The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson

The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Bill Bryson returns to writing about his random wanderings, in book form, after a relatively long absence. It has been a while since I last read him – I’ve tried his other stuff but it always was his travel books that caught and held my attention.

Re: Random wanderings: yes, they are random. He has some vague plan but never seems to actually care enough to ‘make sure’ of things – like arriving at certain places with some vague idea he will stop at a museum, or specific building, or, once, a specific forest, only to find they weren’t open that day (or, in the case of the forest – the one where a university conducts massive research within, it isn’t actually open to the public). That’s kind of one of those things you’d look up, you’d think – whether or not a ‘working forest’ is open to the public. Mind, his random wanderings did often find him in wondrous locations he never knew existed. And that is kind of his thing, to randomly wander. But still, some things he ‘really wants to visit’ probably should be checked out before hand if he can visit, and add in random turns in the road to see if anything is down those pathways. I mean, unless he wants to turn to a life of crime, some things can’t be just randomly visited.

Right, so. With a few neat moments here or there, like with Stonehenge and the like, the vast majority of this book seemed to be: old man wanders randomly being crotchety and making snide comments that he sometimes tells us were only said in his head, and other times you hope were only said in his head (that misanthropy tag is because the guy generally seems to dislike humans and thinks the vast majority are stupid liter bugs – possibly he was saying some of this stuff more for whatever humor might be found in such comments, but it comes across as the guy is an ass and hates humans – especially if they work in the service industry; I do not specifically recall why I included the phobia tag/shelf).

Right, sorry – in this specific book he travels all over England, Wales, and Scotland. The information on England and Wales seems quite extensive while the stuff on Scotland seemed tacked on and barely there for whatever reason. And then there’s the end of the book, the pre-afterward/notes/acknowledgments, during which Bryson praises Britain for how rational and brilliant it is, like politically, and how it isn’t as stupid as the USA. Then proceeds in the afterward to note that between finishing the book and publication, the UK went and had their Brexit vote and well . . . maybe the UK is in the process of falling apart.

At 17% I happened to mention: "Bryson comes across as something of a grumpy old man who is out of touch with the world around him and likely to die from falling into a well because he wasn't paying enough attention. Also - seriously, McDonalds was founded before he was born. It's not some new thing - Bryson has no clue how to order food there? Really? (much of this, I'm sure, is supposed to be self-depreciating humor, but meh)." – Which I’ve already noted, but mention again so I can then say – that kind of attitude and impression of Bryson continues throughout the book, though there were brief moments of ‘goodness’. Like near 53% mark and he talked about Stonehenge.

One last thought before I depart – I read this book March 27 to May 23 2017 not because the book was super hard/difficult/not-engaging or anything like that but because it was a good fall back book. As in, in between books, when I wasn’t sure what to read next, a section or two of Bryson’s book was a good stop in before I found my next fiction book to read. Otherwise I could and most likely would have read this book within a day or three (and it would have taken three days or so just to give myself pauses from Bryson). On the other hand, this long stretched out reading probably helped me enjoy the book more. Since I did have all these pauses from Bryson and his thoughts.

Rating: … I don’t know something around 3 and a half stars?

May 23 2017




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