B List: Trollope--Barsetshire Chronicles: Barchester Towers.......597/746
C List: Bill Bryson--I'm a Stranger Here Myself..............................14/288
Richard II is the 3rd of a run of Shakespeare plays--the other 2 being Henry VI Part 1 and Troilus and Cressida--that had not managed to come up on the A list yet. I have recorded somewhere how many of the Shakespeare plays I have read at one time or another--some of the lesser known ones that I have only read once I have trouble remembering whether I have or not--but I got very busy this week, one of my cars had to go into the shop, etc, so I didn't get around to looking up how many of them I have marked down. I think around 2/3rds of the 37, or is it 38? As with most things, even great ones, I have periods in my life where the greatness of Shakespeare reveals itself more readily and is more important to my daily life and the firing of my imaginative faculties than it is at other times. I am not in one of those special times currently. I hope I have a couple more such epochs left in me.
I am probably in close to the ideal frame of mind for taking on Trollope, but I will expand on this in the big essay that I'll do when I finish the book.
Obviously I have just started the Bryson book, which was published in 1999 and seems to be a series of humorous vignettes around his return to the United States (actually Hanover, New Hampshire, which is a fine town but about as unrepresentative of the real United States as you can get) after 20 years abroad. Some of my impressions 14 pages in are as follows:
1. Though the book is less than 20 years old the world depicted in it is so dated as to be almost comical. We've already been treated to five pages on the wonders of the postal service, and a letter from England that made it to his house despite being addressed merely "New Hampshire, somewhere in America". Then there was a reminiscence about coming home from the pub in England and watching 90 minute science programs on television before going to bed. Basically this looks like it is going to be chock full of activities, jobs, cultural habits, that died within about five years of this book's publication.
2. It is unbelievable that within living memory--heck, my own early adulthood--people could apparently make upper middle class incomes writing, well, I don't know, stuff like what I've just described, and have fabulous overall careers. This guy Bryson in his heyday sold voluminous numbers of books (5.9 million in the 2000s alone!), made many TV appearances, gave lecture tours, was the chancellor of Durham University. I know people will say a person like me has no idea how difficult it is to be a professional writer who has to turn out regular work on a deadline and how serious this is and all right, fine. Even so, this guy has to get up every day and think, whew, I lucked out in the timing of my career. But maybe he doesn't.
3. I feel like this "I left America for x number of years and boy did things change a lot" theme was a popular one in the late 90s that has kind of gone away. Does anybody at the educated level of society really leave anywhere and not return for years on end anymore? Is it really possible to "get away" the way it used to be in the modern overconnected world?
...I too am on a deadline for this one monthly post and my time is up now.
This guy will not be stopped.
