At Home, by Bill Bryson
Published by Anchor Canada,
a division of Random House Canada Limited, 2010
Bill
Bryson is an author of immense curiosity, a characteristic that serves him well
as a non-fiction writer who tackles diverse topics that include travelogues (In A Sunburned Country), outdoor
adventures (A Walk In The Woods) and science exploration (A Short
History of Nearly Everything).
In At
Home, Bryson focuses that curiosity on the house that he and his wife occupy, a
former church of England rectory in Norfolk, England. As Bryson points out in
his introduction, "Houses are amazingly complex repositories...whatever
happens in the world - whatever is discovered or created or bitterly fought
over - eventually ends up, in one way or another, in your house."
In this exhaustively-researched
book, Bryson takes readers on a sweeping and amusing tour through his
house, devoting entire chapters to the history of the bedroom, the bathroom,
the study, the nursery, and so on. His exacting eye for detail and talent for
summarizing trends, ideas and events makes At Home a thoroughly entertaining
read.
In the
chapter on Gardening, for instance, Bryson describes how the pleasant pastime
we know today as planting geraniums and pruning roses can be traced back to the
mid-nineteenth century. In 1841, a book entitled Practical Instructions in Gardening For Ladies was published, which
encouraged "women of elevated class to get their hands dirty and even to
take on a faint glow of perspiration."
Bryson
writes:
"The value of Gardening for Ladies wasn't what it contained so much as what it represented: permission to go outside and do something. It came at exactly the right moment to catch the nation's fancy. In 1841, middle-class women everywhere were bored out of their skulls by the rigidities of life and grateful for any suggestion of diversion."
Many times
I found myself awed by the obscure people of history who played pivotal roles
in the advancement of western thought and civilization, such as the American educator, George
Bissell who, in 1853, discovered by accident that oil could serve as an illuminant
- a discovery that precipitated the rise of the oil industry; an illiterate
weaver in England named James Hargreaves who invented the spinning jenny in
1764; and Reverend Edmund Cartwright, who (after a chance conversation) designed the power loom in 1785, a
discovery that contributed to the start of the Industrial Revolution and impacted Britain's financial fortunes for decades.
At Home is
as much as history lesson as it is a meticulous exploration of ideas, customs,
superstitions and bric-à-brac that might be found inside anybody's home. Whether it's tracing the history of bizarre fashions (male wigs) or
food trends (salt and pepper) through the centuries, Bryson's takes an otherwise mundane subject and
makes it relevant and endlessly fascinating.
For Bryson
fans, At Home is everything you've come to expect from this talented author, a
far-ranging curiosity, a passion for exploring the randomness and quirkiness of
life, and an informal writing style that blends charm, empathy and humour. At the end of the day, this is a book I'm more than happy to recommend.
