The Journey of Anders Sparrman

I'm not sure how much of this book to chalk up to a poor translation and how much to just count towards being a bad book. What could have been an interesting story about a forgotten world traveler, a trainee of Carl Linnaeus and an early anti-slavery crusader, quickly degenerated into a really poor, and often quite vulgar, dime-store romance novel. I make a point to finish every book a pick up to read, this was a struggle.

An unusual book, being a "fictionalised biography". Anders Sparrman was a Swede in the 18th century who studied under Linnaeus, travelled with Cook, explored South Africa, returned to Sweden to doctor the poor and campaign against slavery. The novel covers these aspects, the last part being his more personal journey as his contributions to natural history are overlooked by his contemporaries, and he falls in love and marries -- a more domestic journey.

The style sloshes between 1st and 3rd person, and much is written in a fairly matter-of-fact way as one might expect of a biography. Yet, as the quoted reviews on the cover attest, there is also something quite poetical in the writing which is quite hard to pin down.