jazzab1971's review
3.0
A story of a 400 mile journey on a canal boat in 1939 which is described on the blurb on the back as one that "celebrates the then seemingly timeless nature of the English countryside through which they passed" .
I was expecting a charming story of Rolt and his wife's adventures. What you actually get is this and page after page of Rolt moaning about things he doesn't like along the way. And he doesn't like lots of things - cars (even though he ran a garage himself, I since found out, and formed a vintage car club), universal education, cinemas, places which aren't Oxford, villages that are growing, villages that have seen better days, cities...the list goes on.
I appreciate he was trying to make a point, but his moaning is relentless.
Here are examples from three pages I have selected at random:-
Page 22 - "This is a typical instance of the way in which the craftsman is being compelled to...lose himself in the modern industrial system"
"One of the most damaging effects of modern mechanised industry..."
Page 77- "The culinary craft is yet another of the useful arts which have suffered eclipse in recent years...banished by the evil genius of the can-opener"
Page 117 - "...yet another tradition of the past that the modern industrial organisation has broken..."
On and on he moans. I assumed Rolt was some curmudgeonly old man complaining about how the world had changed around him...but he would have been 29 when this book was written!
So, in conclusion, there is some merit to the book, the tale of life on a narrow boat, but this is outweighed for me by the author's negativity. His writing can also be quite densely written.
I was expecting a charming story of Rolt and his wife's adventures. What you actually get is this and page after page of Rolt moaning about things he doesn't like along the way. And he doesn't like lots of things - cars (even though he ran a garage himself, I since found out, and formed a vintage car club), universal education, cinemas, places which aren't Oxford, villages that are growing, villages that have seen better days, cities...the list goes on.
I appreciate he was trying to make a point, but his moaning is relentless.
Here are examples from three pages I have selected at random:-
Page 22 - "This is a typical instance of the way in which the craftsman is being compelled to...lose himself in the modern industrial system"
"One of the most damaging effects of modern mechanised industry..."
Page 77- "The culinary craft is yet another of the useful arts which have suffered eclipse in recent years...banished by the evil genius of the can-opener"
Page 117 - "...yet another tradition of the past that the modern industrial organisation has broken..."
On and on he moans. I assumed Rolt was some curmudgeonly old man complaining about how the world had changed around him...but he would have been 29 when this book was written!
So, in conclusion, there is some merit to the book, the tale of life on a narrow boat, but this is outweighed for me by the author's negativity. His writing can also be quite densely written.
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