08.02.2022
“Roots of the Oak” – Vsevolod Ovchinnikov about England and the English (1979)
Since we were speaking about Coventry quite a bit last week, let us suggest that we spend this evening with a book dedicated to England and the English – written by Mr. Vsevolod Ovchinnikov, whom you might remember from his series of articles about Japan.
This time, though, he will be talking about Britain circa the 1970s. Interestingly, you will find out that the English are no easier to understand than the Japanese, as "even when completely surrounded by the English, you never actually enter a contact with them".
When does this "bubble effect" come from? Why is it so that even language fluency cannot guarantee a smooth "infiltration" into the English society? What are the things that the English and the Russians find weird or outright frustrating about each other? On these and the other topics the author will dwell in a series of essays sprinkled with numerous anecdotes.
The names of this essays range from the poetic "The Land of Green Meadows" to the indignant "A washbasin without a cork", which means that the cultural essays will be interspersed with practical pieces of daily advice.
Fix yourself a cup of tea (maybe even with s drop of milk), turn on the music from "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson" and embark on a journey through paper or electronic pages.