Product Description

In this hilarious romp through England, one of America's preeminent humorists seeks the answer to an eternal question: What makes the Brits tick?

One semitropical Fourth of July, Joe Queenan's English wife suggested that the family might like a chicken vindaloo in lieu of the customary barbecue. It was this pitiless act of gastronomic cultural oppression, coupled with dread of the fearsome Christmas pudding that awaited him for dessert, that inspired the author to make a solitary pilgrimage to Great Britain. Freed from the obligation to visit an unending procession of Aunty Margarets and Cousin Robins, as he had done for the first twenty-six years of their marriage, Queenan decided that he would not come back from Albion until he had finally penetrated the limey heart of darkness.

His trip was not in vain. Crisscrossing Old Blighty like Cromwell hunting Papists, Queenan finally came to terms with the choochiness, squiffiness, ponciness, and sticky wicketness that lie at the heart of the British character. Here he is trying to find out whose idea it was to impale King Edward II on a red-hot poker-and what this says about English sexual politics. Here he is in an Edinburgh pub foolishly trying to defend Paul McCartney's "Ebony and Ivory." And here he is, trapped in a concert hall with a Coventry-based all-Brit Eagles tribute band named Talon who resent that they are nowhere near as famous as their evil nemeses, the Illegal Eagles. At the end of his epic adventure, the author returns chastened, none the wiser, but encouraged that his wife is actually as sane as she is, in light of her fellow countrymen.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #840871 in Books
• Published on: 2004-11-04
• Released on: 2004-10-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Humorist Queenan calls this account of his 2002 trip to Great Britain "an affectionate jeremiad," conveying both his emotional ambivalence and displaying his favorite rhetorical device, the oxymoron. The West End musical We Will Rock You is "triumphantly cretinous"; a village woman is "belligerently harmless"; the museum curator wears an "ecstatically sober dress," etc. More broadly, contradiction is basic both to Queenan's humor and to his love-hate relationship with the British. He loves their "arch phrasing, infectious understatement and delightful euphemisms," just as he hates when all that posturing culminates in "the twit," that "master of rehearsed eccentricity." As with many travel accounts, one learns more about the traveler than about the locale. Queenan is a connoisseur of bad art; he can endure roomfuls of bad paintings at the Tate, just to make naughty remarks about the "insidious" hairstyles of yesteryear. Madame Tussaud's? It's "insufficiently absurd... nowhere near as bad as it ought to be." Conversely, he's thrilled to book a room at Durham's 500-year-old castle, complete with ghosts and a view of the cathedral. Indeed, the "American Dream," as Queenan explains it, is to stand on a fog-swept London street, watching the bobbies and dodging the double-deckers. As he says, there "isn't anything in the world better than riding a London double-decker bus." Hand-sell to the tweedies?
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Who knew that Joe Queenan--who years ago called the English "pasty-faced, mean-spirited, stingy, badly-dressed, anal-retentive, unfriendly, unadventurous, unimaginative people"--could bring himself to write this book-length love letter to the "mother country." Perhaps his English wife of 25 years finally softened him up. He fights the Joe Queenan fight: railing here against Paul McCartney, Pre-Raphaelites, Cats, English haircuts and public transportation, Fergie, Chelsea football supporters, Rod Stewart's Great American Songbook, and more. But the complaints are outnumbered by Queenan's love of a nice cup of tea, England's circuitous roads and stone houses, its writers (Swift, Dryden, Pope, Boswell, Samuel Johnson), its domestic niceties, and its "ebulliently shabby pubs." Queenan's is not a quickie romance; nor is this book an afterthought. It is written with the depth and detail of someone who's paid attention to his subject for a long time. Alan Moores
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

Customer Reviews

A Disappointment
I've read all of these reviews, and will just have to run the risk of someone calling me a "sourpuss" because as much as I was looking forward to reading this book, I found it a real disappointment. Let me explain.

I should say at the outset that I enjoy a good cross-cultural put down as much as the next fellow, and am not one of the overly sensitive, "political correctness at all costs" gang. In fact, I have an ongoing (good-humored) verbal joust going with a Brit who works with me; he makes fun of things American and I return the favor. Then I heard an interview with Queenan on NPR and thought he was a scream. And so I sent away for the book and opened it with great expectation for a ripping good time at the expense of my British friends. But frankly, I am now three-quarters of the way through it and have yet to have a really good laugh. I agree with the other reviewers, even those who like the book, when they say that it is full of "rants." Although they do not mean this as a warning, it should be. His approach to writing seems to move from "I really dislike (insert long list of people or behaviors," to "here is another list of British people/behaviors that really annoy me or that are simply stupid."

Want some examples of his deep, humorous, and wry insights? How about, "John Lennon's musical legacy is ludicrously overrated....Lennon's solo records generally stink." Deep; and very clever. And turning to Paul McCartney, he opines, "The good that had come from `I Saw Her Standing There' and `Please Please Me' had been supplanted by the evil of `Ebony and Ivory' and `Silly Love Songs.' Paul could be forgiven for the obstreperous hokiness of `My Love' and `Uncle Albert' (`Hands Across the Water'), but he could never be absolved of the harm he had wrought with `Yesterday' and `Michelle.'

His take on London theatre? "For decades, I had been aware of London's stature as a theatrical mecca for philistines..." After trashing Stones in His Pockets, he goes on to dump on Les Miz, Phantom of the Opera, Riverdance, and Mamma Mia!, among others. Of Alan Rickman's performance in Private Lives he says, "Rickman himself proved infinitely more annoying in person than he ever was on-screen - no mean feat." Of the play itself, "There are more laughs in a single act of Neil Simon than in all of Noel Coward."

Concerning Madame Tussaud's he says, "A nitpicker might object that the wax figures representing James Dean and Marlon Brando do not actually resemble them, that George Washington looks more like Billy Idol, that John Wayne is far too tall, Martin Luther King far too short, and Bard Pitt just a smidgen too simian. I personally question the proximity of Princess Diana to the pope, no less than the juxtaposition of Cybill Shepherd with Liz Taylor."

And so it goes for page after page. Rant after tedious rant. My point is not that he has no right to his opinion, or even that he is not correct on occasion. It's just that it's not funny. I'm finished giving him the benefit of the doubt by saying, "He just starts slowly." I'm writing it off as money wasted. Think I'll give it to my British friend.

A bit dull
Unlike most of the reviews I've read of this author and book (except the two here), I did not find much humor in this book and I didn't catch myself laughing out loud once.

Queenan does a good job covering a lot of what makes the UK great: general British history, culture and tourist attractions. However, this book reads more like a dry tour guide than a humorously endearing account of all quirks British, which is what I was hoping for and expecting after reading reviews.

I've given up after about 100 pages because I'm not interested in Queenan's bland retelling of his trip to the home of the Beatle's or his snide, unoriginal comments about Fergie, Madonna and other famous (infamous) British inhabitants.

Fasten your seatbelt...
...It's going to be a bumpy ride. The first part of the book is absolutely hilarious--I guffawed out loud till my eyes watered and my husband got sick of asking me, "What's so funny?!" But about 1/3 of the way through, things started bogging down. The book was still readable, but no way did it live up to the promise of the first few chapters. There was stuff that was flatly unfunny (the chapter on Wales, the list of stuff the author doesn't like about the Brits), intermixed with your average travelogue, then coming back with a few choice witticisms toward the end. It would've been better as a long magazine article or short paperback, with all that filler deleted.

The other quibble I have is that the author uses some British slang words that aren't very well known to Americans, so that I had to have my dictionary at the ready to check exactly what he was saying. This interrupted the humor, making the joke fall flat. I realize he probably included the slang for atmosphere, but he'd have done better to have used words people on both sides of the ocean would've known immediately.

Two stars makes it sound like I liked the book less than I actually did, but three makes it sound like it was more consistent than it was. I'm not sorry I bought it, but I'm also not sorry I bought it on the ultra-discount rack at my supermarket. I'd say if you can get it at less than full price and you like (but are not obsessed with) England, it's worth it.