Welcome to British Isles Friday! British Isles Friday is a weekly event for sharing all things British and Irish - reviews, photos, opinions, trip reports, guides, links, resources, personal stories, interviews, and research posts. Join us each Friday to link your British and Irish themed content and to see what others have to share. The link list is at the bottom of this post. Pour a cup of tea or lift a pint and join our link party!
Last week, I promoted the hundreds-year-old carol, Gaudete. Tina described The Up Series that followed fourteen British citizens who were 7 in 1964 and every seven years since. The original series went to age 21, but the project is ongoing. 63 Up was released last month.
From the description, I wasn't expecting to be as delighted by Blinded by the Light as I was. But, it hit several favorite topics:
- British life
- Anti-racism
- Rock songs about small towns
This a late '80s story about Javed, a British-Pakistani Muslim teenager, living in Luton, which is about 30 miles northwest of London. Luton was once famous for hatmaking and, later, auto production as the home of the Vauxhall Motors company. By the late 1980s, their second industry was also dying. Javed, like Springsteen, hopes that he is born to run and can make his way in the world differently than his immigrant parents.
Since this is a coming-of-age story, we also witness fraught relationships with parents and peers, a teacher who believes in him, a couple of up-and-down friendships, and a touch of romance.
Blinded by the Light was released this year and is out on DVD. If you're a Springsteen fan, you'll enjoy the soundtrack - and, if you're not, you might become one!
About Joy Weese Moll
a librarian writing about books
