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The Mother Tongue - Book Review

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The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson

The Mother Tongue should be the perfect book for me. I'm a great fan of Bryson's humour writing and he's an American who understands the British psyche - hence the hilarity of Small Island. Add to that the fact that I'm the sort of sad geek who loves cryptic crosswords and you have a perfect recipe:

A book by Bill Bryson all about the English language.

 

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Synopsis

What we have in Mother Tongue is a journey through the English language, stopping off both at its famous landmarks and lesser known beauty spots and hovels. Brilliant idea.

Unfortunately Bryson doesn't pull it off. His light, comic touch seems ill at ease with presenting a torrent of fascinating factoids. It's difficult for him to use his superb observational skills when dealing with language.

It's interesting enough to begin with as Bryson throws out weird and wonderful facts. As someone very interested in English there was plenty for me to learn. Some of the material is amusing in its own right and Bryson adds a few gags.

Analysis

The problem is that all becomes too much too quickly. Interesting as these facts are in isolation, being immersed in them for a full book is simply excessive. Bryson's trademark wit is present, true, but in very small supply. Mother Tongue gets drier as it progresses and ends up feeling like trying to eat five cream crackers.

By about half way through I was simply tired of all these facts. "Lists" were (unfortunately) trendy in fiction some years ago; every chapter of Mother Tongue is essentially a list. I wanted some higher level observations, some human element. The occasional anecdote simply wasn't enough, I found myself thinking "so what?" far too often.

Conclusion

It has to be said that I read Mother Tongue fairly quickly over a period of a couple of days. Perhaps this contributed to the "heavy" feeling. Perhaps Mother Tongue is best read in dribs and drabs, possibly left in the bathroom. If so then that's not much of a recommendation.

Bryson's real skill as an author is capturing the essence and eccentricities of people. Trying to apply this skill to words was an interesting experiment - that didn't work.

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Amazon Spotlight

The Mother Tongue - English And How It Got That Way

The Mother Tongue - English And How It Got That Way

by: Bill Bryson

Amazon Price: $6.00 (as of 06/04/2012)Buy Now

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trevorm

Hi, I'm Trevor and I live in Edinburgh - the capital of Scotland. I'm interested in a wide variety of things and love learning. I intend to write a similarly... more »

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