Betjeman's England

by John Betjeman, Stephen Games (Editor)

For more than half a century, Betjeman's writings have awakened readers to the intimacy of English places—from the smell of gaslight in suburban churches, to the hissing of backwash on a shingle beach. Betjeman is England's greatest typologist: whether he's talking about a townhall or a teaship, he gets to the nub of what makes unexpected places—and unexpected people—tick. This new collection of his writings, arranged geographically, offers an essential gazetteer to the physical landmarks of Betjeman Country and the characters who inhabit it.

Genres: British Literature, Architecture, History, Travel, Poetry, London, Essays

320 pages, Hardcover

First published May 14, 2009

Reviews

[Sitatunga · Rating 3 out of 5]

an idiosyncratic collection of bits and pieces revealing the laureate at his best and worst, elegiac and petulant, gracious and insufferable, erudite and blinkered

[Richard R]

If there's a pervasive theme here, it's Betjeman's fogeyish loathing of the automobile, ranging from complaints about proposed in Oxford to complaints that the scenery can only be truly admired from the a train and not from a car. It's only in passing that Betjeman later mentions that he had a car himself: somewhat unsurprising given that most of the country churches and stately homes listed here could not be accessed without a car. Of course, a lot of these pieces were originally commissioned by Shell precisely in order to get people driving to those sort of out of the way locations. I suppose we're all entitled to our contradictions but there's something very odd about the lauding of industrial revolution beam engines, railway stations and canals amidst a paean largely devoted to medieval architecture.

Times inevitably change and if Betjeman was espousing a form of small c conservatism arguments against cars are now dominated by progressive urbanists advocating low traffic neighbourhoods and twenty mile an hour speed limits.

[Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Composed during a bout of insomnia. I am at the retrospective stage of life as was Betjeman when he too was in his 70s. We remember the past in much the same way: he was a boy in an English public and I in an American one during an era when the culture still held; even though there was some 40 years difference in our ages. We both sought the security of traditions and the homespun. Efficiency, coordination, the stuff of all the busyness (business) of the modern lives structured around acquisition is something with which we are out of step. So I read the little vignettes of that cast off time which are his poems. I find comfort in reading them as he did in writing then; knowing full well there would be minds out there scanning the spectrum until they received his transmission.