"Following the Equator - A Journey Around the World" by Mark Twain

 I inherited a copy of the first edition of this book, owned by my Second Great Grandfather (who passed away in 1920). I have mentioned him and his family in previous posts.

The volume sat in my bookcase for a few years before I decided to read it---I think Covid-shut down exasperation spurred me on to submerge myself in another world.

And this is another world! To read the book is like taking a long Victorian journey as well as a ride in a time machine. I recommend it. I like Twain as a travel writer better than I did (when I was forced to read some of his novels in school). 

He starts his journey in Paris, where the family was living for a while in the 1890's, sails for America and crossed the continent; there were raging forest fires in the west then, as now.

Across the Pacific to Hawaii, though there was an outbreak of some virulent plague (just like now) and the through-passengers were not able to leave the ship. Lots of interesting observations about passengers, crew, etc.

Onward to Australia; the most detail in the book was about Australia and India. Twain was on a speaking tour, of course, so he stopped at each of the major population centers.

India: as I was reading each section, I YouTubed for videos about each of this stops. Except for Darjeeling and one or two others, I bet Twain would not recognize modern Indian cities if he returned today. The Australian cities, he might.

One YouTube I shouldn't have watched: The Towers of Silence; funeral repositories for one of the many religious groups of India. This process involves ceremony, a massive but low circular stone tower, priests, dead bodies and vultures.  Use your imagination.  Twain describes this as a clean, neat procedure for disposing of the dead.  What about the smell?  So I YouTubed it: sure enough, someone flew a drone above one of these pits! It is not clean and neat at all--the vultures don't pick the corpses clean in minutes as Twain claimed.   

Much more attention to India: the low-down on Thugs and Suttee: gangs of roving stranglers and widow burning. The Mutiny in 1857--never heard of it before (since I never paid any attention to English history after 1781.)

On to South Africa, where I learned more about the diamond trade and mining practices that I ever did.

Cecil Rhodes, The Boer War, and so much more.

On a ship again, and headed back to Europe. Within the next year, he sat down and wrote this interesting book. It was as if he was speaking directly to me, across the distance and the years.

I Don't Like Autumn

The season has lovely aspects, without a doubt: bright colored leaves, riotous hues.

But I find that the decline of year, the chilling of the weather (though refreshing at times), the Halloween holiday is not my favorite-it was about fun and kids in costumes, excited about candy; now the decorations are quite morbid. The decreasing daylight--the sun is so low in the sky.

 However, after December 21, the light slowly begins to return, the days seem to lengthen. Somehow, immediately, just after Christmas, I feel better, more hopeful. I always look forward to garden activities, the plans to start the seeds. Soon you begin to hear the birds--cardinals and chickadees--tweeting their "spring songs".   It just feels so much better.

Mother's 101 Year Birth Anniversary

 

At her Grandparent's farm; probably taken in the early 1930's. Mother is getting too big for a pony.

A random toddler snap shot from about 1921.

Book Fail. Something called "Roots Schmoots" by Howard Jacobson

I took a break from Mark Twain and his travels at the equator:

Recently I went for a long enough bike ride to make it necessary to scout out a washroom at one of our local train stations. Thank Goodness, the facility was open--you can't always depend on availability of public washrooms during the plague.  haha.

This train station has one of my favorite book exchange racks, which I have missed. Sometimes I find the best old books that others have discarded this way. I was so delirious that I fell for this one.

"Roots Schmoots--Journeys Among Jews". Information about the heritage and genealogy of Jewish families, I hoped. And this too, like Twain's book, is a travel book, of sorts.

The author is British, of a Jewish family from Manchester; he is near 80 by now. He considers himself a humorist, I guess. He is a fine writer. His family worked hard to provide him with a great education to become a writer and critic.

He travels from the UK in about 1990 to discover information about Jewish communities on the path of where his families may have been. The book seems "dated" by now; the tone has not aged well. George H.W. Bush is President of the US. Desert Storm is current news. This book does not "know" about the attacks of 2001 (and how that changed us). We don't need glib, sassy humorists so much just now.

The author seems not to "like" his subjects--for as far as I got; about 1/3 of way.  His tone is disparaging to living people who he names! Some are public figures and some maybe not; I was shocked by this. 

He should have titled the book "Journeys Among Jews" and taken a kinder approach; not gone for the cheap laugh and caustic remark.

I slammed the book shut when he attended a photo exhibit in Los Angeles of Roman Vishniac, a 20th Century photographer who specialized in photos from the ghettos of Europe in the 1920's, 30's. Literally capturing the last sunsets of a population soon to be betrayed and massacred.

Jacobson is scornful of these photos! Seemingly making fun of the poses of scholars, rabbis, etc. Again, I was shocked. The author wrote this just 40 years or so from the end of the Holocaust (and 30 more years have passed and people are still not healed!) The people in the photos were soon to be killed, but did not know this--Jacobson knew what happened to them. Insensitive? At least.           I hope the book resolved itself in the end; I hope that in the author eventually cultivated a better attitude toward the people of his heritage.   I couldn't hang around to find out; I will avoid any of his books that I happen upon.

I'm writing this only because I feel like writing something, into the Google-ether in the fall of 2020.

Now, back to Mark Twain.

Autumn Has Arrived. In a Plague Year.

For the sake of blogging, the difficulty is that I have lost the compulsion to photograph everything I see.

Few photos make for not-very-interesting content?

My days consist of yard work (to clean up the autumn yard), housework (our area had a lot of road work done this summer=lots of dust). Sewing; it is good for me to sew on something regularly. Cooking.

We took a pleasant, three day camping trip last week--it's a bit cool, but with camping, we can avoid hotels, uncertain cleanliness and the Covid virus.  

We visited Chain O' Lakes State Park in Indiana. It is a nice place with lakes and hiking trails.

We had a real restaurant lunch: the first outing of this sort since February. In a small Indiana town.

We have not experienced any illness or contact with the Virus. We don't know anyone who had it, though we have second hand accounts.  We are "elderly", but with good health.

I don't worry about it; go regularly to grocery stores. It is difficult to go to the library since you have to make an appointment to visit.  So, I'm shopping my in-home library for items to read. I have visited my doctor, though have delayed a regularly scheduled screening.  Simply trying not to become a prisoner of the Thing, live our lives--but quietly.

The social unrest in the country scares me worse than the Virus. The social unrest is worse than anything encountered during the 1960's, I can say from having been there.

I think everyone is tired of it all. 

"Following the Equator" by Mark Twain

I am usually not interested in reading Twain; but I find I have inherited a first edition of the book.

It was originally owned by the natty gentleman, pictured with his family in the photos above. I have written about him before, since in May was the 100th anniversary of his passing.

The book was published before the turn of the last century, it's about 123 years old; in pretty good shape, mostly standing in the bookcases of by my 2nd Great-Grandparents, then my Grand-Parents and my Aunt.  One of my cousins presented me with the book.

I'm about 1/3 of the way thru the book; he's still in Australasia (as Oz was called then), traveling to scheduled lectures in the cities and towns of Australia. It's interesting. I'm using You Tube to follow along, viewing selected videos about the various locations. My 2-g-gf did not have that opportunity when he read the book. In some ways, our lives have changed so much.   

He passed away in 1920---I believe it was some form of respiratory condition. I wonder if it was the Spanish Flu of the Pandemic of that era?? He was about 88 years old when he died.

At least a couple of other relatives died that year: my Campbell G-GF and one of his granddaughters, a young woman of 30.

What I've been doing? Gardening, some travel, reading, sewing, keeping house, walks in the neighborhood.

I hope this iris comes back next Spring. Savannah Sunrise-or ...set. Photo does not do it justice. 

Some of the usual day lily suspects in the yard. I spend some time in yard most mornings before it gets too hot. 

 I finished reading Faulkner's "The Hamlet". The trouble with Faulkner is: no matter how depressing the story or what a terrible time he gives his characters, his writing was so excellent that it is difficult to select another book to read.  A "go-to" author for me was always John Le Carre.

With "The Mission Song" it did not work. I finished the book--only "just". Yes it had points of interest. I have visited You Tube videos about various subjects concerning central Africa, D. R. Congo, Rwanda, etc. Can't forget news reports on bloody, gory genocides of recent decades.  I would never consider a visit to Africa for any reason. Too far, too long, too hot, too strange, I would not like the food. Maybe the fruit and flowers.

We traveled by car to Hopewell NJ to visit one of our sons and his wife and dog. It was a refreshing trip. We needed to visit our son, who we had not seen for a year.   Next we will need to find the strength to visit the other one in NC.  Not til "it cools down" in so many ways. 

For a global pandemic, (and us being 72) you'd think I be more frightened of the disease; I'm nervous about the social unrest (this seems worse than the 1960's; more intentional). I don't even know anybody who has COVID, though I've heard some 2nd hand reports.

I have picked up a Mark Twain book about his trip around the world at the equator. I'm not an actual fan of Twain, haven't read any since high school, etc.  The volume I am reading was handed down from my 2nd Great Grandfather and bears his signature so I wonder how many of his household may have read the book.  It's a little slow, the humor is not very funny: but Faulkner liked Mark Twain, so I'll give it a go.