Sunday, July 31, 2005
Ahh!
A whole weekend with nothing to do but to read the papers. You know you're getting older when it takes you a couple of days to revive following a drunken Friday.
According to Benjamin Markovits, 'the English tend to think Americans are obsessed by winners. But it is winning, the heartbreaking quest for it, that's interesting - the goal that makes sense of the game that makes losing what it is: romantic.'
Winning - the quest for the otherwise considered unobtainable (be that the girl, the match, the good job) - or rather the journey toward the success, is surely what makes every story, every arc of the story, worth watching, participating in, what makes the Olympic and every World Cup imaginable worth a glimpse, yes, even cheese rolling in Gloucestershire can be deemed excited if you are so inclined.
This is not only reserved for Americans. What separates the Americans from the English here is the stories in which Americans revel. In every part of American (pop) culture, the story must be romantic (in Markovits' sense of the word) - romance is pursued, from Carrie's pursuit of the perfect man in Sex and the City to Bree's pursuit of the perfect home life in Desperate Housewives, to Leonard's characters' pursuit of poetic justice to Batman's pursuit of his demons. Romance thereby serves as mean to a 'perfect' end or as 'that which cannot be had' leading to tragedy.
What the English are much more interested in is the real, ie the kitchen sink drama, Eastenders, Little Britain - if there is winning it is only momentarily and then life goes on or the gift turns out to be a curse and we are all loosers in the end.
No more obvious was this than in my recent travels to California. Americans will ask (looking hopeful): 'So how do you like our country'?
I'd answer: 'It's lovely, it's really beautiful here'
They would light up in sheer pride: 'Yes, isn't it! I'm glad you like it'
This was frankly a welcome change from the British, who, before I even have time to compliment anything, will mutter: 'Yeah, it's all shite here'.
Right then.
While American up-beatedness can be trying, at least they are positive. Inherent insecurity or inflated ego?
The British on the other hand are used to resting on their laurels so to speak and have never really recovered from losing India.
Markovits drags the 'great American novel' into the equation; 'it's Ahab's ambition, not his triumph, that makes him the hero of Moby Dick.' And that is perhaps the ultimate differnce between the American reader and the European: in my opinion, Ahab was never a hero, but rather a symbol of the American Dream - charging for a quest and killing himself on the way, both physically and metaphorically.
Well; Fever Pitch to The Perfect Catch. Reviews not bad at all, actually.
And The Observer has picked up on BookCrossing years after anyone else. Well done.
A whole weekend with nothing to do but to read the papers. You know you're getting older when it takes you a couple of days to revive following a drunken Friday.
According to Benjamin Markovits, 'the English tend to think Americans are obsessed by winners. But it is winning, the heartbreaking quest for it, that's interesting - the goal that makes sense of the game that makes losing what it is: romantic.'
Winning - the quest for the otherwise considered unobtainable (be that the girl, the match, the good job) - or rather the journey toward the success, is surely what makes every story, every arc of the story, worth watching, participating in, what makes the Olympic and every World Cup imaginable worth a glimpse, yes, even cheese rolling in Gloucestershire can be deemed excited if you are so inclined.
This is not only reserved for Americans. What separates the Americans from the English here is the stories in which Americans revel. In every part of American (pop) culture, the story must be romantic (in Markovits' sense of the word) - romance is pursued, from Carrie's pursuit of the perfect man in Sex and the City to Bree's pursuit of the perfect home life in Desperate Housewives, to Leonard's characters' pursuit of poetic justice to Batman's pursuit of his demons. Romance thereby serves as mean to a 'perfect' end or as 'that which cannot be had' leading to tragedy.
What the English are much more interested in is the real, ie the kitchen sink drama, Eastenders, Little Britain - if there is winning it is only momentarily and then life goes on or the gift turns out to be a curse and we are all loosers in the end.
No more obvious was this than in my recent travels to California. Americans will ask (looking hopeful): 'So how do you like our country'?
I'd answer: 'It's lovely, it's really beautiful here'
They would light up in sheer pride: 'Yes, isn't it! I'm glad you like it'
This was frankly a welcome change from the British, who, before I even have time to compliment anything, will mutter: 'Yeah, it's all shite here'.
Right then.
While American up-beatedness can be trying, at least they are positive. Inherent insecurity or inflated ego?
The British on the other hand are used to resting on their laurels so to speak and have never really recovered from losing India.
Markovits drags the 'great American novel' into the equation; 'it's Ahab's ambition, not his triumph, that makes him the hero of Moby Dick.' And that is perhaps the ultimate differnce between the American reader and the European: in my opinion, Ahab was never a hero, but rather a symbol of the American Dream - charging for a quest and killing himself on the way, both physically and metaphorically.
Well; Fever Pitch to The Perfect Catch. Reviews not bad at all, actually.
And The Observer has picked up on BookCrossing years after anyone else. Well done.
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