I've really enjoyed my time off studying during lockdown, and have loved embarking on literary adventures as opposed to physical ones, from the comfort of my own garden. Watching the English is one of my latest reads, which I thought worth reviewing. This is my first proper book review, so please bear with me!
I finished this entertaining cultural commentary on a fine May morning following VE day, the pages bathed in the rarely featuring English sunshine, Union Jack banners and bunting gently flapping in the wind, patriotically scattered throughout the neighbourhood. It seemed quite fitting to be reading this particular book on this particular morning.
If Fox's book is one thing, for better or for worse, it is most definitely, very English. With just over 400 pages soaked with wit, sarcasm, politeness and self-depreciation,it sometimes made me proud to be half-English, and at other times, extremely thankful to not be fully English!
Anthropologist Kate Fox sets out on the ambitious quest to create a grammar, or lexis, of 'Englishness'. She does so, rather amusingly, using the anthropology research method of 'participant observation'. This refers to a practice usually adopted in cultures unfamiliar and foreign to one's own, described by Fox as "participating in the life and culture of the people one is studying, to gain a true insider's perspective on their customs and behaviour, while simultaneously observing them as a detached, objective scientist". But of course, Fox finds herself not immersed in a lost jungle tribe but in her native, rather more absurd tribe, the English. Subsequently, this technique, paired with Fox's acute sensitivity to cultural nuances and her ability to laugh at herself, leads to a fascinating and often hilarious portrait of the Land of the Rose's inhabitants.
With perceptive insight and a fluid, academic yet approachable style, Fox covers many aspects of English life, from pubs to fashion, regional accents to weather-talk, to the daily nightmares that the average socially inept and class-conscious English person may face. On the hunt for recurring themes, principles and values in the hope of constructing a grammar of Englishness, she attempts to explain our unique and sometimes ludicrous-seeming customs and practices. Without revealing too many spoilers, she does manage to come up with an impressively honest and comprehensive model of English behaviour, which I found to be a beguiling insight into a culture I thought I knew so well.
My only negative comment would be that the narrative can get slightly repetitive at times, due to nature of the research, as the author is searching for repeated ideas and themes. This repetitive process of analysis does however create a structure of reliability and transparency of thought, as we as readers understand and appreciate the thoroughness of the intellectual work and research behind Fox's conclusions.
Whilst you may find Watching the English in the anthropology or sociology rather than the travel section of a bookstore, I believe it is undoubtedly an experimental form of travel. Travelling is, at its heart, cultural discovery, and Fox helps her readers to thoroughly discover English culture in a refreshing and unconventional way. I would definitely recommend Watching the English, to any baffled foreigner bewildered with the, at best funny, at worst ridiculous traits of English culture, and any English person wishing to rediscover and dig deeper into our unique quirks and eccentricities.
This book should really be renamed not Watching but Observing, Analysing, Diving deep into everything, gloriously English...well anyway, anybody for a cup of tea?
Thanks for taking the time to read this far! I can't wait to read more travel-related books during my upcoming gap year, and review as many as I can. Please get in touch if you have any recommendations!
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