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Summary: The exotic British
Comment: The American preview blurb for says that the book shows the British to be 'unexpectedly exotic'. True enough. The author is a New Yorker, married to an Englishman, and she uses personal stories and excellent research to explain what she herself found puzzling, annoying, amusing or just downright strange. It's excellent in that she explains a lot which Americans visiting would find odd indeed.For example, Americans have the idea that Britons have bad teeth. So we have, but the reason is cultural more than medical, as she explains.Even rich Englishman she met had lousy teeth.So much else is cultural too.She tells how understatement is an essential here but misunderstood: sample story is a British writer of top selling biographies being sat next to an American at a dinner.The go-getting American said 'You write best-selling biographies, I understand' and she replied 'Not best-selling..' at which he turned away from her, thinking he'd been sadly misinformed about this apparent 'failure'!
The book is enlivened by her writing her chapters as one for each subject, but picking what to the British seem minor news stories e.g. removing invading hedgehogs from a Scotish island, a debate about the meaning of being British, the reform of the (powerless) upper chamber in Parliament,the amount of alcohol drunk, and using them as illustrations of the British way of doing and thinking .
Her list of 'how I realised I was becoming British' includes 'apologising when someone bumps into me', 'kissing people on both cheeks' and qualifying every statement so 'I am quite upset' may well indicate 'I am very annoyed'. Read this book and find out why!
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