was always a binman to come round and clean up after people. However, when you stepped into a Turkish home, rental or not, it was immaculate. I'm sure family homes were so clean because the women never worked and stayed at home all day in domestic servitude, but even the empty rental places I looked at were fairly well kept and, if you wanted, you could ask the landlord to fix X and install Y and it would be done, no problem. Because of this, and as counterintuitive as it may seem if you've visited Istanbul, I would have to say that Turks are cleaner than the English (by a small margin, of course).
But then again, I'm sure the last thing these people want is an American's opinion about them, and in the end maybe that's why so many people are quick to loathe Bryson.
