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On Englishness
Saturday, January 5th, 2008 01:29 pmFrom the Random House page on Julian Barnes' Arthur and George, quoting and then commenting on Barnes, in #8 ("He's British!") of '10 Reasons We Love Julian Barnes':
"I like to think about what the idea of my country is -- and what it has become. [Englishness] certainly enters into Arthur and George passingly." Only passingly? In the course of an hour-long conversation with Barnes, we heard him use the following words and phrases: 'stroppy', 'bolshy', 'complete rubbish' and 'posh bingo'. We loved every minute of it.
Q1. Does Barnes' conversational English have any direct relation to the subject of one of his novels?
Q2. Do Americans really 'love every minute' of our quaint British idiom?
Q3. Is 'British' a synonym for 'English'?
In other news, am slowly recovering from lurgy with the help of antibiotics: sick of being ill: determined not to venture outside until I can breathe properly.
"I like to think about what the idea of my country is -- and what it has become. [Englishness] certainly enters into Arthur and George passingly." Only passingly? In the course of an hour-long conversation with Barnes, we heard him use the following words and phrases: 'stroppy', 'bolshy', 'complete rubbish' and 'posh bingo'. We loved every minute of it.
Q1. Does Barnes' conversational English have any direct relation to the subject of one of his novels?
Q2. Do Americans really 'love every minute' of our quaint British idiom?
Q3. Is 'British' a synonym for 'English'?
In other news, am slowly recovering from lurgy with the help of antibiotics: sick of being ill: determined not to venture outside until I can breathe properly.
