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Title: Innocents Abroad or the New Pilgrims Progress: Being Some Account of the Steamship Quaker City's Pleasure Excursion to Europe and the Holy Land: With Descriptions of Countries, Nations, Incidents by Mark Twain ISBN: 0-451-52502-7 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: April, 1997 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.48 (21 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The funniest book ever written-in the history of time!
Comment: Ok, maybe that is a minor overstatement, but this is one hilarous book, to be read by people who have travelled, who plan to travel, and generally, people who want to laugh. A lot.
The book is also surprising for its timeless points about the journeying of certain upper white, middle class people going on a grand tour of Europe. I frequently had to remind myself that it was written in 1869 because his observations and the behavior of his shipmates is so close to the way people I studied abroad with acted-only a few years ago.
Twain also puts those "cosmopolitan" people who claim to have traveled, but don't know anything about any place they have been but and just like to lord it over everyone else that they have "travelled" and you have not.
Reading this book is like listening to a very wise, old man tell you about his adventures. Its not like a book, more like one long conversation. Twain takes nothing seriously-not himself, his fellow travelers or the places they visit. The words are another adventure-sometimes, you know he is setting you up for something, other times he is serious for a while, then you end up in the middle of a joke.
I know this is against the rules, but the other posters who don't like this book-don't be so serious and p.c. all the time. Twain is making humorous observations, at a time when a different standard was acceptable. Not to mention, he does manage to get a few zingers in there about what people are willing to accept and what they do not.
You will laugh yourself silly and want to book a trip-not to Europe, just to anywhere, after reading this book.
Rating: 4
Summary: down on everybody
Comment: This book is funny. Sometimes, this is funny/cruel, as in his attempt to pay the Egyptian kid to climb pyramids until it kills him. Pretty much every nationality in Europe is attacked. Maybe this jumps out at you when he gets to the Holy Land, but it's there all along.
I found Twain's discussion of Lake Como to be the most troubling. Here, in comparing it to Lake Tahoe, he gets diverted into what can only be called a racist tirade against the Washoe Indians of Nevada.
Melville (in The Confidence Man) has a long chapter on Indian-hating, but he writes as an observer, not a practitioner. Twain is more partisan. There is an anti-Catholic tinge as well; but then, anti-Catholic political parties (such as the 'Know Nothings') were also a feature of pre-civil war America.
I do believe that this is one of the finest books on tourism one can read. Twain is a keen observer of Old World culture, which he opposes to our American adaptation. Admiration can lead to whitewashing if some of Twain's social pathologies are left unexamined.
The book is as anti-Indian as anti-Arab, as anti-Mormon as anti-Catholic. It remains a very funny book; but I wouldn't give it to a teenager to read without a precautionary warning.
Rating: 5
Summary: As good as travel writing can get
Comment: This book, along with Twain's 'Roughing It,' is often considered to be some of the best travel narrative ever put to paper. Certainly it deserves its acclaim. Twain, the irreverent All-American writer, took a trip halfway around the world in a steamer and visited many of the great sites of Europe and the Middle East. This is his account of his experiences, and the experiences of the group of 'Pilgrims' which accompanied him on this 'pleasure excursion.'
One of the best things about Twain is his refusal to romanticize, even in the cases of the greatest places in the world. He does not hesitate to verbally abuse Paris, Florence, Damascus, even Jerusalem. He tells it how it is, refusing to admire the work of the great painters (Raphael, Michael Angelo, and co.) and asserting that everyone who ever wrote of the beauty of the Sea of Galilee was a downright liar. He has some good things to say, too (he seems to have approved of Athens), but mostly he spends his time dispelling the romantic images of the great places of the world. The result is hilarious, and certainly makes one realize that, despite the perfect images that Paris, Pisa, and Rome sometimes have in our minds, they are a far cry from paradise.
Twain's wit, as always, is very sharp, and this book is an excellent example of it. His antics (and descriptions of them) are very funny, and his way of putting things a joy to read. Along the way, he pokes fun of the American "Pilgrims," who deface the sacred relics they visit and call every guide they have 'Ferguson.' This is certainly a classic in American Literature. Anyone interested in travel writing will profit greatly from this book, as will anyone who enjoys Twain's humor or just a good laugh.
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Title: Roughing It by Mark Twain ISBN: 0451524071 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: June, 1994 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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Title: Following the Equator : A Journey Around the World by Mark Twain ISBN: 0486261131 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 01 September, 1989 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: A Tramp Abroad (Penguin Classics) by Mark Twain, Robert Gray Bruce, Hamlin Hill ISBN: 0140436081 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: December, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Bible According to Mark Twain: Irreverent Writings on Eden, Heaven, and the Flood by America's Master Satirist by Mark Twain, Howard G. Baetzhold, Joseph B. McCullough ISBN: 0684824396 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: December, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain : A Book of Quotations by Mark Twain ISBN: 0486406644 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 18 August, 1999 List Price(USD): $1.00 |
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