The Travels of Marco Polo

This version is the Wordsworth Classics edition - so it is the William Marsden translation, from 1818 minus the footnotes, which was based on the 1553 Giambattsia Ramusio edition. There are more modern translations but this was readable enough though a bit repetitive and best read in small doses.

Mostly it seems to be descriptions of towns and places that Polo might have visited during his years in China and the route taken to get there. There are some more interesting sections about life in the Great Khan's court and some sections about Tartar life and the battles and rivalries between some of the main characters of the time.

I'm pleased to have read it but it is probably one I will not return to. ( )

"Travels of Marco Polo" -- a ghostwritten account of Polo's travels around Asia-- was a really difficult book to get into. Many of the descriptions become tedious (countless people are described merely as idolators who eat flesh and drink milk...) The most interesting bits, which are sprinkled throughout the book, focus on Tartar military history -- the conquests of Kublai Khan and his relatives. I also really enjoyed Polo's retelling of various legends (such as the diamond encrusted fish...) Overall, it was worth wading through the long descriptions to get to the good stuff, but it isn't a book I'd ever pick up for a second reading. ( )

Have attempted to listen to this audio (downloaded from audible.co.uk) several but so far have had difficulty getting very far into it.

The narrator is distant and badly recorded - it sounds like he's recorded it down a phone line. The most animation in his voice comes when he stumbles over words he seems not to know but should have practised before recording. Italian in particular seems to be his sticking point - definately an issue when recording a narration of an Italian travelling to the far east! Otherwise his voice is flat and uninteresting - there is narely a breath or change in tone when announcing the chapter changes that happen on a regular basis and that could, nay should, be pulling the listener back to the recording. Instead, it becomes a background noise that is easily tuned out, and therefore missing the possibly fantastical story

In the country are many wild elephants and rhinoceroses, which are much inferior in size to the elephant, but their feet are similar. Their hide resembles that of the buffalo. In the middle of their forehead they have a single horn; but with this weapon they do not injure those whom they attack, employing only for this purpose their tongue, which is armed with long, sharp spines, and their knees or feet; their mode of assault being to trample upon the person, and then to lacerate him with the tongue. Their head is like that of the wild boar, and they carry it low towards the ground. They take delight in muddy pools and are filthy in their habits. They are not of that description of animals which suffer themselves to be taken by maidens, as our people suppose, but are quite of a contrary nature.

Marco Polo's tale of his many years of travels in the second half of the 13th century. Together with his father and uncle, Marco Polo travelled via Central Asia to far Cathay, where they spent many years at the court of the Tartar emperor Kublai-Khan, before eventually returning to Venice by sea, via Indonesia, India and Abyssinia.

Very interesting, although it tends to be a bit repetitive, with the descriptions of numerous towns and cities starting off with phrases along the lines of "The inhabitants are idolaters, subjects of the Great Khan and use his paper money". ( )

In some of the books I read this past year about European explorers discovering the world, etc., this work by Marco Polo was referenced as having been inspirational to many of them, such as Columbus and Vespucci. So, I wanted to experience it myself. However, the reading became too tedious and many times just plain unbelievable. I skimmed the latter half of the book and had to stop. I suppose if I had read this in, say, 1450, I may have been inspired, too. But, in 2010, it was just disappointing. ( )