Ben Donald
Auteur de The Book of Cities
Œuvres de Ben Donald
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
- Sexe
- male
- Nationalité
- UK
- Lieux de résidence
- London, England, UK
Membres
Critiques
Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 5
- Membres
- 128
- Popularité
- #157,245
- Évaluation
- 3.1
- Critiques
- 4
- ISBN
- 13
- Langues
- 3
Springtime for Germany has a bad beginning, starting as it does with the fictional and silly premise that the author comes under the helping hand of a travel therapist, because he has lost his love of exploring new places. This therapist, a ridiculous German American named Manny, send the author to various places in Germany, each time having his concentrate on a different aspect of the German soul. It also begins with a snarky tone of amused contempt for the Germans, which made the first few chapters less than enjoyable.
But as Donald proceeds along in his travels, he settles down and begins to be interesting. I've been living here and knew most of the cultural references to some degree or another, but he often was able to provide me with a deeper understanding of several of these. And it's always fun to run into references to these cultural tics, as they are not well known outside of Germany. For example, there is a New Year's tradition here to watch a short British film called Dinner for One. This is something every German is as familiar with as we in the US are with How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but I've never met a non-German who ever saw it. This guy knows German culture and he had some interesting things to say about the reasons Germans value order and rules so much and why it isn't a big deal for them to sit in a sauna naked with strangers.
All in all a useful and interesting book marred by the author's need to force the humor. He's genuinely amusing when he isn't trying so hard.… (plus d'informations)