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Known as one of American literature's finest humor writers, Mark Twain took on the travel genre in the series of essays, sketches, and observations collected in The Innocents Abroad. From classic fish-out-of-water shenanigans to keen insight into the differences between American culture and its European and Middle Eastern counterparts, this volume is an engaging and rewarding read.… (more)
I would have given this a four if it hadn't gotten so bogged down in the Holy Lands. I really became tedious at one point and I had trouble finishing it. But I loved, loved, loved the European descriptions as well as Turkey, Egypt and the travelers time as desert nomads. Some things never change ... there are still ugly Americans who are utterly clueless when they travel, one may still become overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of churches and Renaissance masterpieces in Italy to the point that it becomes difficult to appreciate them, the proliferation of relics is laughable and the tendency of guides to guide you to shops where they get a cut is still a thing. And much more. I think the book is probably more appreciated by those who have traveled to some of the places he described because you can re-experience those places through his eyes. Perhaps this is why I didn't appreciate the Holy Lands more, since I have never been there. Yes, there is racism and xenophobia in the book, but it is limited and with a couple of exceptions doesn't feel mean-spirited (mainly when it comes to non-Christians). If you're easily offended, maybe you shouldn't read it. If you are able to look past common prejudices of the time, go for it. ( )
I put it down. I can't seem to find a "I will not read" category. "I put it down" still adds on "I will read", "I read", or "I am reading" and I won't pick it up again. I realize it was written by a fabulous writer, in another century and the standards were far different but I did not like reading the racist comments. ( )
I've had this book on my shelf for years and finally decided to read it. I love Mark Twain usually but I just couldn't get into it. It may be because I was just not in the right mood for it. I put it aside for now, and may try to pick it up again. I made it about 1/4 of the way through. I like Twain's writing and I love his humour and that came out in this book which is one of his earliest works. He is a passenger on the maiden voyage of one of America's prospective warships. His job is to report back to the States about this trip of a lifetime. The ship sails away to France, Italy, and the Holy Land. The book was written during the Paris World Fair which was in the summer of 1889. ( )
The idea of a steamer-load of Americans going on a prolonged picnic to Europe and the Holy Land is itself almost sufficiently delightful, and it is perhaps praise enough for the author to add that it suffers nothing from his handling. If one considers the fun of making a volume of six hundred octavo pages upon this subject, in compliance with one of the main conditions of a subscription book's success, bigness namely, one has a tolerably fair piece of humor, without troubling Mr. Clements further. It is out of the bounty and abundance of his own nature that he is as amusing in the execution as in the conception of his work. And it is always good-humored humor, too, that he lavishes on his reader, and even in its impudence it is charming; we do not remember where it is indulged at the cost of the weak or helpless side, or where it is insolent, with all its sauciness and irreverence.
To My Most Patient Reader and Most Charitable Critic, MY AGED MOTHER, This Volume is Affectionately Inscribed
First words
For months the great Pleasure Excursion to Europe and Holy Land was chatted about in the newspapers everywhere in America, and discussed at countless firesides.
Quotations
The guides deceive and defraud every American who goes to Paris for the first time and sees its sights alone or in company with others as little experienced as himself. I shall visit Paris again some day, and then let the guides beware! I shall go in my war-paint - I shall carry my tomahawk along.
They showed us a portrait of the Madonna which was painted by St Luke, and it did not look half as old and smoky as some of the pictures by Rubens. We could not help admiring the Apostle's modesty in never once mentioning in his writings that he could paint.
But perhaps the most poetical thing Pompeii has yielded to modern research, was that grand figure of a Roman soldier, clad in complete armor; who, true to his duty, true to his proud name of a soldier of Rome, and full of the stern courage which had given to the name its glory, stood to his post by the city gate, erect and unflinching, till the hell that raged around him burned out the dauntless spirit it could not conquer.
if you hire a man to sneeze for you, here (Nazareth), and another man chooses to help him, you have got to pay both. They do nothing whatever without pay. How it must have surprised these people to hear the way of salvation offered to them 'without money and without price'.
The citizens of Endor objected to our going in there, They do not mind dirt; they do not mind rags; they do not mind vermin; they do not mind barbarous ignorance and savagery; they do not mind a reasonable degree of starvation, but they do like to be pure and holy before their god, whoever he may be, and therefore they shudder and grow almost pale at the idea of Christian lips polluting a spring whose waters must descend into their sanctified gullets.
It is a singular circumstance that right under the roof of this same great church, and not far away from the illustrious column, Adam himself, the father of the human race, lies buried. There is no question that he is actually buried in the grave which is pointed out as his - there can be none - because it has never yet been proven that that is not the grave in which he is buried. The tomb of Adam! How touching it was, here in the land of strangers, far away from home, and friends, and all who cared for me, thus to discover the grave of a blood relation, True, a distant one, but still a relation. The unerring instinct of nature thrilled its recognition. The fountain of my filial affection was stirred to its profoundest depths, and I gave way to tumultuous emotion. I leaned upon a pillar and burst into tears. I deem it no shame to have wept over the grave of my poor dead relative. Let him who would sneer at my emotion close this volume here, for he will find little to his taste in my journeyings through the Holy Land. Noble old man - he did not live to see his child. And I - I - alas did not live to see him. Weighed down by sorrow and disappointment, he died before I was born - six thousand brief summers before I was born. But let us try to bear it with fortitude.
The sights are too many, The swarm about you at every step; no single foot of ground in all Jerusalem or within its neighborhood seems to be without a stirring and important history of its own. It is a very relief to steal a walk of a hundred yards without a guide along to talk unceasingly about every stone you step upon and drag you back ages and ages to the very day when it achieved celebrity.
Travel and experience mar the grandest pictures and rob us of the most cherished traditions.
The Sphynx is grand in its loneliness; it is imposing in its magnitude; it is impressive in the mystery that hangs over its story. And there is that in the overshadowing majesty of this eternal figure of stone, with its accusing memory of the deeds of all ages, which reveals to one something of what he shall feel when he shall stand at last in the awful presence of God.
A frowsy, bearded brigand sprang into the road with a shout, and flourished a musket in the light of the moon! We sidled toward the Pireaus - not running you understand, but only advancing with celerity.
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
Last words
We shall remember Constantinople and the Bosporus--the colossal magnificence of Baalbec--the Pyramids of Egypt--the prodigious form, the benignant countenance of the Sphynx--Oriental Smyrna--sacred Jerusalem --Damascus, the "Pearl of the East," the pride of Syria, the fabled Garden of Eden, the home of princes and genii of the Arabian Nights, the oldest metropolis on earth, the one city in all the world that has kept its name and held its place and looked serenely on while the Kingdoms and Empires of four thousand years have risen to life, enjoyed their little season of pride and pomp, and then vanished and been forgotten!
Der zweibändige Werk ward 1875 zum ersten Mal auf deutsch in zwei Bänden aber ohne Folgenummern herausgegeben. Der erste Band hieß Die Arglosen auf Reisen. Der zweite hieß Die neue Pilgerfahrt, nach dem Untertitel des englischen Werkes. Deshalb sind die zwei übersetzten Bände einzeln aufgeführt.
Known as one of American literature's finest humor writers, Mark Twain took on the travel genre in the series of essays, sketches, and observations collected in The Innocents Abroad. From classic fish-out-of-water shenanigans to keen insight into the differences between American culture and its European and Middle Eastern counterparts, this volume is an engaging and rewarding read.
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