Mark Twain - The Wayward Tourist: Adventures in Australia (1897)
Number: 66
Genre: Non-fiction; Origin: US; Pages: 200
Satisfaction rating: 9.0
OVERVIEW:
At the height of his fame, Mark Twain, the great writer and humorist from Missouri, was facing financial ruin from one of his failed business ventures. Broke but much loved he embarked on a lecture tour around the equator, making a stop in Australia. The Wayward Tourist republishes Twain’s Australian travel writing in which he recounts impressions of Sydney, Melbourne, Bendigo, Wagga Wagga, Ballarat and Adelaide, and his view of Australian history.
MATTHEW’S COMMENTS:
I loved this book! Unfortunately the second I had started I wished that I had read Huck Finn or another of his great works previously. Nevertheless, this republished extract from his 1897 work Following the Equator is no less intriguing. Essentially The Wayward Tourist is a travel guide before the proliferation of mass media and the growth of Lonely Planet and National Geographic (and dare I say Getaway). Here Twain’s observations are based on a trip of two and a half months with weeks in transit either side. The most enjoyable part of the novel is Twain’s genuine enthusiasm for seeing the sites and meeting the locals. But not to be content with his day to day experiences Twain has taken the time to read much literature on Australia (J.S. Laurie’s The Story of Australasia, 1896 and Douglas Gane’s New South Wales and Victoria in 1885, 1886) to inform his observations on Australian culture and history.
Twain states ‘(Australian history) reads like the most beautiful lies’, and from this base he explores the depths of indigenous and European assimilation, the harsh convict trials and the Australian vernacular. A favourite passage is his discussion of the ‘modern city’ of Adelaide, in which he republishes census data on the religious persuasion of the 320,000 strong community, from 22 Atheists to 52 Buddhists and 89,271 from the Church of England to 840 Jews.
The book excels on a number of fronts, both as an observation of Australia as a developing community and Twain’s own theories on race and religion. But first and foremost he is a storyteller, and no story is as enjoyable as the comical one which reaches its climax in ‘The Mark Twain Club chapter.
FURTHER REFERENCES:
Read more on the publisher’s site
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