A Chip Shop in Poznan: My Unlikely Year in Poland

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All topics are narrated with sensitivity, and Askitt is often able to take a step back and admit his ignorance on a topic or even to explain complex thoughts in a light and funny manner. When he wasn’t peeling potatoes he was on the road scratching the country’s surface: he milked cows with a Eurosceptic farmer; missed the bus to Auschwitz; spent Christmas with complete strangers and went to Gdansk to learn how communism got the chop. This, along with more extreme examples (bringing beer into a nunnery, trespassing into conferences, and using his friend's favourite things as ashtrays), paints the author in a bad light no matter how fondly you look upon him. A sincere, mischievious and hilariously funny journal of strange and absolutely normal encounters that made me wish to visit Poland, even though I'm Polish. The premise is brilliant - do to the Eastern Europeans what they do to the Brits - come over legally and work hard at the jobs we don't want.

The author claimed that he had “grown tired” of the UK and its associated “comforts” and “nice routines”. There is something exciting yet comforting in being somewhere new, being lost on a new map, finding a supermarket or a bus stop. Ben Aitkin did his homework and was well-versed in historical facts but this is not a history book but one trying to figure out what made the locals as they were. There are many footnotes, some explaining historical references, others amusing extensions of the main text.

He soon gave up trying to live on his Polish earnings and used the income he had earned from his first book. Reflecting on those times, I fully understood where Aitken was coming from with his comments about growing tired with life in the UK and the “nice routines” there. Each chapter feels inconsequential and trivial as they were all independent accounts of events, there was no plot or overarching development.

However, I think whether you enjoy this book or not depends on whether you like the author and his style of writing. He wanted to get away from England before the EU Referendum and chose Poznan in Poland: the flight was the cheapest, and the place was unlikely to have many people from other nationalities. It was sobering in the acknowledgements to realise he is doing minimum wage jobs back here whilst writing - I sincerely hope he's a more diligent carer than he is a preparer of cod. This book would've been much better if it was more argumentative instead of descriptive but I can understand that the author wasn't trying to make a huge political statement but rather just describe what happened and lead you to believe what you want- a key theme near the end (I liked the discussion of the glamourisation of news and its harmful effects). Whilst I agree that the stereotypes of Poland we have in the UK are lazy and false, I actually believe Poland is not like anywhere else.This is something I think everyone should take into account when forming their critique of this book, and I would like to start by thanking the author for giving us a view into his time and experiences in Poland. This is Aitken – the ardent traveller who, in his own words, prefers to put travelling before travel writing.

I have read many reviews which complain about the author and his personality, whilst others seem to not mind. literally going to a stranger's house in the middle of the night to have dinner, having a beer with a racist bigot to 'understand his perspective', sleeping on the sidewalk etc. The younger students, aged between eight and ten, already spoke much more English than he did Polish, despised him and were unruly.Overall, it’s an effortless task to empathise with Aitken, especially when you’ve been in his shoes.

This candid, funny and off-beat book is the account of his year in Poland, as an unlikely immigrant. I found the last three of the forty chapters particularly flat: he delivered himself of some political and historical remarks, which have nothing much to do with Poland. Aitken took his curiosity as the EU referendum approached to go and investigate Poland and why Polish people come to the UK, and to do so by living there for a year and doing minimum wage jobs. Aitken’s unabashed nature meant that he could partake in cultural immersion in Poland on a grand scale. I don’t want to be rude about this book, because I am not convinced that the author is really ok, and someone should probably check in on him.

The chapters were relatively short and easy to digest, so it was easy to pick up the book and read for a short time. RADIOWARNING: CONTAINS AN UNLIKELY IMMIGRANT, AN UNSUNG COUNTRY, A BUMPY ROMANCE, SEVERAL SHATTERED PRECONCEPTIONS, TRACES OF INSIGHT, A DOZEN NUNS AND A REFERENDUM. That being said, the discussions of politics is at the backdrop of the entire novel yet is fleetingly discussed. For some months, he did not seem to be doing any paid work, but continued travelling around a lot: to Lodz; to Lublin; to Jelenia Gora, in the south-western corner of Poland; to Konin; to Krakow, where he rented a guest room in a nunnery and where he visits the salt mine.