Rating: 
Summary: Thorough, well-written, but decidedly negative
Review:
I have mixed feelings about this book. While Paul Theroux is a very good writer, the book had a constant negative tone about the UK coastal towns and their people. I've visited a few of these towns myself and surely did not manage to pluck out all the pessimistic views that seemed to dominate this book. I don't know if things were depressed back in 1983, but the way it's written would lead you to believe that UK -- at least its coastal towns -- is a very depressing and poor place. I thought that Bill Bryson's "Notes from a Small Island" was also pessimistic; I believe this book at least rivals it.
On the other hand, Theroux's insights are often very interesting and amusing so I managed to make it through the book (though it took much longer than usual). He captures many intimate details of the coast, the people, and the ways of living, providing some interesting insights that I probably missed while I was there.
All in all, it was a decent and interesting book, though if I were to start reading a book with similar negativism I'd probably abandon it and go on to something else.
Rating: 
Summary: Rubbish
Review: Although Mr. Theroux had lived in England many years, he obviously knows nothing about the English. His book is like taking an interesting walk with someone you don't particularly like because he's constantly in a bad humour. It isn't until Chapter 20 that he writes anything at all positive about the country. Maybe he should try again, walking the in the opposite direction!
Rating:
Summary: Didn't he enjoy ANYTHING?
Review: Although this book is fascinating and readable, it is a downer. It is hard to escape the impression that Theroux was in very low spirits when he made this journey. Brighton was "full of disappointed and bad-tempered visitors;" Bognor "was empty; they could look awful when they were empty." The Butlin's holiday camps "had the feel of a concentration camp." Over and over again he will describe a town as looking lovely from a distance, then dreary when he gets to it. "All these villages looked better from the water." And in one startling piece of ambivalence, he says at one point "I always felt I was safe--everything would be fine--if I stayed on the coast." Yet just a few pages later, he remarks: "I was the only person on this stretch of beach. It was deserted and full of cracks and corners, another of the places where I expected to find a corpse, a murder victim, a suicide, or more likely someone who had been accidentally drowned and washed ashore. I had never had this spooky feeling in a wild country, in Asia or Africa, but on the British coast, whenever I was in a lonely place, I looked down and expected to see a dead man." Theroux takes you on an interesting trip, but he is an awfully crabby companion.
Rating:
Summary: lovely lovely lovely
Review: Bit samey. All that scenic scenery is something to see. I guess I don't feel I've gotten to know a place until I know how the people who live there experience it. Theroux takes a patronizing view of those few he does meet. He paints the british national character as being on a spectrum ranging between cantankerous and drab. He is also given to over intellectualizing. Many incidental details are presented as mundane reflections of Big Ideas. Stomach churning.
Rating: 
Summary: Mr. Negativity Takes a Hike
Review: Does Paul enjoy ANYTHING? I first read this book in 1993, just before my first trip to England involving areas outside London. My reaction then was that Theroux had captured most of the negative aspects of British society---and very few of the positive ones. I have now read the book for the second time, after several more trips to England and additional contacts with the English people in Surrey, Kent, and East Anglia. I still feel the same way I did in 1993. What does Therous consider "wonderful"? The comment made by a Brit that someone "mispronunciates". So Therous enjoys other people's mistakes. How warped is that? And what does he compliment? The National Health System. Well, it may have been great in the early 80's, the setting for this book, but it is pathetic now, if numerous UK newspapers, and discussions with the English, can be believed. So Therous is tired of London. He even QUOTES Dr. Johnson about someone who is tired of London being tired of life. Well, Theroux seems to be tired of life in this book, for he notices ugly nuclear power stations, tacky vacation camps, loud teenagers, dirty b&b's, lower class people, drowning sheep, and the unemployed. Paul! Every society has these features (except perhaps for the drowning sheep). Where are the delightfully eccentric Brits, the Underground that works better than its much newer counterpart in Washington DC, the wonderful ethnic restaurants, the beer and ale, the overall civilized behavior of drivers, and the thousands of years of culture? Your books need some balance, Mr. Theroux. So, on balance, so to speak, one can use this book as an accurate picture of the negative aspects of the UK in 1982. If one desires a picture of positive things in the UK culture, then or now, go elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Not good
Review: Generally speaking, Theroux is a great travel writer and I've enjoyed several of his books. Not this one. It's a snooze.
Rating:
Summary: Not good
Review: Generally speaking, Theroux is a great travel writer and I've enjoyed several of his books. Not this one. It's a snooze.
Rating:
Summary: A Charm-free Britain
Review: I checked out the reviews for this book to see if I was alone in finding Mr. Theroux's tone to be patronizing. I can see that I wasn't, as another reviewer referred to him that way, too, and many people commented on his crabbiness. On the positive sice, the book serves as an interesting snapshot of Britain in the early 80s, with skinheads, WWI veterans, and "the business in the Falklands." And it introduces the reader to the coastal towns and vistas in a detailed way.
But the book is something of a bummer, and Theroux's trip feels very repetitive. He purposefully avoids castles and cathedrals, which would be fine if he replaced them with something else, such as descriptions of the plants and animals, or background on the history and character of Britain. He mainly gives a surface account of rainy walks, dreary towns, lonely sandwiches, and snatches of overheard conversation. And he seems contemptuous of everyone he meets (mostly elderly people) because they are not enlightened like he is.
This is worth reading if you have a real interest in Britain, but I would recommend starting with Bill Bryson's delightful Notes from a Small Island instead.
Rating:
Summary: An unbelievable bore
Review: I first attempted to read this book ten years ago, and couldn't manage to get halfway. I fought through it this time and affirmed my belief that this is a dull book! The man spent three months or so travelling and managed to see nothing. He apparently promised himself that he would shun castles, churches, etc. but he doesn't find much worth writing about. He claims that he's interested in people and scenary, but inadequatly describes both. The only interesting thing that happens the whole time is in Wales, and he spends a full page (out of over 400!) telling us about it. I can't help thinking that if I was doing anything for three months, something would happen worth sharing. But perhaps it's because he spends so little time in each place that he learns nothing. I've been to England a few times, and enjoyed my time there. As a first time visitor, I'd toss this book out before I was discouraged.
Rating:
Summary: How not to enjoy yourself in Britain
Review: I suppose this is a well-written, factual book and all that. The problem is with Paul Theroux. Number one, he has perversely chosen a "no sights" itinerary around Britain (i.e. no churches, museums, castles, or anything interesting), which leaves him little to do but tramp around and eavesdrop on people. Number two, he likes making sweeping statements about the British -- how they are class-bound, tradition-bound, negative, passive, stodgy, backward-looking and just all-round cretinous. He is looking for these traits, and of course he sees them in everyone he (briefly) meets. The odd thing is that Theroux does not fit his own stereotype of the brash, positive, outgoing American. He doesn't like working-class people, and dismisses them by giving them silly names and labelling them "typically British." You can sense his relief when he gets to mingle with fellow artists and writers like Jan Morris. In his negative, class-conscious way, perhaps he is more "British" than he would care to admit. So anyway, if sneering voyeurism is your thing, then maybe this book is for you.
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