Customer Reviews

A Texan In England

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Among the millions of words that Professor Dobie wrote in his lifetime, none could be more special than those in this wonderful volume. During WW II, he spent 1943-'44 as a guest lecturer at Cambridge University ostensibly teaching American literature. A Texan In England is a journal of his experiences, travels and friendships made over the year spent there while covering as much ground and meeting as many people as possible given his schedule and commitments. Readers of this unique work can come to know better and more deeply appreciate this complex and erudite gentleman as he reflected, almost literally, the varied landscapes and multitudinous array of Britain's varied peoples that he so tirelessly tried to absorb that year.
Perhaps most special is the awareness that he gained of just how much of American history and culture was rooted in the battered but resilient island nation. Dobie apparently found true joy and meaningful wonder also in the natural world that he explored daily. From the dingy but bustling cities to the common rural settings, estate gardens and roadside vistas that he felt compelled to seek out, the learned academic shares his views with the reader. A no keener eye and mind could have made these experiences as delightfully instructive and entertaining than J. Frank and we are grateful for this gift. A Texan In England is also reminiscent of those journalistic travelogues left to us by 19th century sojourners like Alexis de Tocqueville or Frederick Law Olmstead. As such it is a treasure chest of wit, wisdom and a love of life typical of a man equally at home on a horse in the 1920s trans Pecos or on a double deck bus in 1943 London.