Weasel at Home
Imagine a book written about home; not your place but home in general. What do you actually know about your home? You know the obvious things, its occupants, furnishings, maybe even who built it and when, but do you know why your dwelling is a house and not a cave, a tent, or a hobbit-like burrow? Why do you have a kitchen in your home? For much of history kitchens were non-existent or detached for safety reasons. Do you have indoor plumbing, carpets, or a front entry hall? You might think those are such obvious questions they don’t even need to be asked, but then you wouldn’t be Bill Bryson.
Mr. Bryson is a travel writer and I’ve blogged about him before. He’s the one who travels to far-off and interesting locations and then walks all over the place, writing out his experiences and musings in a ‘whatever-strikes-his-fancy’ manner that is a pleasure to read. Going through one of his books is a bit like traveling with a favorite uncle who’s a bit of a character but certain to take you to interesting places. My favorite book of his to date is ‘In a Sunburned Country’ and very nearly made me want to visit Australia. If it weren’t for that pesky spider that gets so surly during the mating season and flings it’s enormous self at phobic tourists, I might even consider it. However, huge aggressive spiders are a very certain prophylactic against my presence so Australia is right out. Sorry Bruce, there’s not enough lager in the world to get me on the same continent as the Sydney Funnel-web Spider.
I’ve traveled a bit and as much as I enjoy it, that moment of finally coming home and crawling into my own bed is one of the happier moments in life. Perhaps that’s why Mr. Bryson’s recent book focused on a location near and dear; his very own home in Norfolk, England. His home is a former parsonage and sounds like a charming warren of little rooms and odd, forgotten spaces. Prowling around a place like that can be a real pleasure and may have been the inspiration for ‘At Home: A Short History of Private Life.’
The author takes us on a bit of a room by room tour of his home and then uses each room as a section of the book. It’s much more than just a description of the Bryson household because he digs into the origin of things we barely notice. Learning the history of hallways, sculleries, dining rooms and drawing rooms was a real treat. Each space launched a history lesson and I had never heard any of this before. I guess like most people I think of history in terms of significant dates, events, and important people, but the history of indoor plumbing and the flush toilet is not only relevant to my personal existence, it’s really fun to read. Education in America has a lot to answer for in that I’ve sat through years of history lessons that were deadly dull when the reality is that our past is utterly fascinating.
I won’t get into the details of each chapter but if you want to know why giving birth in a hospital used to be a REALLY bad idea (think of soap and water and not having any in a hospital setting and you’ll get the idea), or why the government of England in the 14th century enacted legislation known as Sumptuary Laws to control the who had rights to fashionable clothes. Anyone who thinks the government is currently in their business should imagine what it would be like if the fabric used in your pants was a matter of law. Yes, there really were Fashion Police before Joan Rivers got her own show. Read the section about dressing rooms to learn why shortages of wheat flour in the 1700’s led to riots and a national fashion crisis. If you had to choose between a loaf of bread and powder for your wig you wouldn’t have any problem at all, but the well-dressed man of 1770 would rather skip the muffin and make sure his curls were well-dusted. It may be hard for us to understand a fashion that required men to shave their heads bald in order to wear a huge wig of pink or blue curls, but just look at Donald Trump’s comb-over and you’ll see that crazy fashion ideas aren’t all that far removed from modern life.
In my rating system the Best Friend Read is the second best rating available and means I took my time and savored every moment of the book, as if it were a coffee date with my best friend. This book was like an extended and intimate conversation with a very best friend, in their own lovely and quirky home. It doesn’t matter if you like history or not, you’ll enjoy getting to know your own living space. You will be surprised and delighted, shocked and appalled, but you certainly won’t be bored.
At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson, published by DoubleDay.
