Rating: 
Summary: Must Read
Review: A gem that I am glad I finally got around to reading. Any serious reader with an open mind about religion, politics, and living will immensely enjoy this book; others won't. So to paraphrase the old adage, if you enjoyed the book, review it and give it the deserved five stars; if you didn't enjoy it, please keep it to yourself and not tarnish this gem. It deserves to be read by future readers for many years to come.
Rating:
Summary: The real myth of the west
Review: Before Clint Eastwood tore apart the mythic West in Unforgiven, Mark Twain's travelogue/novel portrayed the West as a humorous, amorally violent, rapacious, and racist land of opportunity, not all of it good. Most people would characterize the West like that now: testament to the staying power of Twain's prose. The "Genuine Mexican Plug" and "Lost in the Snow" episodes are magnificient. Roughing It also acts as a satirical outrider for Huck Finn. If you want the feel of a stage-coach, read the first section whenever you travel, just as George Plimpton does in his Introduction
Rating:
Summary: Roughing IT
Review: I became acquainted with ROUGHING IT as a high school sophomore, when an otherwise fatally boring "World Geography" textbook introduced a chapter on America's Rocky Mountain West, with an italicized excerpt from Chapter 43 of ROUGHING IT. That excerpt was Mark Twain's description of Virginia City and the Comstock Lode during the "Flush Times". At that time, "Bonanza" was a popular TV western, and the Virginia City of Twain's experience, made "Bonanza's" Virginia City seem dull! I was hooked. I found a tattered old copy of ROUGHING IT at the public library and read it. And I have re-read ROUGHING IT many times since, finding it one of those rare books revealing fresh nuggets with every prospecting trip. ROUGHING IT is captivating in so many ways, and on many levels. It's a journey into the real "Old West" on the Overland Stage, a journey on the road from youth to maturity, a journey to an era of wild, crazy times and colorful characters to match, a journey from young Sam Clemens to Mark Twain, and all written with the young , enthusiastic Twain's incomparable style and eye for detail and humor. Although Twain's peerless storytelling is reason enough to read ROUGHING IT , the book is also a gem of priceless historic value, revealing much about the Western Frontier's early mining era. The first 20 chapters are probably the best first-hand account of travel on the Overland Stage in existence, and the description of early 1860's Virginia City ,as well as the descriptions of prospecting, mining , miners, and other details of that time are of equally priceless historic value. For those with a morbid dread of history, rest assured that with Professor Twain instructing , the subject emerges with a fresh, new perspective that is irresistible. I can never read ROUGHING IT without wondering why Hollywood is so hung up on the Western Frontier's "cowboy era" , when the early mining era of the frontier seems so much more colorful and interesting . Hopefully, someone will drop ROUGHING IT on a studio executive's head , before he commits "Legally Blond 15", or "Terminator 25". This classic book has often been overlooked for reasons I can't understand. It reads as freshly as if it had been written yesterday, and it is well worth the effort. This is history the way it should be taught, and while ROUGHING IT belongs at the top of any list of classic books, it would also belong at the top of a list of books which are fun to read. "Fun to read", and "Classic", rarely describe the same book, but ROUGHING IT is the exception.
Rating:
Summary: Roughing IT
Review: I became acquainted with ROUGHING IT as a high school sophomore, when an otherwise fatally boring "World Geography" textbook introduced a chapter on America's Rocky Mountain West, with an italicized excerpt from Chapter 43 of ROUGHING IT. That excerpt was Mark Twain's description of Virginia City and the Comstock Lode during the "Flush Times". At that time, "Bonanza" was a popular TV western, and the Virginia City of Twain's experience, made "Bonanza's" Virginia City seem dull! I was hooked. I found a tattered old copy of ROUGHING IT at the public library and read it. And I have re-read ROUGHING IT many times since, finding it one of those rare books revealing fresh nuggets with every prospecting trip. ROUGHING IT is captivating in so many ways, and on many levels. It's a journey into the real "Old West" on the Overland Stage, a journey on the road from youth to maturity, a journey to an era of wild, crazy times and colorful characters to match, a journey from young Sam Clemens to Mark Twain, and all written with the young , enthusiastic Twain's incomparable style and eye for detail and humor. Although Twain's peerless storytelling is reason enough to read ROUGHING IT , the book is also a gem of priceless historic value, revealing much about the Western Frontier's early mining era. The first 20 chapters are probably the best first-hand account of travel on the Overland Stage in existence, and the description of early 1860's Virginia City ,as well as the descriptions of prospecting, mining , miners, and other details of that time are of equally priceless historic value. For those with a morbid dread of history, rest assured that with Professor Twain instructing , the subject emerges with a fresh, new perspective that is irresistible. I can never read ROUGHING IT without wondering why Hollywood is so hung up on the Western Frontier's "cowboy era" , when the early mining era of the frontier seems so much more colorful and interesting . Hopefully, someone will drop ROUGHING IT on a studio executive's head , before he commits "Legally Blond 15", or "Terminator 25". This classic book has often been overlooked for reasons I can't understand. It reads as freshly as if it had been written yesterday, and it is well worth the effort. This is history the way it should be taught, and while ROUGHING IT belongs at the top of any list of classic books, it would also belong at the top of a list of books which are fun to read. "Fun to read", and "Classic", rarely describe the same book, but ROUGHING IT is the exception.
Rating: 
Summary: hm...
Review: i've been reading the reviews for this book, and I wanted to offer up my own opinion. I first read this book as part of my high school 11th grade english cirriculum. And as a warning to others, I just wanted to say that reading this book was like watching paint dry. There is no structure, and after a while it seems like your just reading page after page but are retaining nothing. Though there are some very interesting funny parts in the books, the overall dullness of it all overpowers the good. At some points, I wanted to claw my eyes out in despair.
I admit, I do love Mark Tawin, but this is in Noo sense, his best work.
Ones again, this is just my opinion. Read it and see for yourself.
Rating:
Summary: Mark Twain's Adventures Out West
Review: It wasn't Horace Greeley calling Mark Twain to "Go west young man, go west". Rather, in 1861, after Twain had had his fill of the civil war, he responded to his brother's (Orion) urging to go out west to the Nevada territory with him. "Roughing It" is a personal, and mostly factual, account of Twain's adventures into the wild west from 1861 up until 1867, when he began his pleasure excursion to the Holy Lands, and which is the subject of his first travelogue, "The Innocents Abroad". During this time, Twain was a gold and silver prospector - and made the claim that for a day he was a millionaire. He also dabbled in mining stocks and timber, and gives us an exacting account of how gold and silver was assayed. His most prominent, and infamous, role of course was that of newspaper man. For it was writing and reporting where he crafted and fine tuned this trade which ultimately made him famous. It was also during this time he wrote his first story, "The Celebrated Frog of Calevaras County".
The west may have been wild and untamed in the era Twain lived in it; and indeed, Twain himself was wild and untamed. But he learned to use humor to through his writings, sketches, and reports to breathe a little levity into the lives of the people who, for the most part, were suffering in this climate; all of which is chronicled in "Roughing It". Included is Twain's account of his first attempt at lecturing, and how terrified he was.
I highly recommend "Roughing It" not merely for its humor and satire; but also because this is where Mark Twain the writer originated. He entered it as Samuel Clemens, and came out it Mark Twain. One might say the west gave birth to Mark Twain; and that, years later, after he left the west, it took the courage and conviction of his wife, Livy, to raise this wild orphan. It you want to learn more about Mark Twain than you ever dreamed, read this incredible travelogue, "Roughing It".
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious jounrye across America
Review: Mark Twain achieves a remarkable feat in this book, he manages to write a travel book even funnier than 'Innocents Abroad', which I wouldn't have thought possible. His riveting account of his travels west across the country is packed with fascinating and amusing incidents and anecdotes. I was almost in hysterics when I read about Twain and a group of friends beimng held at bay by a boxful of escaped Tarantulas, and again reading about his bizarre encounters with the preposterous Mormons in Utah. As in Innocents Abroad, humour is woven in with serious observations on the places he visits and their inhabitants. His account of his visit to Hawaii is particularly fascinating, but the whole book is unforgettable.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious jounrye across America
Review: Mark Twain achieves a remarkable feat in this book, he manages to write a travel book even funnier than 'Innocents Abroad', which I wouldn't have thought possible. His riveting account of his travels west across the country is packed with fascinating and amusing incidents and anecdotes. I was almost in hysterics when I read about Twain and a group of friends beimng held at bay by a boxful of escaped Tarantulas, and again reading about his bizarre encounters with the preposterous Mormons in Utah. As in Innocents Abroad, humour is woven in with serious observations on the places he visits and their inhabitants. His account of his visit to Hawaii is particularly fascinating, but the whole book is unforgettable.
Rating: 
Summary: A fun read, and some history too
Review: The genius of Mark Twain is that his work is still enjoyable, and funny, to this day. This book, originally published in 1871, is Twain's account of his journey from Missouri to Hawaii (called the Sandwich Islands in his day). He tells story after story of his adventures along the way, starting with the stagecoach ride on the Overland Stage Line to Carson City, Nevada, around 1861, and then telling of his stay in Nevada, then California, then his visit to Hawaii. The stories are informative, humorous, and all-around entertaining. He lampoons everybody he can--nobody is safe--including miners, pioneers (emigrants), politicians, Mormons, Blacks, American Indians, Chinese, newspaper reporters, "desperados", even himself on more than one occasion. Sometimes his stories are so outrageous that you wonder how much is true and how much is embellishment, or just outright fiction. Even he understands this by telling the reader on occasion that he has not made up a particular story, to demonstrate that truth is often stranger than fiction, but also to imply that he has taken liberties in other places in the book. (I wonder if the Mormon Church has ever banned this book for the things he says about them.) Even while he is being irreverent, however, he often demonstrates a sensitivity toward people, with an awareness of the situation of others that seems to me to be ahead of his time. For example, he has a chapter on the immigrant Chinese population in the West, and while he pokes fun at them in some respects, he spends the time detailing their lives and culture, as much as he could understand it, with a respect that was uncommon in his day. I bought a copy of this book years ago because I am a native Californian, and knew that there was some material in here about California in the early days (my copy is an old hardcover published by Grosset and Dunlap). As Twain states in his Prefatory: "...There is quite a good deal of information in this book. I regret this very much, but really it could not be helped." I enjoyed reading about the "old West" from an eye-witness, although most of it deals with Nevada, not California. While some of it sounded familiar, like something from any Western-genre movie, other things were like nothing I had ever heard of before, describing the "Wild West" from an original point of view. In that respect, this book is a great resource. This book falls short of five stars due to some minor flaws. He often digresses with text that is not only marginal to the point, but not even written by him, reprinting someone else's text. I skipped over some of that. He would also spend pages detailing coversations between other people that he could not have possibly remembered verbatim. While I understand that it was a common writing style of his day, it sounds like bad jounalism today. Those complaints aside, this is some great writing by Twain and some valuable American history.
Rating:
Summary: Frontier life through the eyes of Americas greatest satirist
Review: There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of travel logs, journals, reports, diaries, etc. that tell about the American West in the mid-nineteenth century. This book by Mark Twain, however, is both unique and one of the best. This is travel writing as it should be. Twain, traveling across the plains from Missouri to Nevada in the early 1860's, and spending seven years loafing about Nevada, California, and Hawaii, collected and compiled his experiences into this extraordinary book. One of the best things about Twain, of course, is his unique view on things. This tale is told in Twain's wry, humorous style, and is very enjoyable.
This book is not quite as pessimistic as Twain's other great travel writing, `The Innocents Abroad,' but it does include some interesting and unorthodox views which often prove hilarious. Twain spends time as a gold and silver seeker, a speculator, a journalist, and a vagabond (as he himself puts it), and puts a unique spin on each of these occupations. As far as travel writing goes, this book is indispensable, and it also proves quite valuable (odd as it may seem) in any thorough study of frontier life in the American West.
|
