Literary Sterotypes

In addition to documenting our own adventures and cultural insights, this blog seems like a great place to share insight from other sources. I am currently working my way through the 15 books that my friend Claire lent me because I don’t have much else to do (a situation that, praise to God, is changing and I’ll post more on later). So far I have read The Red Tent, The Time-Traveler’s Wife, Life of Pi (so good! One of my favorite books I’ve read in a while) and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. The last is particularly engaging and interesting, as it is written by a British author of French heritage about an Italian unit that is stationed on the Greek island of Cephallonia. Although I haven’t seen the film adaptation, my impression is that the novel is more complex and more richly nuanced. I was especially struck by the cultural characterizations he offers throughout the course of the book, including the two below:

The Greek doctor Iannis is expounding to the Italian capt. Corelli: “I know you have not thought about it. You Italians always act without thinking, it’s the glory and the downfall of your civilization. A German plans a month in advance what his bowel movements will be at Easter, and the British plan everything in retrospect, so it always looks as though everything occurred as they intended. The French plan everything whilst appearing to be having a party, and the Spanish…well, God knows.”

Also from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin: “In those days Great Britain was less wealthy than it is now, but it was also less complacent, and considerably less useless. It had a sense of humanitarian responsibility and a myth of its own importance that was quixotically true and universally accepted merely because it believed in it, and said so in a voice loud enough for foreigners to understand. It had not yet acquired the school boy’s habit of waiting for months for permission from Washington before it clambered out of its post-imperial bed, put on its boots, made a sugary cup of tea and ventured through the door. Accordingly, the British were the first to arrive, the ones to stay the longest, the ones to do the most and the last to leave [in the rebuilding of Greece after the earthquake of 1953].”

I don’t know about the first quote, but the second matches up pretty well with most people’s attitudes about the British government, in our experience. We watched Out of Africa the other night, which also eloquently captured England’s self-proclaimed power and influence near the end of the colonial era. I believe there is some bitterness about the change from ‘the most powerful empire on earth’ to taking the backseat to Washington.