Books

Day 19: The Innocents Abroad 

A young Mark Twain makes fun of everything between here and Jerusalem. 

It works as a travelogue, but he also parodies contemporary travel writing, self deprecates hilariously, and evenhandedly roasts everyone he encounters.

I originally meant to read a Bill Bryson book as a palette cleanser following The Magic Mountain, but I discovered I’d run out of them. So I read this instead and liked it so much that I binged five more of his travel books in a row.

I can’t believe these books don’t get talked about more. They’re funny as hell, they’re delightfully anachronistic in their takes, and they’re peerless as time capsules of the travel experience of ~150 years ago.

“In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.”

Five stars for its class. Tender, irreverent, exotic travel writing at its best.

Roughing It

Mark Twain describes crossing the country, trying his hand as a prospector, and then sailing out to Hawaii.

Just like yesterday’s review: great travel writing, hilariously written. 

The Hawaii section hits like a ton of bricks. It evokes the place modern visitors know and love, but at a time before it had become widely known as an earthly paradise. It will make you nostalgic for a time long dead before you were born. 

Like the rest of his travel writing, this book is a mainline hit of the distilled essence of the times and places it covers. Plus, of course, a heavy dose of Twain’s personality and perspective. 

Five stars for its class.

Oh nice never knew Twain wrote a travel tale!  I’ll have to check it out.

Have you read Two Years Before the Mast?  It’s one where an accountant on the East Coast is losing his sight and his doctor tells him to take on another profession for awhile so he enlists on a ship.  They sail around to the west coast and it’s a very different California than the one we know today!

Startup artist seeking inspiration.  Champion of /bcard

That seems exactly on point for me and I’ve somehow never heard of it. 

Thanks for the recommendation. I’m going to read it next

I heard it described as a “true Moby Dick” (but thankfully only like 1/4 of the length!) so I picked it up.

Right after I finished it in ebook form I found it in my mom’s library, so it felt fated somehow.