At Home: A Short History of Private Life
Bill Bryson
Doubleday
512 pgs.
I'll Be Honest...
I'm a curious person. While tying my shoe I'll often think to myself, "I wonder who invented this process? How long has it been around??" Or have you ever started writing on a piece of paper with a pen when, in a moment of perfect balance between clarity and insanity you focus on where the pen meets the paper and concentrate on the process of writing?? It'll screw you up, guaranteed. It reminds me of when I was about 9 years old and I thought about breathing. Now, breathing is something I do every day, but if you think about breathing (inhaling, exhaling, inhaling, etc.) it's impossible to do it naturally! Most of the time breathing is a natural function that you do without even thinking about, but once you do think about it, you must actively do it until you get distracted again.
Now, what does all of this have to do with Bill Bryson's new book, "At Home: A Short History of Private Life??" It's about the history of those menial, inconsequential items all around you that you never thought about (presumably), for if you did things would get a little out of hand. For instance, did you ever wonder why salt and pepper is on almost every table?? Or even how it was created? Table salt is one of those things that is actually quite perplexing. The human body needs salt, that's not debatable. The creation of salt (sodium chloride) is odd, too. As Bryson points out:
"drop a lump of pure sodium into a bucket of water and it will explode with enough force to kill. Chlorine is even more deadly. It was the active ingredient in the poison gases of the First World War and, as swimmers know, even in very dilute form it makes the eyes sting. Yet we put these two aggressive elements together, and what you get is innocuous sodium chloride-common table salt."
Bryson lives in a Victorian parsonage in the English countryside. He basically tours the house, breaking up the book into chapters that represent each section of the house. The tour begins in the hall and ends in the attic. And in each section he goes into the history of the room and the history of many of the items that are involved. When he gets to the bathroom, for instance, he gives an interesting, albeit disgusting, history of indoor plumbing in the Western World.
Bryson is not perfect. You have to realize when you read him that, while his research has been diligent, I'm sure, you have to take everything with a grain of salt. Don't just accept him at his word. Remember the information and go research certain topics he discusses at your leisure (at your public library, natch). But when you read that it's not truly an urban myth for rats to crawl up sewer pipes and come out your toilet, or that back in the day those moving lumps one felt in his/her bed mattress was, indeed, more rats, OR back when big hair was the style (and I mean towering...women had hair that made them 3 feet taller) some women fainted when they discovered mice had nested in the "upper decks," go and research it to see if that actually did happen!
The point is the book is interesting. It will spark your curiosity about the best things possible - everyday things. When you look around you, every item you see, every custom you witness has a history to it. It had to start somewhere. But how was it created? What is its origin?? Don't you ever wonder why there's summer break for most schools?? (hint: has to do with farming). Didn't you ever think about where the saying "Cleanliness is next to Godliness" came from?? (answer: John Wesley, founder of Methodism, in 1778. And, unfortunately, he was talking about clothes, not the body).
So to be honest, I'd highly recommend reading "At Home: A Short History of Private Life." It is not perfect, like I said. It's very focused on the Western World, but it's centered around an English house so you can't necessarily fault Bryson for this. But his writing is very humorous, and the content in the book pours out. Can you honestly say that you wondered if there was an equation to ensure staircase comfort?? Well there is and it's on page 312. How about the changing of diet over the years?
The average Londoner in 1851 ate 31.8 pounds of onions, as against 13.2 pounds today; consumed over 40 pounds of turnips and rutabagas, compared with 2.3 pounds today; and packed away almost 70 pounds of cabbages per year, as against 21 pounds now. Sugar consumption was about 30 pounds a head - less than a third the amount consumed today.
Yeah...things have changed. But at the same time they haven't. Most of the items we use have been for a very, very long time. Do you know where they came from?? I thought not.
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