A Note on 19th Century Literature

One of the reasons we read older literature is to be plunged into a different world.  It's a world apart from our own, separated by a gulf we can't cross - that of time.

When I read Sherlock Holmes, I am IN Victorian London.  I'm walking the old streets, I can feel the heavy fog.  It's the same with Mark Twain.  I'm pulled into a time and place that is long gone, and it only exists in literature.

Book Review: Roughing It, by Mark Twain (1870-1872) - More Stuff

This book deserves more than one post.  I bought the audio book and listened to a few sections of it again last night.  Absolutely wonderful.  Parts of it are so interesting, and parts are so comical, I have to share them.  By the way, if you get the audiobook, it should be narrated by Norman Dietz.  No one does Mark Twain like him.  Anyway, here's a few snippets from the book.

Book Review: Roughing It, by Mark Twain (1870-1872)

One of the best, funniest Mark Twain books.  It's a history of his early years.  I have read this book more times than I can count.  It is the story of his time out west.

Many people would be surprised at the idea of Mark Twain as a cowboy.  I don't mean he herded cattle, but I mean he lived out west in Nevada and California in the 1860s.  He wrote extensively of western life, from the Mormons to the American Indians to the gold and silver miners to the outlaws.  This is a jewel for anyone interested in frontier life, or life in the old west.  Roughing It is a wonderful period piece.

But it's far more than that.