Bill Bryson, At Home - A Short History of Private Life

Today, let me introduce you to Bill Bryson, The Master of Anecdote.  You may have heard of him before - he's written more than twenty books of travel writing, history, language and other things, the most famous being in all likelihood A Short History of Nearly Everything.

At Home - A Short History of Private Life, published in 2010, reads very much like a sequel to the aforementioned title.  This time Bryson refrains from space exploration, focusing instead on domestic environment (and anything that can be even remotely associated with domesticity), but general tone of the book remains the same.  Light, amusing, full of anecdotes, even slightly tabloid-ish (the horrible, the scandalous, the eccentric, you know the drill...), At Home is extremely readable, to say the least. 

Is it trustworthy as a historical source?  To tell you the truth, I'm not sure.  It's obvious that Bryson colours things up for effect, but that alone wouldn't necessary make his stories untrue.  A few spot checks I engaged in while reading At Home generally confirmed Bryson's narrative.  It appears that he sticks to facts, but boosts them up with literary special effects which, depending on your temperament, can be seen as a blessing or a curse.  Science may get stripped of some of her gravitas, but it becomes much more accessible in the process.  I call it a fair deal.

Bryson's particular forte is study of early inventors and Enlightenment-era scientists.  Even a book about home is spiked with stories of eccentric Victorian gentlemen creating new disciplines from scratch.  All sorts of histories - architectural, medical, industrial, culinary - are somehow squeezed between the cellar and the attic.  Chapters are called after various parts of a dwelling but in some cases the narrative gives only a symbolic nod to a particular room before going off to explore something entirely different. 

Despite this gentle tendency to stray off the declared topic, At Home is an entertaining and engaging book.  Bryson proves that history can be fun and for that he can only be applauded.

Jan Morris, Heaven's Command

I have mixed feelings about Jan Morris.  She is a giant of travel writing, with a whole bookshelf of titles to herself.  Somehow though, her prose, while undeniably beautiful, usually leaves me unexcited.  Just...  not my pair of shoes.  Too poetic, too sentimental, too intimate perhaps.  I far prefer Dervla Murphy's mischievous political incorrectness, but - I keep hoping.  Now and again I pick yet another of Morris's books, to see if my mind can be changed.  Nothing much to lose - I might end up unmoved again, but writing skill is writing skill and it never hurts to sample some.  

Heaven's Command almost did the trick.  Of all the books by Jan Morris I've read so far, this is my favourite.  Sure, the nostalgic, poetic style is as present as ever, but in this particular case it fits the subject so well that I simply can't complain.  Perhaps romantically-tinted narration is the best possible tool to use when explaining the Victorian era.

Heaven's Command is a volume one of Pax Britannica trilogy, a history of the British Empire.  I know nothing about the other two titles, but they're very likely to end up on my reading table eventually.  Not tomorrow, perhaps - Heaven's Command does not leave you with a 'to be continued' feeling, no pressure to complete the picture with further reading.  

The opening book of the trilogy covers almost all of Queen Victoria's reign.  Together with the British troops, a reader roams the Earth from India to Canada, from South Africa to Fiji, from Australia to Hong Kong, with many more exotic stops on the way.  Morris explores politics, ideologies, fashions, digs deep into the meaning of imperialism.  Plenty of heroes from the past, half-mythic by now (at least to a westernised mind) are introduced and brought to life again by anecdotes, colourful yarns, quotes and even gossip.  I'm not in a position to judge how accurate the tales are, but sure as hell they are interesting, with precious ability to fire curiosity and appetite for further study.  

A minor revelation - Jan Morris is far more fun as a historian than as a travel writer (I fully respect your right to be outraged at such a radical judgement).  Perhaps the fact that she's been to pretty much everywhere is what makes her history - global in scope, after all, at least geographically - so enjoyable.  It is quite something to read a historical account footnoted with 'when I was at the site in 19XX, it was still this or that'.  Be sure that Heaven's Command is full of such comments.  

Overall - very agreeable.