Book Review of Notes from a Big Country

Book Review On:-
Notes from a Big Country
Author-Bill Bryson

Submitted by:
Mayank Shekhar (11110052)

Notes from a Big Country
The book “Notes from a Big Country” is a collection of 78 articles taken from Bill Bryson's weekly column in the Mail on Sunday's Night and Day magazine which included short stories or accounts about his life in America - mainly dealing with Bryson's experiences since returning to his home-land after living for about two decades in Britain, and the changed American way of life. The book is a collection of chapters that discussed wide and varied subjects. Bryson used elements of irony, sarcasm and self-mockery or in short he has discussed various aspects of an average American life and how it has changed in a very humorous manner. He starts off with an introductory essay about his home coming and what challenges he had to face due to a sudden culture change and then he proceeds on by shedding light on bungle some serial numbers and he goes on about random topics ranging from free doughnuts in the post office, to unfortunate accidents involving underwear, from problems with laws on drugs to non-functioning of CIAs, FBIs, he discusses about intelligence level in America, about one of his beloved devices a computer, importance of law suits in an American’s life ,culture of America i.e. about various festivals and also a chapter or two on his personal feelings. In all of his chapters his major focus was on discussing random things in modern America and how are these things different from the time when he was growing up. The thing I found interesting about the book was using humor how Bryson was capable of discussing many major issues of America or in a few cases that’s true for the entire world. With help of mockery he was very able to define a lot his sentiments which were how after spending a few years abroad and then returning back and seeing many different things which at a few instances can be bit hard to digest and through this book Bryson was able to explain about the modern life and what he loved or hated about America. With the help of statistics (well in some cases exaggerated for humor), anecdotes and personal experience Bryson was able to discuss about many serious issues about USA for example with a few stats he explained American obsession with law-suits how people like to sue each other on no grounds at all and USA has more lawyers than world put together, he enlightened us upon the fact that how in USA people are over utilizing resources. In a way all through the book he was mocking his fellow countrymen and some of the times himself to convey some deep messages. Humor prevails throughout the book which makes it a good read.
This book is a collection of weekly newsletters and it is best if it is read that way because although it’s a collection of short stories, the stories should have been a bit detailed or chapters should have been linked because as soon as we develop interest in a particular part, discussion about it gets over and moreover for a book it has many repetitions like discussion of level of intelligence of Americans is pointed multiple times and so are his views about computers. Bryson has exaggerated few of the stats (to intend humor) it might for some users (as he said Americans are poor at getting ironies or humors) might portray a different image that he intended to, like the story about a woman suing Walt Disney was as I think made up. A few times Bryson made an overflow of humor which in a way seemed boring.
Bryson in his book has discussed a very sensitive ethical issue of death penalty under the chapter named Hotel California (Pg. 341) he doesn’t approve with death penalty and seeing the reasons I feel that capital punishments must be banned. As Bryson has argued that capital punishments are more expensive than a system handling similar cases with other punishments because it involves more trial time, more attorneys, heavy security and all of this adds up to the cost as mentioned in the book it costs $2 million more to execute than to incarcerate him for life and this cost is paid by the government and if capital punishment is eliminated govt. that money can be in general welfare which might nip some crimes in the bud. Apart from all these cost stats we can also see that the execution decision is not always right and there have been several cases where the person executed or was going to be executed was innocent. Quoting Bryson “Criminals are 4 to 11 times more likely to be sentenced to death for killing a white person than a black person” which shows that justice has not always been blind and shows that eliminating someone for a crime by execution is not always the best possible justice. With entries about various topics and thought provoking entries Bryson has written a book that can be enjoyed by everybody. For most of the part it is a very amusing book about American culture and some of the parts are actually true in the general scenario. Anyone who wants an insight into the late 90s American life must read this book but a modern day reader might find some of the topics dated because it was written around one and a half decades ago. Bryson although succeeded in his motive of sharing his life experiences of the changed American lifestyle by sugar coating it with humor but sometimes his obsession with his childhood American times seems a little too much. Although his entries were not meant to be read as a book but for a book, it might have been more interesting if the book might have discussed little less random topics. Considering all the pros and cons of the book I would surely recommend this book to everyone as a light read and a book that might give a lot of food to give a serious thought about.