Literant.(Book Talk)(Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today)(Book review)

Manners matter to me. My upbringing left me unable to take a sip of soda at such fine establishments as Taco Bell without first placing a napkin in my lap. I am bothered by the sight of a man ascending a staircase in advance of his female companion--as all would-be Southern gentlemen know, she may suddenly get the vapors and swoon.

I could complain about the state of manners today until TAE's special issue on "The Condoleezza Rice Presidency: 10 Years Later" comes out. But I was hoping instead that Lynn Truss would do it for me in her book, Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today.... Alas, she wasn't up to the task.

Truss vaguely explores the causes of today's social oafishness, but not especially convincingly or coherently. She manages not to blame those whom I hold responsible for the new disorder: those darned Baby Boomers. Rousseau's hippie children of the '60s followed in his footsteps, rejecting manners as "unnatural and oppressive" and embracing the idea of being one's self--failing to note that one's self may be quite a bastard.

The book also highlights some of the odd peeves of its author. In a snit about too much choice in the world, she tells of an English friend of hers, visiting the U.S. for the first time, ordering a sausage breakfast and being perplexed by the waitress's question, "Links or patties?" What does ignorance of glorious American pork products have to do with manners? (Truss also praises the manners of French shopkeepers, so all of her personal crotchets are suspect.)

The author also shakes her angry little fists at, of all things, books on proper etiquette. Dismissing such works as "daft," she complains "of books that satisfied middle-class anxieties and aspirations--and incidentally fueled snobbery." She thus reveals why she didn't blame the Birkenstock crowd for the Reign of ...