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How to Be a Brit
George Mikes has written many successful books on a variety of interesting subjects, but one so successful as those on the subject most central to his own experience: his adopted country. The first of these came out in 1946: the ever famous "How to be an Alien." Later he enlarges the picture with "How to be inimitable" and "How to be Decadent." All three books were illustrated by the master of the cartoonists’ art, the late Nicolas Bentley. Here they are, all in one volume, which will make life much easier for today's would-be Brits than it was for those who pervaded them. It is said that a few of the latter actually failed to become indistinguishable from the genuine British article because they found it too tiresome to seek out three separate books: a misfortune that need never again occur to anyone.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
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About the author
George Mikes
143 books53 followersGeorge Mikes (pronounced Mik-esh) was a Hungarian-born British author best known for his humorous commentaries on various countries.
Mikes graduated in Budapest in 1933 and started work as a journalist on Reggel ("Morning"), a Budapest newspaper. For a short while he wrote a column called Intim Pista for Színházi Élet ("Theatre Life").
In 1938 Mikes became the London correspondent for Reggel and 8 Órao Ujság ("8 Hours"). He worked for Reggel until 1940. Having been sent to London to cover the Munich Crisis and expecting to stay for only a couple of weeks, he remained for the rest of his life. In 1946 he became a British Citizen. It is reported that being a Jew from Hungary was a factor in his decision. Mikes wrote in both Hungarian and English: The Observer, The Times Literary Supplement, Encounter, Irodalmi Újság, Népszava, the Viennese Hungarian-language Magyar Híradó, and Világ.
From 1939 Mikes worked for the BBC Hungarian section making documentaries, at first as a freelance correspondent and, from 1950, as an employee. From 1975 until his death on 30 August 1987 he worked for the Hungarian section of Szabad Európa Rádió. He was president of the London branch of PEN, and a member of the Garrick Club.
His friends included Arthur Koestler, J. B. Priestley and André Deutsch, who was also his publisher.
His first book (1945) was We Were There To Escape – the true story of a Jugoslav officer about life in prisoner-of-war camps. The Times Literary Supplement praised the book for the humour it showed in parts, which led him to write his most famous book How to be an Alien which in 1946 proved a great success in post-war Britain.
How to be an Alien (1946) poked gentle fun at the English, including a one-line chapter on sex: "Continental people have sex lives; the English have hot-water bottles."
Subsequent books dealt with (among others) Japan (The Land of the Rising Yen), Israel (Milk and Honey, The Prophet Motive), the U.S. (How to Scrape Skies), and the United Nations (How to Unite Nations), Australia (Boomerang), the British again (How to be Inimitable, How to be Decadent), and South America (How to Tango). Other subjects include God (How to be God), his cat (Tsi-Tsa), wealth (How to be Poor) or philosophy (How to be a Guru).
Apart from his commentaries, he wrote humorous fiction (Mortal Passion; The Spy Who Died of Boredom) and contributed to the satirical television series That Was The Week That Was.
His autobiography was called How to be Seventy.
Serious writing included a book about the Hungarian Secret Police and he narrated a BBC television report of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.
Mikes graduated in Budapest in 1933 and started work as a journalist on Reggel ("Morning"), a Budapest newspaper. For a short while he wrote a column called Intim Pista for Színházi Élet ("Theatre Life").
In 1938 Mikes became the London correspondent for Reggel and 8 Órao Ujság ("8 Hours"). He worked for Reggel until 1940. Having been sent to London to cover the Munich Crisis and expecting to stay for only a couple of weeks, he remained for the rest of his life. In 1946 he became a British Citizen. It is reported that being a Jew from Hungary was a factor in his decision. Mikes wrote in both Hungarian and English: The Observer, The Times Literary Supplement, Encounter, Irodalmi Újság, Népszava, the Viennese Hungarian-language Magyar Híradó, and Világ.
From 1939 Mikes worked for the BBC Hungarian section making documentaries, at first as a freelance correspondent and, from 1950, as an employee. From 1975 until his death on 30 August 1987 he worked for the Hungarian section of Szabad Európa Rádió. He was president of the London branch of PEN, and a member of the Garrick Club.
His friends included Arthur Koestler, J. B. Priestley and André Deutsch, who was also his publisher.
His first book (1945) was We Were There To Escape – the true story of a Jugoslav officer about life in prisoner-of-war camps. The Times Literary Supplement praised the book for the humour it showed in parts, which led him to write his most famous book How to be an Alien which in 1946 proved a great success in post-war Britain.
How to be an Alien (1946) poked gentle fun at the English, including a one-line chapter on sex: "Continental people have sex lives; the English have hot-water bottles."
Subsequent books dealt with (among others) Japan (The Land of the Rising Yen), Israel (Milk and Honey, The Prophet Motive), the U.S. (How to Scrape Skies), and the United Nations (How to Unite Nations), Australia (Boomerang), the British again (How to be Inimitable, How to be Decadent), and South America (How to Tango). Other subjects include God (How to be God), his cat (Tsi-Tsa), wealth (How to be Poor) or philosophy (How to be a Guru).
Apart from his commentaries, he wrote humorous fiction (Mortal Passion; The Spy Who Died of Boredom) and contributed to the satirical television series That Was The Week That Was.
His autobiography was called How to be Seventy.
Serious writing included a book about the Hungarian Secret Police and he narrated a BBC television report of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 136 reviews
August 13, 2020
"You can keep a dog; but it is the cat who keeps people becasue cats find humans useful domestic animals." Upped from 2 star to 3 star for that. I've finished the book, but with effort. The author is one of those people who laugh at their own jokes. He's so pleased with himself, that this edition has three different prefaces all about the author and how successful his books are, which to say all that is not very British at all. I managed one and a half. I didn't attempt the third one. The ending is a letter from his publisher telling him what a great person he is, so fun.
I can't say I found it either funny or enjoyable right up until nearly the end. Perhaps the book is too dated although the English character remains much the same. Or perhaps it is because I have recently read several books on the same subject that were quite a lot funnier (and more recent).
Understanding the British: A hilarious guide from Apologising to Wimbledon wasn't that hilarious, and was spoiled by the author, Adam Fletcher's ire towards those who had voted for Brexit. That's going to date the book so fast... The other book, Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviourby an anthropologist and sly humourist, Kate Fox, was really good. The author captured far more than either Mikes or Fletcher and wrote without the political undertones of either of those authors.
The last part of George Mikes book, which wasn't even intended to be humorous, was about how Britain, or at least London (Mikes seems to have equated London with the whole of Britain through the book, although those who live in the environs of Penzance, Stornoway, Belfast or even Ystrad Mynach are quite different. Fletcher broadens his "British" to include those who live in other parts of England, but still falls into the trap of presenting specifically English attitudes as common to the entirety of the UK.
Kate Fox avoids this, but she is a anthropologist so she is more rigorous - and accurate - in what she writes is the behaviour of the English. Because she has been trained to catch nuances, her book is by far the funniest of the three.
But back to the last part of George Mikes book where he is railing against Britain, really London, being taken over by foreigners - the Arabs buying up everything and gambling a lot, the EEC (as it was then) exporting European attitudes to the UK, the Indians (and Pakistanis) coming and taking over the corner shops which he thinks, as just about everyone did, was absolutely wonderful since they stayed open "at the hours one wants to shop and needs to run out for something". He hit the nail on the head really, London has been very much changed by so many foreigners bringing their culture with them. It's wonderful really. He just didn't quite see it that way.
Sometimes he uses 'we' as he is British now, but sometimes he is 'other', a Hungarian, It depends on what he wants to say. He ends the book by saying he respected the British more but liked them less when he first came. Now he tends to lack respect but likes them a great deal more.
I'm just glad to have escaped from the weather and having to talk about it.
I can't say I found it either funny or enjoyable right up until nearly the end. Perhaps the book is too dated although the English character remains much the same. Or perhaps it is because I have recently read several books on the same subject that were quite a lot funnier (and more recent).
Understanding the British: A hilarious guide from Apologising to Wimbledon wasn't that hilarious, and was spoiled by the author, Adam Fletcher's ire towards those who had voted for Brexit. That's going to date the book so fast... The other book, Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviourby an anthropologist and sly humourist, Kate Fox, was really good. The author captured far more than either Mikes or Fletcher and wrote without the political undertones of either of those authors.
The last part of George Mikes book, which wasn't even intended to be humorous, was about how Britain, or at least London (Mikes seems to have equated London with the whole of Britain through the book, although those who live in the environs of Penzance, Stornoway, Belfast or even Ystrad Mynach are quite different. Fletcher broadens his "British" to include those who live in other parts of England, but still falls into the trap of presenting specifically English attitudes as common to the entirety of the UK.
Kate Fox avoids this, but she is a anthropologist so she is more rigorous - and accurate - in what she writes is the behaviour of the English. Because she has been trained to catch nuances, her book is by far the funniest of the three.
But back to the last part of George Mikes book where he is railing against Britain, really London, being taken over by foreigners - the Arabs buying up everything and gambling a lot, the EEC (as it was then) exporting European attitudes to the UK, the Indians (and Pakistanis) coming and taking over the corner shops which he thinks, as just about everyone did, was absolutely wonderful since they stayed open "at the hours one wants to shop and needs to run out for something". He hit the nail on the head really, London has been very much changed by so many foreigners bringing their culture with them. It's wonderful really. He just didn't quite see it that way.
Sometimes he uses 'we' as he is British now, but sometimes he is 'other', a Hungarian, It depends on what he wants to say. He ends the book by saying he respected the British more but liked them less when he first came. Now he tends to lack respect but likes them a great deal more.
I'm just glad to have escaped from the weather and having to talk about it.
July 13, 2017
Five stars for How to Be an Alien, which is early George Mikes. But, after decades in London, late George Mikes got a bit cranky, devolving to two stars for the stuff he wrote in the 1980s when he was starting to sound a bit like White Van Man.
May 23, 2021
This in a omni minibus comprising:
How to be an Alien, 1946
How to be Inimitable, 1960
How to be Decadent, 1977
Gentle humour from a Hungarian immigrant that inspired many others. See my detailed review of How to be an Alien, HERE.
How to be an Alien, 1946
How to be Inimitable, 1960
How to be Decadent, 1977
Gentle humour from a Hungarian immigrant that inspired many others. See my detailed review of How to be an Alien, HERE.
March 8, 2016
A classic of the genre: funny and wit with a very clever humour. An interesting and entertaining book on cultural diversity and British uniqueness.
However, having being published decades ago it's a bit outdated and sometimes, as an expat in London, it makes me difficult to relate to it.
Highly recommended to be read along with Angela Kiss's "How to be an alien in England", which provides an equally interesting and sharply hilarious, yet updated look at the English character.
However, having being published decades ago it's a bit outdated and sometimes, as an expat in London, it makes me difficult to relate to it.
Highly recommended to be read along with Angela Kiss's "How to be an alien in England", which provides an equally interesting and sharply hilarious, yet updated look at the English character.
August 18, 2017
(3.5) I’ve been reading this for weeks off and on and only just realized that the cover deliberately says “Minibus” instead of “Omnibus.” Anyway. The three volumes vary a bit in quality (see my individual reviews) –
How to Be an Alien
= 4 stars;
How to Be Inimitable
= 3 stars;
How to Be Decadent
= 3.5 stars – so overall it’s a 3.5. I enjoy books like this that give a wry and loving look at one’s adopted country. I bought this and various other books with the Amazon voucher I got as a leaving present from my first (and so far only) proper job in the UK.
July 31, 2021
This in a omni minibus comprising:
How to be an Alien, 1946
How to be Inimitable, 1960
How to be Decadent, 1977
Gentle humour from a Hungarian immigrant that inspired many others. See my detailed review of How to be an Alien, HERE.
How to be an Alien, 1946
How to be Inimitable, 1960
How to be Decadent, 1977
Gentle humour from a Hungarian immigrant that inspired many others. See my detailed review of How to be an Alien, HERE.
July 10, 2011
"An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one." This quote says all there is to say about this book.
I say... this book is quite enjoyable.
I say... this book is quite enjoyable.
July 3, 2017
I read the book more years ago than I like to admit, in my undergrad days while living in Perugia and attending the Italian University for Foreign Students. It was actually a gift from one of my professors, a British don of decidedly 'old school' sensibilities. When he handed me Mikes' little book Dr. Tompkins-Guinn informed me that, although I was a frighteningly 'ignorant Yank' he'd decided I wasn't stupid! Mikes' guide to the quirks of British culture turned out to be the first step in a sustained campaign by my often-tipsy Virgil to open my Midwestern mind to a much wider world.
I don't know if Dr. Tompkins-Guinn ultimately judged his project a success, but I'll always remember those months in Perugia. My encounter with Mikes (years before I actually set foot on British soil) was my first direct experience of that wonderful tradition of British humor that's every bit as dry as the gin martinis that I also learned to appreciate under kindly Dr. T-G's eccentric tutelage.
I suspect in some ways Mikes hasn't aged well. (Dr. Tompkins-Guinn certainly didn't!) But I'd recommend the book heartily to anyone who harbors an abiding affection for the quirks and mores that defined and sustained Britain as she emerged from the devastation of World War 2 and began to find her uncertain way in a new world in which the sun did indeed set on the Empire, even if no one wanted to admit it.
I don't know if Dr. Tompkins-Guinn ultimately judged his project a success, but I'll always remember those months in Perugia. My encounter with Mikes (years before I actually set foot on British soil) was my first direct experience of that wonderful tradition of British humor that's every bit as dry as the gin martinis that I also learned to appreciate under kindly Dr. T-G's eccentric tutelage.
I suspect in some ways Mikes hasn't aged well. (Dr. Tompkins-Guinn certainly didn't!) But I'd recommend the book heartily to anyone who harbors an abiding affection for the quirks and mores that defined and sustained Britain as she emerged from the devastation of World War 2 and began to find her uncertain way in a new world in which the sun did indeed set on the Empire, even if no one wanted to admit it.
March 20, 2018
I'm attracted to the Penguin classic design book and when I saw "How To Be a Brit" at the Last Bookstore in Downtown Los Angeles, it brought back memories of me going to used bookstores in London and finding old Penguin paperbacks from the 1940s. That it has illustrations going through the entire book is an additional plus. I didn't buy it. Two weeks later I saw it at a Tokyo bookstore that has an English language section, and they had a stack of this title. For sure, the perfect book for the foreigner visiting another country. Still, I didn't buy it. It wasn't until I got back from Japan that I went back to The Last Bookstore, to locate this damn book. I did and went to the library to get other titles by George Mikes.
I have a fascination with books by foreigners writing about another culture. Mikes originally came from Hungary and lived in London for most of his life. In a sense, he became more British than the British, and on top of that, he knew there is a cultural difference between the British and everyone else. Some of the commentaries are out-of-fashion, but for me, that's not a problem. Even the subject matter is not that important to me. What's important is Mikes' language and his funny observations that border on being stereotyping, but that's OK.
"How To be a Brit" is actually three short books put together. "How to be an Alien," How to be Inimitable, and "How to be Decadent," which sadly has no Sadian touches, but more with how the every day British treat themselves. Nicolas Bentley's illustrations throughout the book are charming, funny, and a reminder of Robert Benchley's world. In fact, there are traces of Benchley in Mikes' work. Both are the absurd humorists commenting on the everyday life of... well, people.
I have a fascination with books by foreigners writing about another culture. Mikes originally came from Hungary and lived in London for most of his life. In a sense, he became more British than the British, and on top of that, he knew there is a cultural difference between the British and everyone else. Some of the commentaries are out-of-fashion, but for me, that's not a problem. Even the subject matter is not that important to me. What's important is Mikes' language and his funny observations that border on being stereotyping, but that's OK.
"How To be a Brit" is actually three short books put together. "How to be an Alien," How to be Inimitable, and "How to be Decadent," which sadly has no Sadian touches, but more with how the every day British treat themselves. Nicolas Bentley's illustrations throughout the book are charming, funny, and a reminder of Robert Benchley's world. In fact, there are traces of Benchley in Mikes' work. Both are the absurd humorists commenting on the everyday life of... well, people.
September 12, 2019
To say I enjoyed this book is an understatement. Such unbridled wit and style. I think this is one of the books most foreigners would easily relate to. The love the author has for England shines through the pages and that is a beautiful thing to see. Definitely worth a read.
February 17, 2016
I got this as a funny gift from my British boyfriend because I think I'm British by default (because I'm dating one). It was not nearly funny as I hoped it would be.
March 5, 2018
3,5 Sterne
Hätte ich nur das erste der drei hier zusammengefassten Bücher (How to be an alien) bewerten müssen, wären es 5 Sterne geworden. How to be an alien fasst auf witzige und charmante Weise die Eigenarten der Briten zusammen. Viele Beobachtungen konnte ich nach mittlerweile 5 Monaten in Großbritannien nur bestätigen. Ich musste öfter laut lachen und hätte mir höchstens noch mehr unterhaltsame Anekdoten gewünscht.
Leider bieten die beiden anderen Bücher inhaltlich wenig Neues und reichen nicht an den Witz des Vorgängers heran. Es werden bereits bekannte Beobachtungen aufgewärmt und die Politik beklagt. Der Humor wirkt angestrengt.
Insgesamt ein durchwachsenes Erlebnis, das durch den hervorragenden ersten Teil aufgwertet wurde.
Hätte ich nur das erste der drei hier zusammengefassten Bücher (How to be an alien) bewerten müssen, wären es 5 Sterne geworden. How to be an alien fasst auf witzige und charmante Weise die Eigenarten der Briten zusammen. Viele Beobachtungen konnte ich nach mittlerweile 5 Monaten in Großbritannien nur bestätigen. Ich musste öfter laut lachen und hätte mir höchstens noch mehr unterhaltsame Anekdoten gewünscht.
Leider bieten die beiden anderen Bücher inhaltlich wenig Neues und reichen nicht an den Witz des Vorgängers heran. Es werden bereits bekannte Beobachtungen aufgewärmt und die Politik beklagt. Der Humor wirkt angestrengt.
Insgesamt ein durchwachsenes Erlebnis, das durch den hervorragenden ersten Teil aufgwertet wurde.
January 2, 2025
Ondanks de leeftijd van het boek, heb ik meermaals luidop moeten lachen. Een absolute aanrader voor elke anglofiel.
April 14, 2025
Amusing init
December 1, 2017
I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14500760
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14500760
January 3, 2019
This book is a social satire and was a joy to read. The way Mikes describes the Brits is really humorous. I had no idea that British people are fond of queuing and do it every chance they get. They talk about the weather all the time. That is their favorite topic. And so much more. Here's some excerpts from the book:
I think England is the only country in the world where you have to leave your lights on even if you park in a brilliantly lit-up street. The advantage being that your battery gets exhausted, you cannot start up again and consequently the number of road accidents are greatly reduced. Safety first!
The English have no soul; they have the understatement instead.
If a continental youth wants to declare his love to a girl, he kneels down, tells her that she is the sweetest, the most charming and ravishing person in the world, that she has something in her, something peculiar and individual which only a few hundred thousand other women have and that he would be unable to live one more minute without her. Often, to give a little more emphasis to the statement, he shoots himself on the spot. This is a normal, week-day declaration of love in the more temperamental continental countries. In England the boy pats his adored one on the back and says softly: ‘I don’t object to you, you know.’ If he is quite mad with passion, he may add: ‘I rather fancy you, in fact.’
When I arrived in England I thought I knew English. After I’d been here an hour I realized that I did not understand one word. In the first week I picked up a tolerable working knowledge of the language and the next seven years convinced me gradually but thoroughly that I would never know it really well, let alone perfectly.
The easiest way to give the impression of having a good accent or no foreign accent at all is to hold an unlit pipe in your mouth, to mutter between your teeth and finish all your sentences with the question: ‘isn’t it?’
My greatest difficulty in turning myself into a true Britisher was the Art of Shopping. In my silly and primitive Continental way, I believed that the aim of shopping was to buy things; to buy things, moreover, you needed or fancied. Today I know that (a) shopping is a social — as opposed to a commercial — activity and (b) its aim is to help the shopkeeper to get rid of all that junk.
When I was young, I heard this joke in Budapest. A man goes to the rabbi and complains: ‘Rabbi, I am in despair. At my wits’ end. Life is unbearable. We just cannot stand it any longer. There are nine of us — my wife and myself, her parents and five children — and we all live in one room. What can I do?’
The rabbi tells him kindly: ‘Take the goat in.’
The man is incredulous: ‘In the room?’
‘Yes, in the room. Do as you are told. Take the goat in and come back in a week’s time.’
A week later the man comes back, half dead: ‘Rabbi, we just cannot stand it. All of us are going crazy. The goat is filthy. Loud. Dirty. It stinks. It makes a mess.’
The rabbi told him: ‘Go home and let the goat out. And come back in a week’s time.’
A radiantly happy man visits the rabbi a week later. ‘Life is beautiful, rabbi. Lovely. We all enjoy every minute of life. No goat: only the nine of us.’
The same has happened to the British economy.
Politically you must belong to the extreme left. You must, however, bear a few things in mind:
1. You must not care a damn about the welfare of the people in this country or abroad, because that would be ‘practical politics’ — and you should only be interested in the ideological side of matters.
2. Do not belong to any party, because that would be ‘regimentation.’ Whatever different parties achieve, it is much more interesting to criticize everyone than to belong to the herd.
3. Do not hesitate to scorn Soviet Russia as reactionary and imperialistic, the British Labour Party as a conglomeration of elderly Trade Union Blimps, the French Socialists as ‘confused people,’ the other Western Socialist parties as meek, bourgeois clubs, the American labour movements as being in the pay of big business; and call all republicans, communists, anarchists and nihilists ‘backward, reactionary crypto-fascists.’
I think England is the only country in the world where you have to leave your lights on even if you park in a brilliantly lit-up street. The advantage being that your battery gets exhausted, you cannot start up again and consequently the number of road accidents are greatly reduced. Safety first!
The English have no soul; they have the understatement instead.
If a continental youth wants to declare his love to a girl, he kneels down, tells her that she is the sweetest, the most charming and ravishing person in the world, that she has something in her, something peculiar and individual which only a few hundred thousand other women have and that he would be unable to live one more minute without her. Often, to give a little more emphasis to the statement, he shoots himself on the spot. This is a normal, week-day declaration of love in the more temperamental continental countries. In England the boy pats his adored one on the back and says softly: ‘I don’t object to you, you know.’ If he is quite mad with passion, he may add: ‘I rather fancy you, in fact.’
When I arrived in England I thought I knew English. After I’d been here an hour I realized that I did not understand one word. In the first week I picked up a tolerable working knowledge of the language and the next seven years convinced me gradually but thoroughly that I would never know it really well, let alone perfectly.
The easiest way to give the impression of having a good accent or no foreign accent at all is to hold an unlit pipe in your mouth, to mutter between your teeth and finish all your sentences with the question: ‘isn’t it?’
My greatest difficulty in turning myself into a true Britisher was the Art of Shopping. In my silly and primitive Continental way, I believed that the aim of shopping was to buy things; to buy things, moreover, you needed or fancied. Today I know that (a) shopping is a social — as opposed to a commercial — activity and (b) its aim is to help the shopkeeper to get rid of all that junk.
When I was young, I heard this joke in Budapest. A man goes to the rabbi and complains: ‘Rabbi, I am in despair. At my wits’ end. Life is unbearable. We just cannot stand it any longer. There are nine of us — my wife and myself, her parents and five children — and we all live in one room. What can I do?’
The rabbi tells him kindly: ‘Take the goat in.’
The man is incredulous: ‘In the room?’
‘Yes, in the room. Do as you are told. Take the goat in and come back in a week’s time.’
A week later the man comes back, half dead: ‘Rabbi, we just cannot stand it. All of us are going crazy. The goat is filthy. Loud. Dirty. It stinks. It makes a mess.’
The rabbi told him: ‘Go home and let the goat out. And come back in a week’s time.’
A radiantly happy man visits the rabbi a week later. ‘Life is beautiful, rabbi. Lovely. We all enjoy every minute of life. No goat: only the nine of us.’
The same has happened to the British economy.
Politically you must belong to the extreme left. You must, however, bear a few things in mind:
1. You must not care a damn about the welfare of the people in this country or abroad, because that would be ‘practical politics’ — and you should only be interested in the ideological side of matters.
2. Do not belong to any party, because that would be ‘regimentation.’ Whatever different parties achieve, it is much more interesting to criticize everyone than to belong to the herd.
3. Do not hesitate to scorn Soviet Russia as reactionary and imperialistic, the British Labour Party as a conglomeration of elderly Trade Union Blimps, the French Socialists as ‘confused people,’ the other Western Socialist parties as meek, bourgeois clubs, the American labour movements as being in the pay of big business; and call all republicans, communists, anarchists and nihilists ‘backward, reactionary crypto-fascists.’
January 28, 2016
Рядко чета хумористични книги, а може би трябва да започна по-често:) Тази има брилянтни попадения. Особено смешна ще бъде за хора, които са се докоснали до британската култура и от личен опит са установили някои от характерните за британците черти:) Настроението ми, докато пътувах с метрото и четях тази книга през изминалите няколко седмици, беше много добро:) Препоръчвам я.
April 28, 2008
A combination of three books by the same author, an expatriate to the UK. One written in the 40s, one in the 60s, one in the 70s. But the humor has aged well. Funny for anyone who's an anglophile or anyone who likes to make fun of people who are anglophiles.
March 20, 2008
3xW = Witty, Wise, Worth reading!
Even though I dare to say that it's easier to comprehend for all foreigners than for Englishmen with sense of humore ;)
Even though I dare to say that it's easier to comprehend for all foreigners than for Englishmen with sense of humore ;)
May 23, 2018
This recompilation feels odd because of the time gap between the content but still it was quite hilarious, having visited England with someone who lived there a little while greatly improved my appreciation of the humor and the little things that you can’t help to notice when you’re there.
May 10, 2018
This is fun, witty, and if I must confess, utterly hilarious. The best part is the original 'How to be an alien', as the other works were written many years later and don't quite read the same. Having lived in London myself for a bit over a year, there were parts I found extremely hilarious. I definitely wouldn't consider myself an expat or anything, was just a student back then, but you start noticing certain things, and you start observing people, and taking in the city. All the bits about how London is configured, the names of the streets, the confusing way streets are set up, the buses, the traffic, it all rang real to me because I had seen it, and that's what made it fun. I kept laughing and nodding all the time.
Other things were completely alien to me, as I haven't actually had much contact with English people. But I would believe them to be true as well, up to a point. The only thing that feels weird is the year gap, since it was a while since it was written, somethings actually sound quite outdated, but they are the least.
As someone who has had the pleasure of getting to know London, this was brilliant.
Other things were completely alien to me, as I haven't actually had much contact with English people. But I would believe them to be true as well, up to a point. The only thing that feels weird is the year gap, since it was a while since it was written, somethings actually sound quite outdated, but they are the least.
As someone who has had the pleasure of getting to know London, this was brilliant.
January 25, 2021
Discovering works of this author was a blessing when it happened at a time when one needed it most, what with difficult years ahead and not much to look back at either, and it was largely due to someone who brought sunshine and shade from glare, both; his brother working with Penguin in London, coupled with his own love of books that was independent of the brothers fortuitous job, amounted to his larger access to books, even though he didn't depend on the brother for more than occasional chat about Penguin publications.
So I found a wonderful first, How To Be An Alien, and loved it, and was fortunate enough to find more wherever I could through next couple of decades or so - How to be Inimitable, How to Scrape Skies, How to Tango, The Land of the Rising Yen, How to Run a Stately Home (with the Duke of Bedford), Switzerland for Beginners, How to be Decadent, How to be Poor, How to be a Guru and How to be God by George Mikes.
One that remains most in memory, is a chapter about currency in Israel, and its conclusion.
............
Unfortunately most of his works aren't available on Amazon, and it's unclear if that's because Penguin is unwilling to consider the loss for younger readers, or turns up their British nose, at a multinational concern that makes books available to readers at far less cost and trouble, than involved in going to a good bookstore after finding one that one can access, being able to order the books one wants and then having space enough at home to store them.
One is fortunate enough to have found and read them long before the era of internet, but one would still like them on one's tab, apart from other excellent British authors - James Hilton, A. J. Cronin, Agatha Christie, P. G. Wodehouse, .... and yes, one is glad that classic authors such as Jane Austen, Bronte sisters and Thomas Hardy are available on internet, as are most living ones; but still, so should be these comparatively more recent ones, of early to middle decades of twentieth century.
............
Quoted, from blurb, of English Humour for Beginners: (by George Mikes):-
"George Mikes was born in 1912 in Siklós, Hungary. Having studied law and received his doctorate from Budapest University, he became a journalist and was sent to London as a correspondent to cover the Munich crisis. He came for a fortnight but stayed on and made England his home. During the Second World War he broadcast for the BBC Hungarian Service, where he remained until 1951. He continued working as a freelance critic, broadcaster and writer until his death in 1987.
"English Humour for Beginners was first published in 1980, when Mikes had already established himself as a humorist as English as they come. His other books include How to be an Alien, How to Unite Nations, How to be Inimitable, How to Scrape Skies, How to Tango, The Land of the Rising Yen, How to Run a Stately Home (with the Duke of Bedford), Switzerland for Beginners, How to be Decadent, How to be Poor, How to be a Guru and How to be God. He also wrote a study of the Hungarian Revolution and A Study of Infamy, an analysis of the Hungarian secret political police system. On his seventieth birthday he published his autobiography, How to be Seventy."
............
Quoted from Preface of How To Be A Brit:
"Back in 1945, when André Deutsch was trying to build up a new publishing firm, he asked me if I had anything for him. I told him that I was fiddling about with some little essays which were linked by a basic idea: how to be an alien. Why I was staying on the Isle of Wight I can no longer remember, but I must have been doing so, or why would he have come there to collect the manuscript?
"He enjoyed what he read, but told me that there was not enough of it for a book. So I sat down one afternoon and added five thousand more words. If anyone had said to me that I ought to take more trouble, since forty years later this book would still be selling about thirty thousand copies a year in paperback, not to mention going into a new hardback edition for which I would have to write a preface – well, I would have told that person, gently but firmly, that he or she ought to have his or her head examined. Indeed I would probably have said the same thing if told that I would still be here to write anything in forty years time, and that André would still be around – though disguised as a distinguished old boy – to publish it.
"How to be an Alien was a cri de coeur, a desperate cry for help: oh God, look at me, I have fallen among strange people! ‘But it’s such a funny book,’ people say. Perhaps it is. I hope it is. But it’s not unknown for shrieks, moans, whoops and ululations to sound funny to the uninvolved.
"In due course I added two further shrieks to that first one: How to be Inimitable in 1960, when we had started to slip but still had an Empire and refused to acknowledge much change; and How to be Decadent in 1977. All three books were illustrated by my great and much-missed friend, Nicolas Bentley.
"During all those years since 1945, something rather curious was happening: as I strove to stop being an alien and to become a true Brit, Britain was striving to cast off its peculiar and lofty insularity and become one with the aliens, a part of the Continent (almost), just another member of the E.E.C. It often seems to me that I have failed in my endeavour; but compared with Britain I have succeeded gloriously.
"GEORGE MIKES
"April 1984"
............
Quoted from my review, writtenduring the time I wrote what I thought of various books read over decades, as remembered after decades:
Mikés has no equal when you would like an introduction to a country, a culture, with loads of on the mark observations and humour. How To Be An Alien is an excellent introduction to the whole series, probably not written as such but developed into one, with memorable books later on Israel, South America and so forth. About Germany there is a comparable one, written probably much earlier, by Jerome K. Jerome named Three Men On A Bummel, the sequel to his Three Men On A Boat (To say Nothing About The Dog).
Still, that does not mean to say that there is any less of originality in Mikés version or less humour or less anything. Mikés is wonderful and incomparable in a way that is accessible to more readers, with a universal readability - while the earlier Jerome K. Jerome remains very English, which has a different flavour to be enjoyed.
October 16, 2008.
............
............
He begins with an almost unnoticeable reply to the title, printed high up in tiny letters on an otherwise blank page after the preface:-
"It’s easy"
and carries on to the next page with the opening chapter, nonchalantly.
............
Then comes preface to 24th impression.
"The reception given to this book when it first appeared in the autumn of 1946, was at once a pleasant surprise and a disappointment for me. A surprise, because the reception was so kind; a disappointment for the same reason.
"Let me explain.
"The first part of this statement needs little amplification. Even people who are not closely connected with the publishing trade will be able to realize that it is very nice – I’m sorry, I’d better be a little more English: a not totally unpleasant thing for a completely unknown author to run into three impressions within a few weeks of publication and thereafter into another twenty-one.
"What is my grievance, then? It is that this book has completely changed the picture I used to cherish of myself. This was to be a book of defiance. Before its publication I felt myself a man who was going to tell the English where to get off. I had spoken my mind regardless of consequences; I thought I was brave and outspoken and expected either to go unnoticed or to face a storm. But no storm came. I expected the English to be up in arms against me but they patted me on the back; I expected the British nation to rise in wrath but all they said, was: ‘quite amusing’. It was indeed a bitter disappointment.
"While the Roumanian Radio was serializing (without my permission) How to be an Alien as an anti-British tract, the Central Office of Information rang me up here in London and asked me to allow the book to be translated into Polish for the benefit of those many Polish refugees who were then settling in this country. ‘We want our friends to see us in this light,’ the man said on the telephone. This was hard to bear for my militant and defiant spirit. ‘But it’s not such a favourable light,’ I protested feebly. ‘It’s a very human light and that is the most favourable,’ retorted the official. I was crushed.
"A few weeks later my drooping spirit was revived when I heard of a suburban bank manager whose wife had brought this book home to him remarking that she had found it fairly amusing. The gentleman in question sat down in front of his open fire, put his feet up and read the book right through with a continually darkening face. When he had finished, he stood up and said:
"‘Downright impertinence.’ And threw the book into the fire.
"He was a noble and patriotic spirit and he did me a great deal of good. I wished there had been more like him in England. But I could never find another.
"Since then I have actually written about a dozen books; but I might as well have never written anything else. I remained the author of How to be an Alien even after I had published a collection of serious essays. Even Mr Somerset Maugham complained about this type of treatment bitterly and repeatedly. Whatever he did, he was told that he would never write another Of Human Bondage; Arnold Bennett in spite of fifty other works remained the author of The Old Wives’ Tale and nothing else; and Mr Robert Graves is just the author of the Claudius books. These authors are much more eminent than I am; but their problem is the same. At the moment I am engaged in writing a 750-page picaresque novel set in ancient Sumeria. It is taking shape nicely and I am going to get the Nobel Prize for it. But it will be of no use: I shall still remain the author of How to be an Alien."
"‘When are you going to write another How to be an Alien?’ Deutsch and Bentley ask me from time to time and I am sure they mean it kindly.
"They cannot quite make out the reply I mutter in answer to their friendly query. It is:
"‘Never, if I can help it.’
"London, May 1958
"GEORGE MIKES"
............
Then comes the knockout preface, setting the tone for the book.
"I believe, without undue modesty, that I have certain qualifications to write on ‘how to be an alien’. I am an alien myself. What is more, I have been an alien all my life. Only during the first twenty-six years of my life I was not aware of this plain fact. I was living in my own country, a country full of aliens, and I noticed nothing particular or irregular about myself; then I came to England, and you can imagine my painful surprise.
"Like all great and important discoveries it was a matter of a few seconds. You probably all know from your schooldays how Isaac Newton discovered the law of gravitation. An apple fell on his head. This incident set him thinking for a minute or two, then he exclaimed joyfully: ‘Of course! The gravitation constant is the acceleration per second that a mass of one gram causes at a distance of one centimetre.’ You were also taught that James Watt one day went into the kitchen where cabbage was cooking and saw the lid of the saucepan rise and fall. ‘Now let me think,’ he murmured – ‘let me think.’ Then he struck his forehead and the steam engine was discovered. It was the same with me, although circumstances were rather different.
"It was like this. Some years ago I spent a lot of time with a young lady who was very proud and conscious of being English. Once she asked me – to my great surprise – whether I would marry her. ‘No,’ I replied, ‘I will not. My mother would never agree to my marrying a foreigner.’ She looked at me a little surprised and irritated, and retorted: ‘I, a foreigner? What a silly thing to say. I am English. You are the foreigner. And your mother, too.’ I did not give in. ‘In Budapest, too?’ I asked her. ‘Everywhere,’ she declared with determination. ‘Truth does not depend on geography. What is true in England is also true in Hungary and in North Borneo and Venezuela and everywhere.’
"I saw that this theory was as irrefutable as it was simple. I was startled and upset. Mainly because of my mother whom I loved and respected. Now, I suddenly learned what she really was.
"It was a shame and bad taste to be an alien, and it is no use pretending otherwise. There is no way out of it. A criminal may improve and become a decent member of society. A foreigner cannot improve. Once a foreigner, always a foreigner. There is no way out for him. He may become British; he can never become English.
"So it is better to reconcile yourself to the sorrowful reality. There are some noble English people who might forgive you. There are some magnanimous souls who realize that it is not your fault, only your misfortune. They will treat you with condescension, understanding and sympathy. They will invite you to their homes. Just as they keep lap-dogs and other pets, they are quite prepared to keep a few foreigners.
"The title of this book, How to be an Alien, consequently expresses more than it should. How to be an alien? One should not be an alien at all. There are certain rules, however, which have to be followed if you want to make yourself as acceptable and civilized as you possibly can.
"Study these rules, and imitate the English. There can be only one result: if you don’t succeed in imitating them you become ridiculous; if you do, you become even more ridiculous."
............
The illustrations are superb, beginning with the illustration of the last sentence above, regarding imitating and being ridiculous.
My personal favourite has been the most memorable one of the English country gentleman chatting to his dog as they walk together, with the dog containing his wrath and suffering in silence. This illustration accompanies a two sentence chapter, about the proper English way, regarding treatment of intimate human companion versus that of one's dog.
............
Mikes goes on by beginning the book with elaborating on differences between English and continental people, customs, spirits, and so on. The high point is when an entire chapter consists of:-
"Continental people have sex life; the English have hot-water bottles."
............
One could go on, but the reader ought to have pleasure of reading the book. Oh, wait - no, one can't describe or quote his reference to the famous declaration by Queen Victoria about her not being amused; it has to be read in the original!
............
So I found a wonderful first, How To Be An Alien, and loved it, and was fortunate enough to find more wherever I could through next couple of decades or so - How to be Inimitable, How to Scrape Skies, How to Tango, The Land of the Rising Yen, How to Run a Stately Home (with the Duke of Bedford), Switzerland for Beginners, How to be Decadent, How to be Poor, How to be a Guru and How to be God by George Mikes.
One that remains most in memory, is a chapter about currency in Israel, and its conclusion.
............
Unfortunately most of his works aren't available on Amazon, and it's unclear if that's because Penguin is unwilling to consider the loss for younger readers, or turns up their British nose, at a multinational concern that makes books available to readers at far less cost and trouble, than involved in going to a good bookstore after finding one that one can access, being able to order the books one wants and then having space enough at home to store them.
One is fortunate enough to have found and read them long before the era of internet, but one would still like them on one's tab, apart from other excellent British authors - James Hilton, A. J. Cronin, Agatha Christie, P. G. Wodehouse, .... and yes, one is glad that classic authors such as Jane Austen, Bronte sisters and Thomas Hardy are available on internet, as are most living ones; but still, so should be these comparatively more recent ones, of early to middle decades of twentieth century.
............
Quoted, from blurb, of English Humour for Beginners: (by George Mikes):-
"George Mikes was born in 1912 in Siklós, Hungary. Having studied law and received his doctorate from Budapest University, he became a journalist and was sent to London as a correspondent to cover the Munich crisis. He came for a fortnight but stayed on and made England his home. During the Second World War he broadcast for the BBC Hungarian Service, where he remained until 1951. He continued working as a freelance critic, broadcaster and writer until his death in 1987.
"English Humour for Beginners was first published in 1980, when Mikes had already established himself as a humorist as English as they come. His other books include How to be an Alien, How to Unite Nations, How to be Inimitable, How to Scrape Skies, How to Tango, The Land of the Rising Yen, How to Run a Stately Home (with the Duke of Bedford), Switzerland for Beginners, How to be Decadent, How to be Poor, How to be a Guru and How to be God. He also wrote a study of the Hungarian Revolution and A Study of Infamy, an analysis of the Hungarian secret political police system. On his seventieth birthday he published his autobiography, How to be Seventy."
............
Quoted from Preface of How To Be A Brit:
"Back in 1945, when André Deutsch was trying to build up a new publishing firm, he asked me if I had anything for him. I told him that I was fiddling about with some little essays which were linked by a basic idea: how to be an alien. Why I was staying on the Isle of Wight I can no longer remember, but I must have been doing so, or why would he have come there to collect the manuscript?
"He enjoyed what he read, but told me that there was not enough of it for a book. So I sat down one afternoon and added five thousand more words. If anyone had said to me that I ought to take more trouble, since forty years later this book would still be selling about thirty thousand copies a year in paperback, not to mention going into a new hardback edition for which I would have to write a preface – well, I would have told that person, gently but firmly, that he or she ought to have his or her head examined. Indeed I would probably have said the same thing if told that I would still be here to write anything in forty years time, and that André would still be around – though disguised as a distinguished old boy – to publish it.
"How to be an Alien was a cri de coeur, a desperate cry for help: oh God, look at me, I have fallen among strange people! ‘But it’s such a funny book,’ people say. Perhaps it is. I hope it is. But it’s not unknown for shrieks, moans, whoops and ululations to sound funny to the uninvolved.
"In due course I added two further shrieks to that first one: How to be Inimitable in 1960, when we had started to slip but still had an Empire and refused to acknowledge much change; and How to be Decadent in 1977. All three books were illustrated by my great and much-missed friend, Nicolas Bentley.
"During all those years since 1945, something rather curious was happening: as I strove to stop being an alien and to become a true Brit, Britain was striving to cast off its peculiar and lofty insularity and become one with the aliens, a part of the Continent (almost), just another member of the E.E.C. It often seems to me that I have failed in my endeavour; but compared with Britain I have succeeded gloriously.
"GEORGE MIKES
"April 1984"
............
Quoted from my review, writtenduring the time I wrote what I thought of various books read over decades, as remembered after decades:
Mikés has no equal when you would like an introduction to a country, a culture, with loads of on the mark observations and humour. How To Be An Alien is an excellent introduction to the whole series, probably not written as such but developed into one, with memorable books later on Israel, South America and so forth. About Germany there is a comparable one, written probably much earlier, by Jerome K. Jerome named Three Men On A Bummel, the sequel to his Three Men On A Boat (To say Nothing About The Dog).
Still, that does not mean to say that there is any less of originality in Mikés version or less humour or less anything. Mikés is wonderful and incomparable in a way that is accessible to more readers, with a universal readability - while the earlier Jerome K. Jerome remains very English, which has a different flavour to be enjoyed.
October 16, 2008.
............
............
He begins with an almost unnoticeable reply to the title, printed high up in tiny letters on an otherwise blank page after the preface:-
"It’s easy"
and carries on to the next page with the opening chapter, nonchalantly.
............
Then comes preface to 24th impression.
"The reception given to this book when it first appeared in the autumn of 1946, was at once a pleasant surprise and a disappointment for me. A surprise, because the reception was so kind; a disappointment for the same reason.
"Let me explain.
"The first part of this statement needs little amplification. Even people who are not closely connected with the publishing trade will be able to realize that it is very nice – I’m sorry, I’d better be a little more English: a not totally unpleasant thing for a completely unknown author to run into three impressions within a few weeks of publication and thereafter into another twenty-one.
"What is my grievance, then? It is that this book has completely changed the picture I used to cherish of myself. This was to be a book of defiance. Before its publication I felt myself a man who was going to tell the English where to get off. I had spoken my mind regardless of consequences; I thought I was brave and outspoken and expected either to go unnoticed or to face a storm. But no storm came. I expected the English to be up in arms against me but they patted me on the back; I expected the British nation to rise in wrath but all they said, was: ‘quite amusing’. It was indeed a bitter disappointment.
"While the Roumanian Radio was serializing (without my permission) How to be an Alien as an anti-British tract, the Central Office of Information rang me up here in London and asked me to allow the book to be translated into Polish for the benefit of those many Polish refugees who were then settling in this country. ‘We want our friends to see us in this light,’ the man said on the telephone. This was hard to bear for my militant and defiant spirit. ‘But it’s not such a favourable light,’ I protested feebly. ‘It’s a very human light and that is the most favourable,’ retorted the official. I was crushed.
"A few weeks later my drooping spirit was revived when I heard of a suburban bank manager whose wife had brought this book home to him remarking that she had found it fairly amusing. The gentleman in question sat down in front of his open fire, put his feet up and read the book right through with a continually darkening face. When he had finished, he stood up and said:
"‘Downright impertinence.’ And threw the book into the fire.
"He was a noble and patriotic spirit and he did me a great deal of good. I wished there had been more like him in England. But I could never find another.
"Since then I have actually written about a dozen books; but I might as well have never written anything else. I remained the author of How to be an Alien even after I had published a collection of serious essays. Even Mr Somerset Maugham complained about this type of treatment bitterly and repeatedly. Whatever he did, he was told that he would never write another Of Human Bondage; Arnold Bennett in spite of fifty other works remained the author of The Old Wives’ Tale and nothing else; and Mr Robert Graves is just the author of the Claudius books. These authors are much more eminent than I am; but their problem is the same. At the moment I am engaged in writing a 750-page picaresque novel set in ancient Sumeria. It is taking shape nicely and I am going to get the Nobel Prize for it. But it will be of no use: I shall still remain the author of How to be an Alien."
"‘When are you going to write another How to be an Alien?’ Deutsch and Bentley ask me from time to time and I am sure they mean it kindly.
"They cannot quite make out the reply I mutter in answer to their friendly query. It is:
"‘Never, if I can help it.’
"London, May 1958
"GEORGE MIKES"
............
Then comes the knockout preface, setting the tone for the book.
"I believe, without undue modesty, that I have certain qualifications to write on ‘how to be an alien’. I am an alien myself. What is more, I have been an alien all my life. Only during the first twenty-six years of my life I was not aware of this plain fact. I was living in my own country, a country full of aliens, and I noticed nothing particular or irregular about myself; then I came to England, and you can imagine my painful surprise.
"Like all great and important discoveries it was a matter of a few seconds. You probably all know from your schooldays how Isaac Newton discovered the law of gravitation. An apple fell on his head. This incident set him thinking for a minute or two, then he exclaimed joyfully: ‘Of course! The gravitation constant is the acceleration per second that a mass of one gram causes at a distance of one centimetre.’ You were also taught that James Watt one day went into the kitchen where cabbage was cooking and saw the lid of the saucepan rise and fall. ‘Now let me think,’ he murmured – ‘let me think.’ Then he struck his forehead and the steam engine was discovered. It was the same with me, although circumstances were rather different.
"It was like this. Some years ago I spent a lot of time with a young lady who was very proud and conscious of being English. Once she asked me – to my great surprise – whether I would marry her. ‘No,’ I replied, ‘I will not. My mother would never agree to my marrying a foreigner.’ She looked at me a little surprised and irritated, and retorted: ‘I, a foreigner? What a silly thing to say. I am English. You are the foreigner. And your mother, too.’ I did not give in. ‘In Budapest, too?’ I asked her. ‘Everywhere,’ she declared with determination. ‘Truth does not depend on geography. What is true in England is also true in Hungary and in North Borneo and Venezuela and everywhere.’
"I saw that this theory was as irrefutable as it was simple. I was startled and upset. Mainly because of my mother whom I loved and respected. Now, I suddenly learned what she really was.
"It was a shame and bad taste to be an alien, and it is no use pretending otherwise. There is no way out of it. A criminal may improve and become a decent member of society. A foreigner cannot improve. Once a foreigner, always a foreigner. There is no way out for him. He may become British; he can never become English.
"So it is better to reconcile yourself to the sorrowful reality. There are some noble English people who might forgive you. There are some magnanimous souls who realize that it is not your fault, only your misfortune. They will treat you with condescension, understanding and sympathy. They will invite you to their homes. Just as they keep lap-dogs and other pets, they are quite prepared to keep a few foreigners.
"The title of this book, How to be an Alien, consequently expresses more than it should. How to be an alien? One should not be an alien at all. There are certain rules, however, which have to be followed if you want to make yourself as acceptable and civilized as you possibly can.
"Study these rules, and imitate the English. There can be only one result: if you don’t succeed in imitating them you become ridiculous; if you do, you become even more ridiculous."
............
The illustrations are superb, beginning with the illustration of the last sentence above, regarding imitating and being ridiculous.
My personal favourite has been the most memorable one of the English country gentleman chatting to his dog as they walk together, with the dog containing his wrath and suffering in silence. This illustration accompanies a two sentence chapter, about the proper English way, regarding treatment of intimate human companion versus that of one's dog.
............
Mikes goes on by beginning the book with elaborating on differences between English and continental people, customs, spirits, and so on. The high point is when an entire chapter consists of:-
"Continental people have sex life; the English have hot-water bottles."
............
One could go on, but the reader ought to have pleasure of reading the book. Oh, wait - no, one can't describe or quote his reference to the famous declaration by Queen Victoria about her not being amused; it has to be read in the original!
............
January 25, 2021
Discovering works of this author was a blessing when it happened at a time when one needed it most, what with difficult years ahead and not much to look back at either, and it was largely due to someone who brought sunshine and shade from glare, both; his brother working with Penguin in London, coupled with his own love of books that was independent of the brothers fortuitous job, amounted to his larger access to books, even though he didn't depend on the brother for more than occasional chat about Penguin publications.
So I found a wonderful first, How To Be An Alien, and loved it, and was fortunate enough to find more wherever I could through next couple of decades or so - How to be Inimitable, How to Scrape Skies, How to Tango, The Land of the Rising Yen, How to Run a Stately Home (with the Duke of Bedford), Switzerland for Beginners, How to be Decadent, How to be Poor, How to be a Guru and How to be God by George Mikes.
One that remains most in memory, is a chapter about currency in Israel, and its conclusion.
............
Unfortunately most of his works aren't available on Amazon, and it's unclear if that's because Penguin is unwilling to consider the loss for younger readers, or turns up their British nose, at a multinational concern that makes books available to readers at far less cost and trouble, than involved in going to a good bookstore after finding one that one can access, being able to order the books one wants and then having space enough at home to store them.
One is fortunate enough to have found and read them long before the era of internet, but one would still like them on one's tab, apart from other excellent British authors - James Hilton, A. J. Cronin, Agatha Christie, P. G. Wodehouse, .... and yes, one is glad that classic authors such as Jane Austen, Bronte sisters and Thomas Hardy are available on internet, as are most living ones; but still, so should be these comparatively more recent ones, of early to middle decades of twentieth century.
............
Quoted, from blurb, of English Humour for Beginners: (by George Mikes):-
"George Mikes was born in 1912 in Siklós, Hungary. Having studied law and received his doctorate from Budapest University, he became a journalist and was sent to London as a correspondent to cover the Munich crisis. He came for a fortnight but stayed on and made England his home. During the Second World War he broadcast for the BBC Hungarian Service, where he remained until 1951. He continued working as a freelance critic, broadcaster and writer until his death in 1987.
"English Humour for Beginners was first published in 1980, when Mikes had already established himself as a humorist as English as they come. His other books include How to be an Alien, How to Unite Nations, How to be Inimitable, How to Scrape Skies, How to Tango, The Land of the Rising Yen, How to Run a Stately Home (with the Duke of Bedford), Switzerland for Beginners, How to be Decadent, How to be Poor, How to be a Guru and How to be God. He also wrote a study of the Hungarian Revolution and A Study of Infamy, an analysis of the Hungarian secret political police system. On his seventieth birthday he published his autobiography, How to be Seventy."
............
Quoted from Preface of How To Be A Brit:
"Back in 1945, when André Deutsch was trying to build up a new publishing firm, he asked me if I had anything for him. I told him that I was fiddling about with some little essays which were linked by a basic idea: how to be an alien. Why I was staying on the Isle of Wight I can no longer remember, but I must have been doing so, or why would he have come there to collect the manuscript?
"He enjoyed what he read, but told me that there was not enough of it for a book. So I sat down one afternoon and added five thousand more words. If anyone had said to me that I ought to take more trouble, since forty years later this book would still be selling about thirty thousand copies a year in paperback, not to mention going into a new hardback edition for which I would have to write a preface – well, I would have told that person, gently but firmly, that he or she ought to have his or her head examined. Indeed I would probably have said the same thing if told that I would still be here to write anything in forty years time, and that André would still be around – though disguised as a distinguished old boy – to publish it.
"How to be an Alien was a cri de coeur, a desperate cry for help: oh God, look at me, I have fallen among strange people! ‘But it’s such a funny book,’ people say. Perhaps it is. I hope it is. But it’s not unknown for shrieks, moans, whoops and ululations to sound funny to the uninvolved.
"In due course I added two further shrieks to that first one: How to be Inimitable in 1960, when we had started to slip but still had an Empire and refused to acknowledge much change; and How to be Decadent in 1977. All three books were illustrated by my great and much-missed friend, Nicolas Bentley.
"During all those years since 1945, something rather curious was happening: as I strove to stop being an alien and to become a true Brit, Britain was striving to cast off its peculiar and lofty insularity and become one with the aliens, a part of the Continent (almost), just another member of the E.E.C. It often seems to me that I have failed in my endeavour; but compared with Britain I have succeeded gloriously.
"GEORGE MIKES
"April 1984"
............
Quoted from my review, writtenduring the time I wrote what I thought of various books read over decades, as remembered after decades:
Mikés has no equal when you would like an introduction to a country, a culture, with loads of on the mark observations and humour. How To Be An Alien is an excellent introduction to the whole series, probably not written as such but developed into one, with memorable books later on Israel, South America and so forth. About Germany there is a comparable one, written probably much earlier, by Jerome K. Jerome named Three Men On A Bummel, the sequel to his Three Men On A Boat (To say Nothing About The Dog).
Still, that does not mean to say that there is any less of originality in Mikés version or less humour or less anything. Mikés is wonderful and incomparable in a way that is accessible to more readers, with a universal readability - while the earlier Jerome K. Jerome remains very English, which has a different flavour to be enjoyed.
October 16, 2008.
............
............
He begins with an almost unnoticeable reply to the title, printed high up in tiny letters on an otherwise blank page after the preface:-
"It’s easy"
and carries on to the next page with the opening chapter, nonchalantly.
............
Then comes preface to 24th impression.
"The reception given to this book when it first appeared in the autumn of 1946, was at once a pleasant surprise and a disappointment for me. A surprise, because the reception was so kind; a disappointment for the same reason.
"Let me explain.
"The first part of this statement needs little amplification. Even people who are not closely connected with the publishing trade will be able to realize that it is very nice – I’m sorry, I’d better be a little more English: a not totally unpleasant thing for a completely unknown author to run into three impressions within a few weeks of publication and thereafter into another twenty-one.
"What is my grievance, then? It is that this book has completely changed the picture I used to cherish of myself. This was to be a book of defiance. Before its publication I felt myself a man who was going to tell the English where to get off. I had spoken my mind regardless of consequences; I thought I was brave and outspoken and expected either to go unnoticed or to face a storm. But no storm came. I expected the English to be up in arms against me but they patted me on the back; I expected the British nation to rise in wrath but all they said, was: ‘quite amusing’. It was indeed a bitter disappointment.
"While the Roumanian Radio was serializing (without my permission) How to be an Alien as an anti-British tract, the Central Office of Information rang me up here in London and asked me to allow the book to be translated into Polish for the benefit of those many Polish refugees who were then settling in this country. ‘We want our friends to see us in this light,’ the man said on the telephone. This was hard to bear for my militant and defiant spirit. ‘But it’s not such a favourable light,’ I protested feebly. ‘It’s a very human light and that is the most favourable,’ retorted the official. I was crushed.
"A few weeks later my drooping spirit was revived when I heard of a suburban bank manager whose wife had brought this book home to him remarking that she had found it fairly amusing. The gentleman in question sat down in front of his open fire, put his feet up and read the book right through with a continually darkening face. When he had finished, he stood up and said:
"‘Downright impertinence.’ And threw the book into the fire.
"He was a noble and patriotic spirit and he did me a great deal of good. I wished there had been more like him in England. But I could never find another.
"Since then I have actually written about a dozen books; but I might as well have never written anything else. I remained the author of How to be an Alien even after I had published a collection of serious essays. Even Mr Somerset Maugham complained about this type of treatment bitterly and repeatedly. Whatever he did, he was told that he would never write another Of Human Bondage; Arnold Bennett in spite of fifty other works remained the author of The Old Wives’ Tale and nothing else; and Mr Robert Graves is just the author of the Claudius books. These authors are much more eminent than I am; but their problem is the same. At the moment I am engaged in writing a 750-page picaresque novel set in ancient Sumeria. It is taking shape nicely and I am going to get the Nobel Prize for it. But it will be of no use: I shall still remain the author of How to be an Alien."
"‘When are you going to write another How to be an Alien?’ Deutsch and Bentley ask me from time to time and I am sure they mean it kindly.
"They cannot quite make out the reply I mutter in answer to their friendly query. It is:
"‘Never, if I can help it.’
"London, May 1958
"GEORGE MIKES"
............
Then comes the knockout preface, setting the tone for the book.
"I believe, without undue modesty, that I have certain qualifications to write on ‘how to be an alien’. I am an alien myself. What is more, I have been an alien all my life. Only during the first twenty-six years of my life I was not aware of this plain fact. I was living in my own country, a country full of aliens, and I noticed nothing particular or irregular about myself; then I came to England, and you can imagine my painful surprise.
"Like all great and important discoveries it was a matter of a few seconds. You probably all know from your schooldays how Isaac Newton discovered the law of gravitation. An apple fell on his head. This incident set him thinking for a minute or two, then he exclaimed joyfully: ‘Of course! The gravitation constant is the acceleration per second that a mass of one gram causes at a distance of one centimetre.’ You were also taught that James Watt one day went into the kitchen where cabbage was cooking and saw the lid of the saucepan rise and fall. ‘Now let me think,’ he murmured – ‘let me think.’ Then he struck his forehead and the steam engine was discovered. It was the same with me, although circumstances were rather different.
"It was like this. Some years ago I spent a lot of time with a young lady who was very proud and conscious of being English. Once she asked me – to my great surprise – whether I would marry her. ‘No,’ I replied, ‘I will not. My mother would never agree to my marrying a foreigner.’ She looked at me a little surprised and irritated, and retorted: ‘I, a foreigner? What a silly thing to say. I am English. You are the foreigner. And your mother, too.’ I did not give in. ‘In Budapest, too?’ I asked her. ‘Everywhere,’ she declared with determination. ‘Truth does not depend on geography. What is true in England is also true in Hungary and in North Borneo and Venezuela and everywhere.’
"I saw that this theory was as irrefutable as it was simple. I was startled and upset. Mainly because of my mother whom I loved and respected. Now, I suddenly learned what she really was.
"It was a shame and bad taste to be an alien, and it is no use pretending otherwise. There is no way out of it. A criminal may improve and become a decent member of society. A foreigner cannot improve. Once a foreigner, always a foreigner. There is no way out for him. He may become British; he can never become English.
"So it is better to reconcile yourself to the sorrowful reality. There are some noble English people who might forgive you. There are some magnanimous souls who realize that it is not your fault, only your misfortune. They will treat you with condescension, understanding and sympathy. They will invite you to their homes. Just as they keep lap-dogs and other pets, they are quite prepared to keep a few foreigners.
"The title of this book, How to be an Alien, consequently expresses more than it should. How to be an alien? One should not be an alien at all. There are certain rules, however, which have to be followed if you want to make yourself as acceptable and civilized as you possibly can.
"Study these rules, and imitate the English. There can be only one result: if you don’t succeed in imitating them you become ridiculous; if you do, you become even more ridiculous."
............
The illustrations are superb, beginning with the illustration of the last sentence above, regarding imitating and being ridiculous.
My personal favourite has been the most memorable one of the English country gentleman chatting to his dog as they walk together, with the dog containing his wrath and suffering in silence. This illustration accompanies a two sentence chapter, about the proper English way, regarding treatment of intimate human companion versus that of one's dog.
............
Mikes goes on by beginning the book with elaborating on differences between English and continental people, customs, spirits, and so on. The high point is when an entire chapter consists of:-
"Continental people have sex life; the English have hot-water bottles."
............
One could go on, but the reader ought to have pleasure of reading the book. Oh, wait - no, one can't describe or quote his reference to the famous declaration by Queen Victoria about her not being amused; it has to be read in the original!
............
So I found a wonderful first, How To Be An Alien, and loved it, and was fortunate enough to find more wherever I could through next couple of decades or so - How to be Inimitable, How to Scrape Skies, How to Tango, The Land of the Rising Yen, How to Run a Stately Home (with the Duke of Bedford), Switzerland for Beginners, How to be Decadent, How to be Poor, How to be a Guru and How to be God by George Mikes.
One that remains most in memory, is a chapter about currency in Israel, and its conclusion.
............
Unfortunately most of his works aren't available on Amazon, and it's unclear if that's because Penguin is unwilling to consider the loss for younger readers, or turns up their British nose, at a multinational concern that makes books available to readers at far less cost and trouble, than involved in going to a good bookstore after finding one that one can access, being able to order the books one wants and then having space enough at home to store them.
One is fortunate enough to have found and read them long before the era of internet, but one would still like them on one's tab, apart from other excellent British authors - James Hilton, A. J. Cronin, Agatha Christie, P. G. Wodehouse, .... and yes, one is glad that classic authors such as Jane Austen, Bronte sisters and Thomas Hardy are available on internet, as are most living ones; but still, so should be these comparatively more recent ones, of early to middle decades of twentieth century.
............
Quoted, from blurb, of English Humour for Beginners: (by George Mikes):-
"George Mikes was born in 1912 in Siklós, Hungary. Having studied law and received his doctorate from Budapest University, he became a journalist and was sent to London as a correspondent to cover the Munich crisis. He came for a fortnight but stayed on and made England his home. During the Second World War he broadcast for the BBC Hungarian Service, where he remained until 1951. He continued working as a freelance critic, broadcaster and writer until his death in 1987.
"English Humour for Beginners was first published in 1980, when Mikes had already established himself as a humorist as English as they come. His other books include How to be an Alien, How to Unite Nations, How to be Inimitable, How to Scrape Skies, How to Tango, The Land of the Rising Yen, How to Run a Stately Home (with the Duke of Bedford), Switzerland for Beginners, How to be Decadent, How to be Poor, How to be a Guru and How to be God. He also wrote a study of the Hungarian Revolution and A Study of Infamy, an analysis of the Hungarian secret political police system. On his seventieth birthday he published his autobiography, How to be Seventy."
............
Quoted from Preface of How To Be A Brit:
"Back in 1945, when André Deutsch was trying to build up a new publishing firm, he asked me if I had anything for him. I told him that I was fiddling about with some little essays which were linked by a basic idea: how to be an alien. Why I was staying on the Isle of Wight I can no longer remember, but I must have been doing so, or why would he have come there to collect the manuscript?
"He enjoyed what he read, but told me that there was not enough of it for a book. So I sat down one afternoon and added five thousand more words. If anyone had said to me that I ought to take more trouble, since forty years later this book would still be selling about thirty thousand copies a year in paperback, not to mention going into a new hardback edition for which I would have to write a preface – well, I would have told that person, gently but firmly, that he or she ought to have his or her head examined. Indeed I would probably have said the same thing if told that I would still be here to write anything in forty years time, and that André would still be around – though disguised as a distinguished old boy – to publish it.
"How to be an Alien was a cri de coeur, a desperate cry for help: oh God, look at me, I have fallen among strange people! ‘But it’s such a funny book,’ people say. Perhaps it is. I hope it is. But it’s not unknown for shrieks, moans, whoops and ululations to sound funny to the uninvolved.
"In due course I added two further shrieks to that first one: How to be Inimitable in 1960, when we had started to slip but still had an Empire and refused to acknowledge much change; and How to be Decadent in 1977. All three books were illustrated by my great and much-missed friend, Nicolas Bentley.
"During all those years since 1945, something rather curious was happening: as I strove to stop being an alien and to become a true Brit, Britain was striving to cast off its peculiar and lofty insularity and become one with the aliens, a part of the Continent (almost), just another member of the E.E.C. It often seems to me that I have failed in my endeavour; but compared with Britain I have succeeded gloriously.
"GEORGE MIKES
"April 1984"
............
Quoted from my review, writtenduring the time I wrote what I thought of various books read over decades, as remembered after decades:
Mikés has no equal when you would like an introduction to a country, a culture, with loads of on the mark observations and humour. How To Be An Alien is an excellent introduction to the whole series, probably not written as such but developed into one, with memorable books later on Israel, South America and so forth. About Germany there is a comparable one, written probably much earlier, by Jerome K. Jerome named Three Men On A Bummel, the sequel to his Three Men On A Boat (To say Nothing About The Dog).
Still, that does not mean to say that there is any less of originality in Mikés version or less humour or less anything. Mikés is wonderful and incomparable in a way that is accessible to more readers, with a universal readability - while the earlier Jerome K. Jerome remains very English, which has a different flavour to be enjoyed.
October 16, 2008.
............
............
He begins with an almost unnoticeable reply to the title, printed high up in tiny letters on an otherwise blank page after the preface:-
"It’s easy"
and carries on to the next page with the opening chapter, nonchalantly.
............
Then comes preface to 24th impression.
"The reception given to this book when it first appeared in the autumn of 1946, was at once a pleasant surprise and a disappointment for me. A surprise, because the reception was so kind; a disappointment for the same reason.
"Let me explain.
"The first part of this statement needs little amplification. Even people who are not closely connected with the publishing trade will be able to realize that it is very nice – I’m sorry, I’d better be a little more English: a not totally unpleasant thing for a completely unknown author to run into three impressions within a few weeks of publication and thereafter into another twenty-one.
"What is my grievance, then? It is that this book has completely changed the picture I used to cherish of myself. This was to be a book of defiance. Before its publication I felt myself a man who was going to tell the English where to get off. I had spoken my mind regardless of consequences; I thought I was brave and outspoken and expected either to go unnoticed or to face a storm. But no storm came. I expected the English to be up in arms against me but they patted me on the back; I expected the British nation to rise in wrath but all they said, was: ‘quite amusing’. It was indeed a bitter disappointment.
"While the Roumanian Radio was serializing (without my permission) How to be an Alien as an anti-British tract, the Central Office of Information rang me up here in London and asked me to allow the book to be translated into Polish for the benefit of those many Polish refugees who were then settling in this country. ‘We want our friends to see us in this light,’ the man said on the telephone. This was hard to bear for my militant and defiant spirit. ‘But it’s not such a favourable light,’ I protested feebly. ‘It’s a very human light and that is the most favourable,’ retorted the official. I was crushed.
"A few weeks later my drooping spirit was revived when I heard of a suburban bank manager whose wife had brought this book home to him remarking that she had found it fairly amusing. The gentleman in question sat down in front of his open fire, put his feet up and read the book right through with a continually darkening face. When he had finished, he stood up and said:
"‘Downright impertinence.’ And threw the book into the fire.
"He was a noble and patriotic spirit and he did me a great deal of good. I wished there had been more like him in England. But I could never find another.
"Since then I have actually written about a dozen books; but I might as well have never written anything else. I remained the author of How to be an Alien even after I had published a collection of serious essays. Even Mr Somerset Maugham complained about this type of treatment bitterly and repeatedly. Whatever he did, he was told that he would never write another Of Human Bondage; Arnold Bennett in spite of fifty other works remained the author of The Old Wives’ Tale and nothing else; and Mr Robert Graves is just the author of the Claudius books. These authors are much more eminent than I am; but their problem is the same. At the moment I am engaged in writing a 750-page picaresque novel set in ancient Sumeria. It is taking shape nicely and I am going to get the Nobel Prize for it. But it will be of no use: I shall still remain the author of How to be an Alien."
"‘When are you going to write another How to be an Alien?’ Deutsch and Bentley ask me from time to time and I am sure they mean it kindly.
"They cannot quite make out the reply I mutter in answer to their friendly query. It is:
"‘Never, if I can help it.’
"London, May 1958
"GEORGE MIKES"
............
Then comes the knockout preface, setting the tone for the book.
"I believe, without undue modesty, that I have certain qualifications to write on ‘how to be an alien’. I am an alien myself. What is more, I have been an alien all my life. Only during the first twenty-six years of my life I was not aware of this plain fact. I was living in my own country, a country full of aliens, and I noticed nothing particular or irregular about myself; then I came to England, and you can imagine my painful surprise.
"Like all great and important discoveries it was a matter of a few seconds. You probably all know from your schooldays how Isaac Newton discovered the law of gravitation. An apple fell on his head. This incident set him thinking for a minute or two, then he exclaimed joyfully: ‘Of course! The gravitation constant is the acceleration per second that a mass of one gram causes at a distance of one centimetre.’ You were also taught that James Watt one day went into the kitchen where cabbage was cooking and saw the lid of the saucepan rise and fall. ‘Now let me think,’ he murmured – ‘let me think.’ Then he struck his forehead and the steam engine was discovered. It was the same with me, although circumstances were rather different.
"It was like this. Some years ago I spent a lot of time with a young lady who was very proud and conscious of being English. Once she asked me – to my great surprise – whether I would marry her. ‘No,’ I replied, ‘I will not. My mother would never agree to my marrying a foreigner.’ She looked at me a little surprised and irritated, and retorted: ‘I, a foreigner? What a silly thing to say. I am English. You are the foreigner. And your mother, too.’ I did not give in. ‘In Budapest, too?’ I asked her. ‘Everywhere,’ she declared with determination. ‘Truth does not depend on geography. What is true in England is also true in Hungary and in North Borneo and Venezuela and everywhere.’
"I saw that this theory was as irrefutable as it was simple. I was startled and upset. Mainly because of my mother whom I loved and respected. Now, I suddenly learned what she really was.
"It was a shame and bad taste to be an alien, and it is no use pretending otherwise. There is no way out of it. A criminal may improve and become a decent member of society. A foreigner cannot improve. Once a foreigner, always a foreigner. There is no way out for him. He may become British; he can never become English.
"So it is better to reconcile yourself to the sorrowful reality. There are some noble English people who might forgive you. There are some magnanimous souls who realize that it is not your fault, only your misfortune. They will treat you with condescension, understanding and sympathy. They will invite you to their homes. Just as they keep lap-dogs and other pets, they are quite prepared to keep a few foreigners.
"The title of this book, How to be an Alien, consequently expresses more than it should. How to be an alien? One should not be an alien at all. There are certain rules, however, which have to be followed if you want to make yourself as acceptable and civilized as you possibly can.
"Study these rules, and imitate the English. There can be only one result: if you don’t succeed in imitating them you become ridiculous; if you do, you become even more ridiculous."
............
The illustrations are superb, beginning with the illustration of the last sentence above, regarding imitating and being ridiculous.
My personal favourite has been the most memorable one of the English country gentleman chatting to his dog as they walk together, with the dog containing his wrath and suffering in silence. This illustration accompanies a two sentence chapter, about the proper English way, regarding treatment of intimate human companion versus that of one's dog.
............
Mikes goes on by beginning the book with elaborating on differences between English and continental people, customs, spirits, and so on. The high point is when an entire chapter consists of:-
"Continental people have sex life; the English have hot-water bottles."
............
One could go on, but the reader ought to have pleasure of reading the book. Oh, wait - no, one can't describe or quote his reference to the famous declaration by Queen Victoria about her not being amused; it has to be read in the original!
............
November 25, 2022
Chips and crisps please.
July 25, 2024
If you have lived in the UK, both if you are or aren’t from there… this book is a fun read as it just comes to show how little Brits have changed over the decades. It is an entertaining book that portrays how the English are and behave and it is so spot on it’s bonkers.
March 27, 2016
I think I've found the other Guy Browning. Or perhaps since he came first (I think), Guy Browning is the other George Mikes? At any rate, these two authors make me laugh.
How to be a Brit was an impulse purchase from a bookstore (yes, I paid full price and my wallet scolded me for it) and consists of three works: How to be an Alien, How to be Inimitable and How to be Decadent. Unfortunately, the 'Alien' in the first book isn't about little green man, but the more traditional foreigner (by the way, if you aren't British, than that's you).
Personally, I loved the book, but that's mainly because I love British humour. I used to think that was universal, but after loaning friends my Guy Browning and Terry Pratchett books and receiving them back with a "I didn't think they were funny", I've learnt that I really have to add a disclaimer. So if the following quotes make you laugh, there's a good chance you'll like the book:
By the way, I do not pretend to claim that this book is accurate about the character of the British people. Although if they really do like queuing half as much as the book says, then it explains a lot about Singaporeans and our love of queueing.
This review was first posted at Inside the mind of a Bibliophile
How to be a Brit was an impulse purchase from a bookstore (yes, I paid full price and my wallet scolded me for it) and consists of three works: How to be an Alien, How to be Inimitable and How to be Decadent. Unfortunately, the 'Alien' in the first book isn't about little green man, but the more traditional foreigner (by the way, if you aren't British, than that's you).
Personally, I loved the book, but that's mainly because I love British humour. I used to think that was universal, but after loaning friends my Guy Browning and Terry Pratchett books and receiving them back with a "I didn't think they were funny", I've learnt that I really have to add a disclaimer. So if the following quotes make you laugh, there's a good chance you'll like the book:
"In principle, the British Civil Servant stands always at the disposal of the public. In practice, he is either in 'conference' or out for lunch, or in but having his tea, or just out. Some develop an admirable technique of going out for tea before coming back from lunch."
"Britain - to its true glory- is the only country in the world where the phrase, 'it isn't fair', still counts as an argument."
"Other nations need occasional outbursts of madness and violence; the English need occasional excesses of self-discipline. Other nations, under unbearable stress, shout, howl, and get into brawls, run amok; the English queue up for a cup of tea."
By the way, I do not pretend to claim that this book is accurate about the character of the British people. Although if they really do like queuing half as much as the book says, then it explains a lot about Singaporeans and our love of queueing.
This review was first posted at Inside the mind of a Bibliophile
April 29, 2016
Funny light read about some of the stereotypes of English culture from a foreigner's point of view. The resident alien in this story arrives to England by way of Budapest. During his stay, he picks up on the striking differences in mannerisms and plesantries between his new country and his home country.
There are constant reminders throughout this book that as a foreigner even if you imitate and naturalize to English customs, you will never truly be English. At best you can be considered "British" but never ENGLISH!
Being myself married to a British woman, there were themes in this book that definitely hit home. Specifically the section on an Englishman's sense of "fairness" and the conversations about the weather. I just about died with laughter when the author mentioned how Britain ruined tea and made it their national drink of choice.
While not a masterpiece, "How to Be a Brit" is a funny enough read if you're looking for something very light. It's a quick read with funny pictures and it's a good pick for anyone a bit curious about stereotypical British culture.
There are constant reminders throughout this book that as a foreigner even if you imitate and naturalize to English customs, you will never truly be English. At best you can be considered "British" but never ENGLISH!
Being myself married to a British woman, there were themes in this book that definitely hit home. Specifically the section on an Englishman's sense of "fairness" and the conversations about the weather. I just about died with laughter when the author mentioned how Britain ruined tea and made it their national drink of choice.
While not a masterpiece, "How to Be a Brit" is a funny enough read if you're looking for something very light. It's a quick read with funny pictures and it's a good pick for anyone a bit curious about stereotypical British culture.
January 6, 2016
As an Irishwoman with a deep, inexplicable fondness for and am currently living in Great Britain, this book was brilliant. I not only feel like I know the British even better now, I also feel like I've been right about them all along. Many of the chapters seemed to touch my very soul, such as 'Soul and Understatement', 'On the Art of Conversation', and 'On Cat-Worship'. These chapters had me rolling around with laughter because I felt them. 'It's so true!' I shouted while on the toilet/cooking dinner/doing the laundry/etc. 'That is so British - the very habits I have picked up, the understandings I have shared!' I've heard the British are quite fond of this book when they read it too. So whether you're a true Brit or you're just coming to the Queen's country for the first time, this book is an indispensable guide, and a dangerously funny one at that.
April 16, 2018
It is a book by George Mikes, alias Mikes György, a Hungarian author who lived in England. I really liked it. I love his humour. Some situations were familiar to me though I have never been to England. And some observations are still true, there are things that never change...
Lassabban haladtam ezzel a könyvvel, mert angolul olvastam, de nagyon élveztem. Kicsit tartottam tőle, hogy fogom-e érteni a humorát, de szerencsére értettem és jókat vidultam olvasás közben. Egyes jelenetek nagyon ismerősnek tűntek, néhány észrevételt pedig még mindig nagyon aktuálisnak tartok.
Igazán szórakoztató olvasmány, így örülök, hogy végül is nekiveselkedtem.
Lassabban haladtam ezzel a könyvvel, mert angolul olvastam, de nagyon élveztem. Kicsit tartottam tőle, hogy fogom-e érteni a humorát, de szerencsére értettem és jókat vidultam olvasás közben. Egyes jelenetek nagyon ismerősnek tűntek, néhány észrevételt pedig még mindig nagyon aktuálisnak tartok.
Igazán szórakoztató olvasmány, így örülök, hogy végül is nekiveselkedtem.
January 11, 2018
This book is made up of three books:
* How to be an alien (1946).
* How to be inimitable (1960).
* How to be decadent (1977).
I found how to be an alien very funny and easy to read, and in many ways still accurate to British life despite being written 70 years. I would give it a strong 4 stars. However, I found the next two books didn't really add much but were still funny so overall they were 2 or 3 stars.
* How to be an alien (1946).
* How to be inimitable (1960).
* How to be decadent (1977).
I found how to be an alien very funny and easy to read, and in many ways still accurate to British life despite being written 70 years. I would give it a strong 4 stars. However, I found the next two books didn't really add much but were still funny so overall they were 2 or 3 stars.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 136 reviews