On Simon Schama and Lawnmowers

An interesting coincidence this week. I've been getting the really early bus to work recently, which is an absolutely fantastic way to read a lot. Brockley has a great bus route that takes me practically to my office:



Anyway, I just finished reading Simon Schama's excellent 'The American Future' which is a book to accompany the BBC2 series of the same title.

Christmas gift from M. It's brilliant - a well written and conversational narrative that flits between contemporary interview and deep historical research. Basically its purpose is to trace current debates and controversies about the identity of the United States back to their various roots in the early years and decades of the country. Starting with war: what is the purpose of an American army? Then religious fervour - its contradictions, passions and aims. Then being an American - striking right to the heart of American identity and immigration, revealing all sorts of quite unsavoury elements that never quite go away... Then Plenty - the theme of being able to access/produce/conquer whatever is there, and where that might lead.
You could summarise it in Tocqueville's phrase "plus ca change", or in the words of Ecclesiastes "there is nothing new under the sun"...

But the coincidence I refer to occured the other night when we watched David Lynch's beautiful 'The Straight Story', film about an old man in the Mid West who decides to travel across to Wisconsin on his sit-on lawnmower to see his brother who has had a stroke and whom he hasn't spoken to in 10 years... (The lawnmower is because he doesn't have a driving licence...).
A beautiful film, and beautifully filmed, about coming to terms with age, settling your account, telling stories... It is really moving too. And this reveals the gentle side of life in the US, the importance of family, of doing the right thing, of making sure you treat people right, even if they're strangers, of imparting wisdom to the next generation... Inspirational stuff.
And it kind of made me think: as long as there are people in the US that resemble those of The Straight Story, in spite of all the troubled and conflicting undercurrents that Schama points out, we'll be OK.

Over and out - birthday tomorrow. 35. Ah well!