I’M STRANGER HERE MYSELF
Author: Bill Bryson
Publisher / Year: Broadway Trade Paperback, June 2000
Book Type: Collection of articles from Night & Day magazine, a supplement of the Mail on Sunday newspaper printed in
Pages: 120
Summary:
How would you feel returning back to your own country after more than two decades away? Would it be the same as it was when you were young? Has people’s behaviour changed? Have you been affected by changes too? These questions are answered in some way by the author of "I’m a stranger here myself" with a collection of amusing short articles that make up his book.
After twenty years in
Mr. Bryson took advantage of the opportunity (and sometimes curse), given by his friend Simon Kelner, to express his opinion about almost every aspect of his daily life as a “stranger” in his own country. In a weekly column you must write something every week so, why don’t you use your own life? This is what the author did but always in a funny way, with a great amount of imagination, sarcasm, irony and a brilliant sense of humour, turning himself the main character of the stories.
The book has no plot as novels have. It’s made up with a collection of amusing interesting short and quite organised stories. Every story has different anecdotes and opinions about lots of little things or aspects in Mr. Bryson nowadays life in the
Each article shows the author point of view about his country, its services (sometimes introduced with statistics from books or newspapers), people and customs (the new and the old ones that are disappearing), environment and city problems, etc. Moreover, his daily life or personal experiences are the base of some articles too (in my opinion, some of the funniest ones are one related with Christmas titled “Deck the halls”, and another one about his awful memory titled “Old News”). Many articles have been written in a humorous way, with jokes, although some of them are quite ironical but serious and criticize some political aspects in the
Obviously, I’m not going to summarize each article (it’ll be too long and pointless), but I have to say that you won’t be disappointed if you start reading this book.
Opinion:
"I’m a stranger here myself" is not the best book I’ve ever read but it’s undoubtedly the best I’ve read in English. The short stories it contains, full of humour and irony, suits for that kind of books you can easily read while you’re in an airport, train or waiting-room. Moreover, Mr. Bryson's attractive style writing can make you wish ten extra minutes just to read another story.
Evidently some stories are better than others but, in general, everyone has something to teach you about the USA and the author's family life (in my opinion these are the best and, after reading the book, I must recognise I really like Bill and his lovely family).
In conclusion, I’m a stranger here myself is a book I recommend. I’ve realised sometimes I was laughing alone in my room reading some anecdotes and it’s something you should take into account. As Mr. Bryson would say; "What are you doing right now? You should be looking for this book!!! Go to the book shop and buy it immediately."
Language / Style:
There are almost seventy articles in the book and many of them have the same structure. A descriptive title followed by a short reflection that leads to a well developed body and a final and sometimes hilarious sentence (some of them have made me laugh for a while). However, there are some exceptions that don’t follow this structure. Two articles (one related with taxes and another with computers) are like no sense instructions or manuals which show the brilliant imagination of the author. Another interesting one is a transcription of a speech he performed at his son’s high school. It’s a fantastic and emotive explanation for teenagers about how they should act in their whole life (it’s really good and can make you think about your own lifestyle so it's not only for teenagers).
Stories are written in first person, using a simple informal register, slang, collocations and a huge range of expressions and daily words (some of them aren’t in some dictionaries but are easily understandable because of the context and root of the word, e.g. goopy stuff or rawl plugs). Sometimes the author explains some expressions or describes situations, places or people quite accurately comparing them with expression or situations more common in Britain or Europe which helps a lot because you can easily get the gist (you should remember those articles are aimed at British). Emphasising is used frequently. Dialogues, descriptions, hyphenation (for pauses) and brackets (introducing smart remarks like this one) are quite common too.
To sum up, articles are written in an attractive simple journalistic style, typical of good writers and journalists, with very interesting and funny contents and reflections.
