Reviewing Twain's "A Tramp Abroad"

It is both a part of Mark Twain’s charm and a part of his unreliability as a narrator that one is never quite sure whether he is telling the truth. I first came across this conundrum whilst reading Life on the Mississippi, which is supposedly a partial autobiography, partial history, partial travelogue based on Twain’s experiences as a Mississippi riverboat pilot and traveler.

I came across it again more recently—and more palpably—in A Tramp Abroad. This book, which I later found out is an unofficial sequel to The Innocents Abroad (which I haven’t read yet), is about how Twain and a friend named Harris set out to travel Europe—a bit of France and Italy, but mostly Germany and the Alps—on foot. Basically their goal was to do what young adults and college students do when they “backpack” across Europe. Which I suppose makes Twain a purposeful hobo or an accidental hipster.

This book is no Rick Steves. In fact, Twain constantly contradicts the tourist authority of the time, his Baedeker guide, on details such as how long it takes to travel roads (Baedekers apparently don’t take into account that the speed of travel might be much slower on foot). And while Twain might touch on the usual touristy topics of attending German Opera, hiring guides, visiting hotels, and viewing art, he does it in his own characteristic way, a blend of sarcasm, exaggeration, and Blatant Lies. 

I listened to this book on CD, and while I was merrily listening along, minding my own business, I began to become increasingly aware that the things Twain was experiencing were unrealistic. 

It was all well and good when he was describing how he couldn’t sleep at an inn one night, how a mouse’s chewing got so loud that he threw a shoe and accidentally hit Harris (who infuriatingly slept through all of Twain’s insomnia), and finally it was early in the morning that he decided not to try to sleep anymore and to get ready for the day…only to get lost in this strange room and its darkness and ramble around breaking every mirror trying to find the door. I considered this a bit of Exaggerating For The Sake of Humor, a normal fare for a guy like Twain. Besides, who hasn’t had trouble sleeping in a strange place, where every foreign noise seems amplified and the peaceful slumber of one’s room-mate seems unbearably unsympathetic? 

Likewise when he approaches a complete stranger-lady to settle a bet with Harris about her age, only to find—much to his dismay and her amusement—that she is a previous acquaintance, and upon returning to Harris he makes up the most ludicrous lies about the conversation with the woman, which we as the readers know to be untrue…unless he lied the first time and told the truth to Harris. 

Either way, this last incident should have prepared me for the whoppers that were to come. As I say above, I’m perfectly forgiving of exaggeration and mistruths for the sake of comedic effect. In fact, I expect it from humorists. But Twain had sprinkled in just enough verisimilitude that I started to think the events he portrayed might actually have happened.  That is, until he started climbing mountains.

What came next was Twain’s endless voyage up some mountain. Again, I was listening to this on audio book, or else I would go back and count how many chapters and pages Twain devoted to this farce. As it is I can only say that several times I had to double-check my CD player to see if the disc had somehow started over again, the descriptions of dire mountain climbing and impending doom were so lengthy.

He started out with about a mile of rope which he forced all his company—hired guides, hired packmen, hired cooks, hired clergymen in the inevitable event of someone dying of hypothermia or falling off the mountain—to tie to themselves while still at the bottom of the mountain. 

 

The story of this expedition was longer than

http://issyvoo.de/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/A-Tramp-Abroad.jpg

“Ha ha,” I said to myself. “Surely you exaggerate.”  

But as he continued his quest, losing people, being lost, having a mutiny on his hands, having a guide abandon them by tying his end of the rope to a wild boar, whose life he saved from the ravenous company by heroically being butted in the rear by said ungrateful beast—all of the events taking on a tone of Shackleton proportions—I began to long for the good old days when I was reading about his serving as a second for a not-so-secretly reluctant French duelist. 

When at last he got off that mountain—it took me several days to read it, so I can only imagine he’d been up there long enough to measure a glacial retreat—Twain had lost about twenty clergymen who apparently fall off the Alps like lemmings when taken on expeditions. To console himself he and Harris then went to Italy, where he compared literary to artistic censorship (literature being unfairly restricted in comparison to all the nudey statues and paintings of the Renaissance, for example). He concluded the book with a list of all the American foods he missed during his travels, and with the observation that Americans should travel to Europe for a better appreciation of how much better they have it in the States.

Looking back on this review, I feel like I have neither done it justice in summarizing the plot, nor even scratched the surface on any theme that Twain was trying to underline—or undermine—throughout. That’s the problem with satire. It’s hard to pin down. Maybe its very elusiveness is what makes it so potent. Twain got away with a lot of brash observations and criticisms of society, and he got away with it because no one could ever accuse him of being serious. Humor has a way of making a point without being outright offensive. If truth were a medicine, then laughter is what sweetens it enough for us to swallow. 

So I suggest reading this book, and pretty much any of Twain’s work. Take the events either as factual with a grain of salt, or completely fictionalized. Be amused at the hypocrisy, the over-the-top situations, the humbugs and the charlatans. But also realize that this ludicrousness exists in our own world, in the fallibility of our cultures, and in human nature. That’s the real truth that Twain conveys in this book. And maybe, if we’re wise enough to look for it, satire can actually give us something more than just a laugh.

Recommended Reader Age: For independent readers, middle school or above, as it takes a certain maturity level to appreciate satire. For reading aloud, I would say this would be a good book for a wide range of ages, as long as the parent or teacher is ready to stop and explain the more subtle Blatant Lies.

Parental Notes: There isn’t much objectionable content to note. Twain wasn’t kidding about censorship at the time; that much is true at least.

Availability: Like all of Twain’s novels, this book is in public domain and can be read (with illustrations which are completely lost in the audio book version) online at Gutenberg for free, as well as on Kindle. This is one of the very few Twain books I don’t own*. Obviously the best copy to acquire would be a first edition, since that seems to be the only option for both original illustrations AND hardcover copies, but for those whose budget is only slightly under $950.00,** I suppose one could settle for a mere softcover with original illustrations. 

*Note to self or anyone else nice enough to buy one for me, hint hint.

**In the vein of Mark Twain, I exaggerate.  Some of the first editions I found were quite a bit less expensive. Like $780.00.