The Road to Little Dribbling

Title: The Road to Little Dribbling – More Notes from a Small Island

Author: Bill Bryson

Publisher: Black Swan, 2015 (First)

ISBN: 9780552779838

Pages: 477

Bill Bryson is one of my favourite authors and he needs no introduction. Several of his works were reviewed earlier and ‘Notes from a Small Island’ was one of them. That was the immensely humorous account of Bryson travelling across Britain. That was almost forty years ago. Bryson is an American who fell in love with the old country and, as he says, with one of its inhabitants. The result was him settling in England. Later, he went back to America, but again returned to England. Each of his moves was fruitful in the literary sense. The language is much richer with his informative, absorbing and hugely hilarious accounts of his travels. This book is all about his journeys in England and Scotland after a gap of forty years since he first visited them. Bryson is careful not to repeat travel to places he had covered in his first visit, but obviously can’t suppress the pull of nostalgia for some places. Here again, the travel is from the extreme south to the extreme north of the country. The readers are enriched by a commendable repertoire of anecdotes, incidents, reminiscences related to architecturally and naturally noteworthy buildings and places. You just can’t put this book down. Of course, that should not be taken too literally, in typical Bryson style!

The author, as noted above, is deeply in love with Britain and does not economize on his praise. Readers will be amazed to learn that the country is packed with good stuff such as castles, stately homes, hill forts, stone circles and medieval churches. The number is huge and Bryson claims that there are 450,000 listed buildings, 20,000 scheduled ancient monuments, 26 world heritage sites, 1624 registered parks and 600,000 known archeological sites in this ‘small island’! Besides, the country leads others in inventiveness. In the modern era, Britain has produced 55 per cent of all the world’s significant inventions, compared to America’s 22 per cent. Not only that, the book pays glowing tribute to the quiet, orderly nature of Britons. It argues that England is so quiet as to resemble a library. The voices in England don’t order you to do something, but they invite you to make your way.

Going by the crisp descriptions of Bryson’s travel, England is superbly beautiful as well as admirably suited for leading happy lives. In fact, Google’s Street View offers a helpful feature for a virtual tour of the countryside with practically every street in England covered under a series of high-resolution photographs so that by navigating through it, we get the feel of actually being in the place. It’s a good idea to try it as we follow Bryson through each chapter and it’s going to be a wonderful experience. Try https://streetviewmaps.co.uk and search for say, Hayfield or Cockermouth. The book claims that there isn’t a landscape in the world that is more artfully worked, more lovely to behold, more comfortable to be in than the countryside of Great Britain. It is the world’s largest park and its most perfect artificial garden.

Perhaps it is the author’s eye for natural beauty that makes him rile against removal of greenery in the name of economic development. Thinking is afoot in influential circles to downsize the green belt around cities. Bryson pulls out all his guns to shoot down the idea. The green belt transpires oxygen, shelters wildlife, sequesters carbon and pollutants, grows food, and adds grace and tranquility to the landscape. He sees through the selective manipulation of data by the business lobby that drives the reform package. This clever trick is noteworthy as they might be repeated elsewhere too. An article once appeared in Guardian that declared that Surrey has more land for golf courses than the 2.5 per cent it earmarked for homes. Closer inspection of the data on which this result was based indicated that it summed up only the actual plinth area of the homes and completely left out gardens and parking spaces. It was designed to provoke the public against green cover in the form of golf courses that was of utility only to the rich. In this instance, when the data was reviewed, the area shot up six times to14 per cent. Even with this caveat, the need to find the right balance between growth of the economy and natural beauty is plainly evident. Many of the towns and villages visited for the second time after four decades show unmistakable signs of economic decline. This is alarming. Without a robust industry to pay for nature, how can the country get going in the first place?

Falling standards in the handling of language such as the gross errors and elimination of proper punctuations and sloppy grammar attracts Bryson’s ire. This is understandable, as his diction is impeccable and envyingly exquisite.

The book is strongly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star