Summary
The book takes the form of a journey through one English county
a day. Rather than having a plan, other than a rough anticlockwise direction of
travel, the trip was largely spontaneous. This unplanned nature is what drives
the narrative, similar to the way a MacGuffin drives a story, and opens the
possibility of stumbling across unintended experiences.
The journey is taken in a fifteen-year-old 4x4 referred to throughout
as The Truck, along with a sat nav referred to as Kathy (actually the
voice of Kathy Clugston from Radio 4). Rather than paying for hotels this was a
camping trip to keep the costs down. The logistics of finding somewhere to camp
each night provided further challenges. All of these inconveniences, and the unexpected
solutions that followed, provided useful metaphors for concepts that arose in
the philosophical exploration.
The result of this unplanned approach is that the story only
covers the areas of the counties passed through. There are no descriptions of
the obvious locations in each county because the journey simply didn’t pass
that way. However, this means that there were unplanned encounters with places
such as a village falling into the sea, the wonderfully mad Tees Transporter
Bridge, or accidentally driving a speedboat with two drunk blokes without any
consideration about how to get ashore.
Review
This is a book about one man's journey around England with his truck and a Khyam igloo. At first I thought that was a non de plume for Omar Khyyam, but it turns out to be type of tent! His quest is to visit the 39 historic counties of England such as Westmorland and Cumberland (yes, it's not just a type of sausage).In the tradition of Three Men in a Boat and more recently Bill Bryson books, Jack digresses throughout the journey he tells in the book. There will always be a side story, which probably has a tenuous link with where he is and I felt an excuse for him to regale us with the amusing tales he's amassed over the years.
To begin with there was too much "well I cheated" for my liking. I am a bit black and white when it comes to tasks and so started off on the wrong foot so to speak with this tale. However, as I read on I began to get this author. A bit like meeting a new acquaintance who you need time to get to know their ways and little nuances. So, after a while when he rocked up at a new campsite and compared it to others he'd already visited, I sat there either nodding in agreement with him or dissent whichever was the road he had led me down.
It turned out that the book is not just a tale of his drive around England as the author began to talk about rational and non-rational behaviour and Maslow's heirachy of needs, and a few other soul searching ideas. Don't worry if that isn't your thing though. In the main it is his thoughts and findings of his journey, and sometimes a rant about something which may or may not have happened and just be included for comedic effect.
The more I read I began to sense familiar scenarios unfolding. Like when he went to the library and couldn't have encountered a more unhelpful person (I had a similar experience in a Local Tourist Office). It's just not what you expect, and you find yourself thinking "is it me?" - or maybe it's an age thing which again I began to realise was something else I had in common with the author. Although the SatNav does obviously make an appearance I was expecting more tales of wrong turnings, roads that don't exist and annoyance with the SatNav.
In the present times of being more restricted with travel than usual, this book was a welcome journey to visit through someone else's eyes places I have also been to, and see what they made of it. A bit like reading Pevsner, as a lot of the places I visited many years ago. Although when he got to Rutland and bemoaned the bypass, I knew exactly where he was! One thing I learnt is that Middlesex isn't a county! I thought maybe it disappeared in the 90s as I have definitely written in on an envelope, but on consulting Google it was apparently in 1965!!!
I'm giving this book 3 out of 5 stars. My thanks to Random Things Tours and the author for a copy of the book to review together with a jolly nice tote bag. If you want to know more about the author or buy some nice merchandise visit Jack-Barrow.com
About Jack
Jack Barrow is a writer of books and blogs about ideas based
on popular philosophy in modern life. He is a critical thinker but not a
pedant. He has an interest in spiritual perspectives having been brought up as
both a Mormon and a Jehovah's Witness. He’s not sure, but he believes this particular ecclesifringical upbringing makes him a
member of a pretty exclusive club. He is also fascinated by science. At the
same age as his parents were taking him to church services, he was also
watching Horizon documentaries and Tomorrow’s World, becoming fascinated about
science and technology. Perhaps around the time of the moon landings, when he
was six or seven, he came to the conclusion that, sooner or later, people would
realise that the sky was full of planets and stars, science explained the
universe, and that there was no God looking down. He really thought that
religion’s days were numbered. Declining congregations seemed to back that up,
but since then there has been a growth in grass roots movements that seem to
indicate people are looking for something to fill the void left by organised
religion. He now has a particular interest in the way people are creating their
own spiritual perspectives (whatever spiritual means) from the bottom up using
ideas sourced from history, folkloric sources and imagination. Rather
ironically it was members of the Jehovah's Witnesses who first introduced him
to the landscape of Wiltshire, with its stone circles and ancient monuments,
which later kindled his interest in spiritual beliefs taken from more ancient
perspectives.
He has also written a novel; The Hidden Masters and the
Unspeakable Evil is a story of a group of magicians who discover a plot to
build casinos in Blackpool and so turn the resort into a seedy, tacky, and
depraved town. During this hard-drinking occult adventure, with gambling and frivolous
trousers, Nigel, Wayne and Clint travel north on Friday night but they need to
save the world by Sunday evening because they have to be back at work on Monday
morning.
Jack lives in Hertfordshire, England, where he earns a
living writing about things in engineering; this usually means photocopiers and
bits of aeroplanes. He shares his home with R2D2 and C3PO, occasionally
mentioned in his blog posts. People used to say he should get out more. At the
time of writing he is currently shielding from the apocalypse, having been of a
sickly disposition as a child, and wondering if he will be able to go to a live
music pub ever again.
Huge thanks for the blog tour support xx
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