I went to the Fraserview Branch of the Vancouver Public Library yesterday and I was very pleased to discover that they have all of the Asterix books (I believe).
These are all hardcover books and at the top of the spine, there are little numbers. I guess after I write a quick review of the next book which is number 8, I’ll start from number 1.
The Asterix book that I read yesterday was Asterix in Britain. My goodness! This book is quite a read and there’s a lot more content (dialogue).
In this story the Romans have invaded Britain and like Gaul, there’s one village that is resisting the Romans. Unfortunately, these brave Brits are struggling to repel the Romans. One of the Brits, Anticlimax (his name), is a cousin of Asterix and knows about the magic potion that gives super-human strength so off he goes to Gaul on board his little jolly-boat.
Asterix and Obelix meet Anticlimax and they take off to Britain with a barrel of magic potion. On the way to Britain they happen to come across a fleet of Romans and the barrel with its magic contents is discovered. The Romans are on high alert in Britain and Asterix and Obelix must get that barrel to the village of Brits!
This story is pretty rude towards British people. They eat tasteless food (the meat is boiled!). They take breaks during the day to drink hot water. They tend to end sentences with “what”. The beer that they drink is warm. In towns they have double-decker chariots. They’re crazy about a sport with a ball. Their currency makes very little sense to the rest of the world. Etc, etc, etc...
I’m sure most British people have enough sense of humor to laugh off these stereotypes but I do believe some of them are true...
As I mentioned above this book is fairly “juicy” in content. The barrel disappears half way through the story and A, O and Anticlimax have to go through a lot to find it.
There are a lot of characters in this story (most appear very briefly) and some of them are very “British”. While working in Japan, I had to work with several Brits and one of them was dry as one month old bread. It was actually a pain in the ass working with this person because there wasn’t much to talk about with him. That and he was unbelievably stubborn.
Well, not all Brits in Japan were like that... I did meet some cheerful chaps that liked their pints (fortunately not warm).
I’m sure children who read this book (other than British children) can learn that the English in other countries can be quite different. While these different expressions might sound a bit strange to people in different countries, if they are used, it makes conversation among people more fun. Jolly good point?
