Roughing It

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: 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: Unexpected gem
Review: A long-time fan of Mark Twain, I had still managed to make it past my fortieth birthday never having read this book. But recently, when I needed something to read (you know the kind of days I am talking about), I stumbled across this book and set to laughing.

The story-telling is magnificent. Few writers can take the small things of daily life and make them breathe -- but Twain possessed that gift, and uses it well. How many others went West the same time he did, and never saw the gold dust, sunsets, and taverns the way he wrote them into our consciousness?

And yet, and yet... As much as I loved the stories he told, I see "Roughing It" as important in a different manner. Even when the truth is slightly embellished to make us, his readers (of whom he is always very much aware), laugh out loud, it still truly presents the era and place he put down in black and white. We can be so bombarded with romanticized movies about the gold rush and settlers heading West, that we lose sight of them as genuine people with the same faults and virtues we know in 2001.

But with Mark Twain's keen eye, our history -- our American history -- comes to life. And suddenly, we "get it", we comprehend that all that stuff we had to learn in high school was done by people, not daguerrotypes.

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: Great read even for a 17 year old!!
Review: I am a seventeen year old male, and I can say that I found this book to be very cool! When I first started reading it I figured it probably would be very dated and probably not hold my interest but I was wrong, I found it to be very engrossing. I did read Huckelberry finn, and though it is considered the great american novel it did not hold my interest like roughing it did. The book covers Twains adventures out west during the late 1800's. lots of adventure and humor.

... --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition

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.