Following the Equator: "A Journey Around the World"
By Banu Yasar, Murat Ukray and Mark Twain
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About this ebook
Following the Equator (sometimes titled More Tramps Abroad) is a non-fiction travelogue published by American author Mark Twain in 1897.
Twain was practically bankrupt in 1894 due to a failed investment into a "revolutionary" typesetting machine. In an attempt to extricate himself from debt of $100,000 (equivalent of about $2.5 million in 2010) he undertook a tour of the British Empire in 1895, a route chosen to provide numerous opportunities for lectures in the English.
Themes:
In Following the Equator, an account of that travel published in 1897, the author criticizes racism, imperialism and missionary zeal in observations woven into the narrative with classical Twain wit.
In keeping with that wit, and Twain's love of a tall tale, Twain included a number of fictional stories in the body of what is otherwise a non-fiction work. In particular, the story of how Cecil Rhodes made his fortune by finding a newspaper in the belly of a shark, and the story of how a man named Ed Jackson made good in life out of a fake letter of introduction to Cornelius Vanderbilt, were anthologized in Charles Neider (ed) The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain, (Doubleday, 1957) where they are presented as fiction.
Chapter I
A man may have no bad habits and have worse.
—Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.
The starting point of this lecturing-trip around the world was Paris, where we had been living a year or two.
We sailed for America, and there made certain preparations. This took but little time. Two members of my family elected to go with me. Also a carbuncle. The dictionary says a carbuncle is a kind of jewel. Humor is out of place in a dictionary.
We started westward from New York in midsummer, with Major Pond to manage the platform-business as far as the Pacific. It was warm work, all the way, and the last fortnight of it was suffocatingly smoky, for in Oregon and British Columbia the forest fires were raging. We had an added week of smoke at the seaboard, where we were obliged to wait awhile for our ship. She had been getting herself ashore in the smoke, and she had to be docked and repaired.
We sailed at last; and so ended a snail-paced march across the continent, which had lasted forty days.
We moved westward about mid-afternoon over a rippled and sparkling summer sea; an enticing sea, a clean and cool sea, and apparently a welcome sea to all on board; it certainly was to me, after the distressful dustings and smokings and swelterings of the past weeks. The voyage would furnish a three-weeks holiday, with hardly a break in it. We had the whole Pacific Ocean in front of us, with nothing to do but do nothing and be comfortable. The city of Victoria was twinkling dim in the deep heart of her smoke-cloud, and getting ready to vanish and now we closed the field-glasses and sat down on our steamer chairs contented and at peace. But they went to wreck and ruin under us and brought us to shame before all the passengers. They had been furnished by the largest furniture-dealing house in Victoria, and were worth a couple of farthings a dozen, though they had cost us the price of honest chairs. In the Pacific and Indian Oceans one must still bring his own deck-chair on board or go without, just as in the old forgotten Atlantic times—those Dark Ages of sea travel.
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Reviews for Following the Equator
74 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Of Twain's book length works, this is the most obviously anti-imperialist, but it is also funny. Enlightening and entertaining.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia and India are all wonderfully described, as well as the platypus! The parts about "recruiting" (slave-catching) are especially powerful! Twain is clearly anti-slavery, anti-politician, and pro woman's suffrage! And his points about education toward the end seem right on for today as well as when he wrote! I wasn't crazy about the chapters on South Africa, but this is one heck of a book!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the early 1900s, Mark Twain took a journey around the equator, visiting various countries and lecturing there. This is somewhat of his journal, but is mostly composed of his thoughts after the journey .It is interesting to read of the countries, and I found the opinions of Twain to be remarkably modern. For any who have called him a racist, I think they should read this book before they decide. His remarks are biting and sharp on the subject. Where he may be misunderstood is his habit of over-exaggerating an opinion to make a the opposite point. I found most of his writings about the islands in the Pacific, Australia and India to be interesting, and in fact learned much about India I had not known before. I found myself frequently looking things up thinking he was making up stories, but sure enough, it was true! The part on South Africa dragged for me, I did a lot of skimming there. This book is not as bitter and dark as some of his other writings. In fact, it seemed as if he was having the time of his life.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I can hardly imagine anything better than traveling the globe with Mark Twain. His wit and keen powers of observation were abundantly apparent. Sadly, so was his prejudice; although, one must remember that this was written in an entirely different time, and that, thankfully most people have become more evolved and educated since then. One also has to remember that, as Twain reminds us himself in the book, he was brought up during slavery, to accept slavery and denigration of those of different ethnicity as normal.One story, that involved him naming an Indian servant Satan had me exasperated at his presumption at making such a joke at someone else's expense and at the same time had me rolling on the floor laughing when Satan brought Twain God's calling card. That's just the crux of the story, it was a few pages in length, and the funniest passage I think I've ever read. However, the lack of respect for his servant as a human being and for the religion of others in the story, did, as I say, quite leave me feeling exasperated.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A great slog of a bathroom book. Casual 19th century racism of a genial sort. But great travel insights from another time.