Terry Darlington

Someone mentioned this book recently and I thought, oh yeah, I liked that (read it in 2010), maybe I'll read it again. Well, I liked it less this time. Darlington can be very amusing, but I also found that he often went on and on and I didn't really know what he was talking about. So overall, it's still a three.

This was good fun, written in an unusual style. I found it at a flea market and bought it for the title, having been to Carcassonne, so I was surprised that it was as good as it was.… (altro)

Jim, the whippet, does not like boating, but his intrepid, somewhat elderly owners do. This time, the threesome takes their British narrowboat (built for navigating seven foot British canals) to the Intercoastal Waterway along the southern East Coast of the U.S. Much wry and amusing commentary and many near disasters ensue. The author's ton and dry, sarcastic wit make this book read-out-loud funny. His observations of the U.S. occasionally made me wince, but were quite recognizable, and Darlington's overall delight in the scene and characters and his self-deprecating humor kept it amusing rather than offensive.… (altro)

I had forgotten that style of his from the "Carcassonne" one, but it is unmistakable from the beginning. Travel writing at its best, highly selective and often a bit on the ficticious side (which is fine, mind you!), Darlington presenting himself as an absolute failure at anything except drinking a couple of pints. With all this, nice insights into US customs and mentality (from an English point of view). And I do like his way of constructing sentences that are more like enumerations - or climaxes - and are quite simple indeed and first they strike you as weird and then you get them and then you burst out laughing before you know it and then you see people glaring at you because you are on a train and they all think you're mad. I like that.… (altro)