Book description
>Be that as it may, his book, which is based upon sojourns in Spain,
Turkey, Persia, and the Iron Curtain countries, will delight every
English reader. Pritchett s alert eye and relaxed manner, his flair for
meeting new places and people without any warping preoccupations,
produce the most felicitous results, particularly with the Peoples
Democracies , which most travellers approach with a bias to left or
right. The Communist countries are like schools: the population is
trained, and like schoolchildren have their own ways of getting round
authority. The low heels and low rents of Czechoslovakia; the high
spirits and outspokenness of the Polish; Bulgaria, where the water is
delicious and roses grow everywhere; Romania, so obdurate beneath its
Latin surface-wherever he goes Pritchett unerringly picks out
significant details, giving us the genius loci, sharing with us his
curiosity about ways of life different from our own, imparting to us
the warmth of his own response to them.>
>Be that as it may, his book, which is based upon sojourns in
Spain, Turkey, Persia, and the Iron Curtain countries, will delight
every English reader. Pritchett s alert eye and relaxed manner, his
flair for meeting new places and people without any warping
preoccupations, produce the most felicitous results, particularly with
the Peoples Democracies , which most travellers approach with a bias
to left or right. The Communist countries are like schools: the
population is trained, and like schoolchildren have their own ways of
getting round authority. The low heels and low rents of Czechoslovakia;
the high spirits and outspokenness of the Polish; Bulgaria, where the
water is delicious and roses grow everywhere; Romania, so obdurate
beneath its Latin surface-wherever he goes Pritchett unerringly picks
out significant details, giving us the genius loci, sharing with us his
curiosity about ways of life different from our own, imparting to us
the warmth of his own response to them.>
