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| The Innocents Abroad (Dover Value Editions) | 
 enlarge | Author: Mark Twain
Publisher: Dover Publications
Category: Book
List Price: $12.95
Buy New: $7.66
You Save: $5.29 (41%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $6.90
Avg. Customer Rating:  (8 reviews)
Sales Rank: 120110
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 652
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 1.5
ISBN: 048642832X
Dewey Decimal Number: 818.403
EAN: 9780486428321
ASIN: 048642832X
Publication Date: August 11, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-8 of 8 | | « PREV | | |
 Twain's first "Grand" tour of the Old World December 26, 2005
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Between June and November 1867, Mark Twain was a participant in an excursion tour of the Mediterranean area of Europe, Asia, and Africa. This book is basically an account of that trip, based on letters he had written for (mainly) the "San Francisco Alta California" during the trip (the paper thus paid for the trip). It's an interesting blend of fact and fiction.
Sailing aboard the "Quaker City" steamship, the journey begins in New York. First stop is the Azores and then Gibraltar, where Twain hears the legend of the Queen's Chair. A short side trip to Tangier gives him his first exotic tastes - right out of the Arabian Nights. The Fourth of July finds him at Marseilles, from which he travels by train to Paris (where he gets a painful shave in addition to visiting the Louvre, Notre Dame, and a theatre that has cancan dancers). He spends a day at Versailles before returning to Marseilles.
The ship is now off to Italy, where Twain spends the next month visiting Genoa, Milan (he tours the cathedral and its sculptures and La Scala), Lake Como, Venice (a big disappointment), Florence, Rome (where he spends a lot of time viewing the Vatican), and finally Naples (which he thought filthy). Greece was their next stop, then Constantinople, where he comments on the slave market there. They sail to Odessa, which really offers no sightseeing opportunities, a welcome respite after Italy.
Traveling then to Asia he visits Smyrna and Ephesus, and then moves on to the Holy Land. In Damascus Twain becomes ill for a day, but continues on to Palestine and the Sea of Galilee (another disappointment). At Nazareth he imagines it hasn't changed since the time of Jesus. Jerusalem seems a very small city to him; it is here that Twain weeps at the grave of Adam, a "blood relation." A week or so later he continues to Jaffa overland where he meets the "Quaker City" and sails to Egypt. He goes to the pyramids and the sphynx, which impresses him greatly. The ship sails from Alexandria for home in early October, making a few stops along the way (one lengthy one in Spain, which Twain found delightful). They stop at Bermuda (most enjoyable to Twain) and land in New York in mid-November.
Twain has a keen traveler's eye, though his humor would sharpen with time. Only his second book after the Jumping Frog sketches, he hadn't yet mastered the sharp satirical observations that graced later books (ROUGHING IT, for example, which is quite a bit funnier). But certain "themes" were already forming - his poking fun at religion, for instance: he observes that the relic of Jesus' Crown of Thorns at the cathedral in Milan is not as handsome as the one at Notre Dame. When he compares things seen on his trip with things back in America (something he doesn't do enough) he can be humorous: he compares the canals of Venice with a flooded river town along the Mississippi - neither which is very appealing in his view. He is always interesting, however, and the book is a joy to read.
Twain, the Terrible Tourist December 2, 2005
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
Cliches aside, retrieving the outlook of mid-19th Century isn't easy. Having successfully concluded the upheaval of the War Between the States, the people of the USA, while bruised, felt confident. Their sense of righteousness was enhanced - they'd quelled a rebellion and freed slaves. Some took that attitude to other lands. The 1867 SS Quaker City excursion to Europe and the "Holy Land" was but one of those forays. It was special in that it carried one of the more discerning observers the United States had produced - Sam Clemens of Hannibal, Missouri and points West. He was to post letters to the San Francisco newspaper "Daily Alta California" describing the journey. The trip and the account opened Clemens' eyes and those of his readers over numerous legends.
In Clemens' baggage was a strong religious sense imparted by his mother, Jane. This cargo was balanced by Twain's more worldly experience on the Mississippi and his life in the mining communities in the West. When he crossed the gangplank to board the steamer, his gaze was sceptical and his pen ascerbic. His portrayal of the Quaker City's passengers began as they traversed the Atlantic, but it is his depiction of "foreigners" in their homelands that both shocks and enlightens. Starting with the Azores stopover, Clemens' observations of the islands are a tribute to their charms. Of the people, however, he has little positive to impart. They are dirty, noisy, conniving and devious. In general, they're "not American".
The use of the "innocents" is exemplified by Twain's description of contact with the Europeans. Educated in the minimal language training of the day, the travellers struggled to impart their wishes in French shops and restaurants. Twain seems to lay responsibility for this on the French "failure to understand their own language", but his description of the exchanges makes it clear where the problem lay. There was another side to this coin, however. Europeans were caught up in their own affairs. The United States was a remote and unknown element to them - "they'd had a war with somebody recently". Twain notes his shipmates were even then tinged with the arrogance that would fully blossom later. Respect for "tradition" had a variety of expressions in the "Quaker City" passengers. Twain depicts them all with delightful detachment.
As the ship made landfall in Mediterranean ports, Clemens and his comrades visit the "standard" tourist haunts. Paris is a must, Genoa is a treat, Rome is a maze of cathedrals and art galleries. Quickly disenchanted with "guides" he renames them all "Ferguson" and rebukes them at every opportunity. Michaelangelo seems so pervasive in Rome that the Pilgrims ask if Greek or Egyptian artefacts are his work - to the consternation of the "Ferguson" of the day. Twain's flexibility and ability to adapt to events leads some of the "innocents" to take the train from Rome to Naples - a city under quarantine. While the "Quaker City" lies still in the harbour, Twain and his companions tour the city and visit Vesuvius. A similar ploy works in Greece.
It is in the "Holy Land" that Clemens' descriptive powers and distrust of "authorities" flowers most brilliantly. Like many of his fellow passengers, he's been subjected to many tales from "Scripture" and a spate of earlier travel writers in Palestine. Unable to criticise the Bible outright, he lets the words speak for themselves, allowing logic and common sense to question dogma. The effusive travel writers, who had insisted Palestine was a "paradise" are brought out in contrast with Twain's observations of the barren desolation that was the Levant. He is scathing in his criticism of people who fabricate conditions there in order to sell their books. His veracity, of course, nearly had the opposite effect. "The Innocents Abroad" manuscript was originally rejected by Twain's publisher.
Sam Clemens' reputation was "made" with this book. It touched on many aspects of how people in the United States viewed themselves and the world. The subtle, but incisive, comments on tradition and legend were seeds finding fertile ground in a dynamic nation setting the practical foremost. "Innocents" was a challenge to dogmas and a paean to the sense of "realism" that permeated the post-Civil War era. The "Romantic" Era, still evident in mid-19th Century in the earlier accounts of Palestine, would be whisked aside. "Innocents" would be instrumental in that sweeping it away. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad August 20, 2005
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
This Dover Publications Edition includes all the illustrations from the original publication in 1869 that are absolutely wonderful.
I purchased this book as a gift but I'm afraid I won't be able to give it away.
The Innocents Abroad is an ageless book for anyone who has ever traveled (and for anyone who has never traveled) that can be read multiple times and will always give the reader the same enjoyment and fun that was inspired at first reading. Mark Twain's ability to tweak character flaws and situations are, at the same time, hilarious and thought provoking.
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