...Bryson is often just playing at being a curmudgeon. Essentially genial, he remains devoted to a host of 'pleasing Britannic things,' from the small to the significant: 'On tricky and emotive issues like gun control, abortion, capital punishment, the teaching of evolution in schools, the use of stem cells for research, and how much flag waving you have to do in order to be considered acceptably patriotic, Britain is calm and measured and quite grown up.'
...occasionally Bryson can go too far in playing the curmudgeon. But he makes up for it in two ways that make him not only a palatable travel companion but a very nearly ideal one ... The first is that, like the British, he’s well-versed in the fine art of self-deprecation ... The second is that Bryson’s capacity for wonder at the beauty of his adopted homeland seems to have only grown with time.
What makes the book a treat rather than a screed — other than the fact that it is impressively learned and carefully polished — is that Bryson’s humor is not mean of spirit. He can be acerbic, with brio, but he is more at ease with the ridiculous and improbably comedic, wielding his sharp stick to poke his subjects only occasionally in the eye, or the backside.
Best of all, Bryson juggles his travelogue, dipping in and out of ridiculousness, social commentary, history, trivia, and gleefully grumpy pronouncements.
'What a wonderful world that was, and how remote it seems now.' Bryson is referring to 'the good old days' of airline travel, but it sums up his feelings about pretty much everything he encounters on his occasionally sad, often delightful, frequently funny and always grumpy road trip.
Some days’ entries can get a bit repetitive—although, to be fair, some days on the road can too—but each one contains at least one riveting insight. It’s almost as satisfying as being there yourself.
Mr. Bryson wears his learning lightly. He has published over a dozen books on a wide range of topics, from Shakespeare to a history of science. But in his new book he’s a bit of a curmudgeon, citing a wide range of irritants from bad grammar to moronic salespeople and litter.
The primary pleasure of this book is its digressions, the historical information about some person or place that has been mostly forgotten. Bryson is a master at excavating these bits and shaping them into short, fascinating tales.
All of which is to say that reading Byson’s latest as a travelogue is misdirected. You do learn about the land, the people, the paces, the history, the journey. But what Bryson does best is simply to dress up travel literature in a weather-proof cloak of remarkable entertainment.
“The Road to Little Dribbling makes it clear that Bryson is deeply worried that too few in his adopted home feel the same way. Throughout the book, he describes how England’s green and pleasant lands remain under constant threat from ignorant and greedy corporate interests.
This is Bryson at his most curmudgeonly. He grouses about a new coarseness that seems to have crept into British life. Many a village that once had a hardware store, a post office, a greengrocer, a charming pub, a library and a bookstore is now mostly vacant, he laments.
