The Road to Little Dribbling

For risk of sounding like a Dust Bowl trek, this book might be better called “The Road to Cape Wrath.” Little Dribbling could be made up for all we learn about it, which is to say, nothing. Bill Bryson drew a line across a map of the British isle, the “Bryson Line,” which he “discovered.” Starting in Bognor Regis and ending at Cape Wrath, this appears to be the greatest distance in Britain, not from Land’s End to John o’Groats, as his citizenship exam would have you believe. A look at the map (perhaps more useful in print than e-book) and its labeled places shows he spends more time in the south and southwest. So often in books the end is given fewer pages, and here Scotland is reduced to the last chapter. However, I must say that really, I did enjoy this book. For all the insanity in the world, Bryson makes thing a little more bearable, and laughable.

Our author was in London while his two daughters were expecting, and to say there is plenty to do in London is one of the biggest understatements ever. He chooses the house of Frederic Leighton as his odd museum to visit, and cites Southall as one of the city’s “million little places.” He ventures on to the sprawl of Wraysbury and Egham, place of his wife’s roots and an interesting, unrealized plan of Motopia. He explains why Heathrow Airport is located where it is, and writes of British exceptionalism – mostly good, sometimes bad. The British way of naming and organizing places and things is confusing and unsystematic, which Bryson assures you is as it seems.

Since this is primarily travel writing, he provides a lot of history about the railways, their use and their often forgotten creators and unlikely origins. One of Bryson’s specialties is mini-biographies of forgotten individuals, but while writing of the disproportionate number of scientific breakthroughs at Cambridge University, where Watson and Crick helped discover the structure of DNA, there was no mention of Rosalind Franklin, something that always bothers me. However, he did give some attention to the paleontologist Mary Anning. The chalky cliffs where she unearthed several incredible dinosaur skeletons, on the other hand, are crumbling into the sea, some faster than others.

Bryson has been a good conservationist, including his presidency of the Campaign to Protect Rural England. He can even admire, in London, the well distributed skyscrapers and the variation of views they provide. However, while he wrote a book about the history of science, he still takes some things to be miraculous or caused by some fate, unless this is just to make better literature. Still, his knowledge and curiosity make him a sort of honorary scientist. He likes to run the numbers, the statistics, and never in a boring way. I found the extensively studied Wytham Woods and Windermere lake very interesting. Always one to find something that can kill you, there aren’t the bears of “A Walk in the Woods,” but rather cows. Here, the chapters have little illustrations that perfectly match Bryson’s signature style, such as a cow with a lightbulb over its head.

By starting many chapters with a complaint, or something that irks him, his curmudgeon side shines through. He is confrontational, calling people stupid to their face, though often when he has shown himself to be foolish as well. I was happy, however, to see that I am not the only one who has long been annoyed by “pronouncing Brett Favre’s last name as if the ‘r’ comes before the ‘v.’ It doesn’t, so stop it.” I agree! His sarcasm also comes across, attacking or insulting people in his mind, and making up names for things not far from what they could be. My offering for a town name in this manner is Butter-upon-Toast. Curmudgeonliness aside, I wouldn’t mind going for a walk or having a beer with Mr. Bryson and discussing all sorts of things. I wouldn’t even make him write about what I ate for breakfast. But if it must be so, I can settle for reading more of his entertaining books.