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England My England: Anglophilia Explained (2012)

by Mark Dery(Favorite Author)

2.33 of 5 Votes: 4

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Thought Catalog

review 1: This seemed to be a bit schizophrenic, one part personal anecdotes and other psuedo-scholarly discussion. I wish the author would have made a better mix of these two because they seemed to make the story very disjointed and hard to follow.I admit to being an Anglophile so I looked forward to reading about why so many Americans are all a flutter over anything British. I was taken aback by the tone of his discussion and felt like he was dressing Anglophiles as a group down. While I do agree that most of us look at an idealized version of English society through our love of Downtown Abbey and Hogwartz, I am not sure all of us are closet bigots.Glad I only paid .99 for this not my cup of tea (ha!)
review 2: When I was in college, I had to write an essay on A Room ... moreWith A View. My professor, quite rightly, gave me a poor grade because it was admittedly all over the place. I remember he basically told me that not every thought in your head needs to be written down. Now I can say this, not every thought you have needs to be self-published on Amazon. Oh how I wish this author had taken a class with professor Shea. If this is meant to be amusing it fails astoundingly, although you can see where he is trying (too hard, I might add). He is proud of his blue-collar background but complains of his friend's "noblesse oblige" attitude after returning from prep school. He also drops words like "parvenu" and a couple of other foreign phrases that I've never heard. You're hardly likely to hear Joe complaining about Bob's noblesse oblige outlook over a couple of longnecks in the beer joint. Pot, have you met kettle? Also ironic was his complaint about Madonna's "mockney" accent while his narrator fake Brit-speaks through ever quotation. Perhaps my biggest complaint is that this essay is supposed to explain Anglophila. If it's part of the title, you better make sure you do it. He sort of suggests it may be separation anxiety or the product of cultural influence on Americans as children, but he gives no definitive explanation. The nearest thing I could get is that he thinks '70's prog rock was really cool. If you want to waste 48 minutes of your life by listening to this and finding the answer, I will gladly take this back. But I'm sure you have better things to do with your 48 minutes. less

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