If Roughing It was a bloke you met in a bar, he’d be one of those blokes who’d tell you super interesting stories that you just can’t help but to listen to him. This guy would be full of anecdotes and secondhand stories which add to the flavour of his narrative that you can’t help to wonder whether half of the stuff he regurgitates is true or not. Nonetheless, you keep listening to him because he’s fun to be around.
Then he keeps talking. And talking. And wouldn’t shut up. The stories he’s telling you becomes a chore to listen to, and they have a samey sort of feel to them. Some of them you just couldn’t care less about. Then you’re gonna head off and he’s pulling you in for another drink — and you don’t even know why you accepted and you stayed. So he’s rambling on about Hawaii now and volcanoes. Interesting spots, maybe, but by this time you just wanna go home or talk to someone else. Maybe someone that knows how to shut up.
But really, Twain’s Roughing It have gems in its parts, especially the first half of the book when Twain tried his hand in prospecting and was living in the Nevada wild west (pew pew). There are ample descriptions about Mormonism, the wagon ride all the way to the West (15 days cross country — an early version of On the Road) and of his life as a prospector.
I couldn’t much care about the parts where he got to be an editor part and all of the part about Hawaii. That was really the time to leave. But hey, I’m a bloke who listens to stories and I have to finish a book that I start. Huge sigh of relief when I finished this overly self-indulgent book.
