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Date Posted: 07:00:12 05/05/00 Fri
Author: Marla
Subject: Re: I'm sorry I missed the last book
In reply to: Chris 's message, "I'm sorry I missed the last book" on 14:01:11 05/04/00 Thu

I'm 150 pages ahead of you and the subject is STILL Australia. I'm very tempted to skip ahead and see if/when Twain hits a new continent, but that would be pretty defeatist, no?

So far, my reaction to the book is about what I expected it to be after reading the first 50 pages. As a reader, I'm a very linear thinker, and the books I enjoy the most are those that follow a clear progression (Translation: have a specific plot). While I'm finding Twain's commentary about the experiences he's living fascinating, I'm having a hard time maintaining interest. This is through no fault of Twain's (He is, after all, a terrific writer and great humorist). Rather, I suspect my problem lies in my own limitations as a reader. If I don't see all of the traditional elements of a novel--character and plot development, for example--"going somewhere," I don't allow myself to sink in for several hours of solid reading. Instead, I pick this thing up every few hours and read a chapter or two. Then, I put it down and move on to something else. It's just not engrossing, nor, do I think, is it designed to be.

All of that said, I find "Following the Equator" to be a very compelling document of a great man's great journey. He dissects people and places and traditions that I will probably never in my life have the good fortune to witness firsthand. It is his depth of recording that keeps me reading, for he doesn't only touch on surface observations like the temperature (Can't believe the highs, though I suspect the region is like Arizona...really hot, but not unbearable because there's so little humidity...unlike Kansas!), but recounts with extraordinary detail the conversations he's had and the people he's met.

Clearly, this book can't be a great novel. It's not conceived as such. But as a travelogue, it IS satisfying. It's not a genre with which I have any familiarity, but it's teaching me to read with a new mindset. More to follow...

> I'm about 130 pages into Twain and I think I'm going
> to give this book to my parents due to the fact that
> nearly the entire first portion deals with Australia.
>
> I thought that the account of the civilized servitude
> of the pacific island "recruits" in Queensland was
> really entertaining and informative. It really made
> me think of the sugar/rum industry of Antigua and the
> nearby island of Barbuda. I don't want to disrespect
> the history, so I'm hoping that Dave can elaborate on
> it later on. It basically evokes the thought of a
> group of people cloistered and forced to reproduce so
> that their best attributes would be cultived.
>
> My favorite part thus far relates to the severity of
> punishment in Britain vs. that of Australia:
>
> When I was in London twenty-three years ago there
> was a new penalty in force for diminishing garroting
> and wife-beating--25 lashes on the bare back with the
> cat-o'-nine-tails. . . That penalty had a great and
> wholesome effect upon the garroters and wife-beaters;
> but humane modern London could not endure it; it got
> its law rescinded. Many a bruised and battered
> English wife has since had occasion to deplore that
> cruel achievement of sentimental "humanity."
>
> Now that's probably one of the points on which I would
> diverge from the ACLU.

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