Sophie
Unbearably cynical and snide, badly disguised as humour. Was assigned this for a class on swedish culture and tried to give the entire book a go (i hate only partially reading something) but gave up about 30 pages in and just read the section on Sweden, only because i had to. There is definitely not as much sociological or anthropological value to this book as I expected. The overall tone of the author really hindered my enjoyment of this book, it was quite patronising and arrogant. Anything that is un-British is seemingly nonsensical and disreputable to Booth. At one point, he describes how he decided to spend a day walking the streets of Stockholm and doing everything in his power to irritate people and cause them discomfort. He was ‘pushing them to the edge' in the name of a ‘social experiment' so that he could to ‘locate the Swedes' position on the Scandinavian social-autistic spectrum'. I was a little bit speechless after reading that. Thank god the British man came to Sweden to teach them a lesson and save them from their own culture! There were also a number of unnecessary and distasteful comments about women, for example insinuating that Agnetha Fälstkog's (ABBA member) ‘low-cut jumpsuit probably didn't help' the idea that Swedish women are sexually ‘easy'. To disrespect a global icon, or in fact any woman at all, like that and reduce her to her sexuality is disgusting. All of this cynicism and prejudice under the guise of cultural analysis and sociology? No thanks. And to top it all off, he doesn't use the Oxford comma :/ Booth himself said (jokingly) “i probably am a snotty Brit”, and I can only agree (unjokingly).
Unbearably cynical and snide, badly disguised as humour. Was assigned this for a class on swedish culture and tried to give the entire book a go (i hate only partially reading something) but gave up about 30 pages in and just read the section on Sweden, only because i had to. There is definitely not as much sociological or anthropological value to this book as I expected. The overall tone of the author really hindered my enjoyment of this book, it was quite patronising and arrogant. Anything that is un-British is seemingly nonsensical and disreputable to Booth. At one point, he describes how he decided to spend a day walking the streets of Stockholm and doing everything in his power to irritate people and cause them discomfort. He was ‘pushing them to the edge' in the name of a ‘social experiment' so that he could to ‘locate the Swedes' position on the Scandinavian social-autistic spectrum'. I was a little bit speechless after reading that. Thank god the British man came to Sweden to teach them a lesson and save them from their own culture! There were also a number of unnecessary and distasteful comments about women, for example insinuating that Agnetha Fälstkog's (ABBA member) ‘low-cut jumpsuit probably didn't help' the idea that Swedish women are sexually ‘easy'. To disrespect a global icon, or in fact any woman at all, like that and reduce her to her sexuality is disgusting. All of this cynicism and prejudice under the guise of cultural analysis and sociology? No thanks. And to top it all off, he doesn't use the Oxford comma :/ Booth himself said (jokingly) “i probably am a snotty Brit”, and I can only agree (unjokingly).