Cultured Travel Guide Books - Two years before the mast: A personal narrative of life at sea |
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Binding: Unknown Binding
EAN: 9780895776310
ISBN: 0895776316
Label: Reader's Digest Association
Manufacturer: Reader's Digest Association
Number Of Pages: 405
Publication Date: 1995
Publisher: Reader's Digest Association
Studio: Reader's Digest Association |
| Spotlight Customer Reviews: |
Customer Rating:  
Summary: Some missing diagrams?
Comment: I ordered this book in large part because the library copy, also a paperback, had diagrams dipicting sailing ships and the names of each sail, rope, mast, etc. I presumed the original book had these diagrams and each copy as well. It is still a great story but it uses a lot of nautical terminology and without the diagram, I cannot fathom what is a stud sail, what is a ship, what is a brig.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A classic from the days of sail
Comment: This book has two distinct appeals--it is a compelling account of "the sailor's life" in 19th Century America as well as a historical account of 19th Century California. At the same time, this book is a classic and a thoroughly interesting narrative--one that influenced Herman Melville. It is also amazing to read the accounts of California before it was settled and became a state. It's pretty ironic that although the California coast is considered today to be one of the most beautiful parts of the country, the author and his crew thought of California as a wholly undesirable place. For those with an interest in the days of sail and/or the early history of California, you can't go wrong with this book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Reply to "Thar She Blows!" one star review
Comment: 1. "The first half of the book was great" makes the book worth three stars, not one. "If for whatever reason, you wish to find out exactly how a sailor lived, then go ahead, its a great book." makes it a 4 star book.
2. The second half is even better than the first. It's the ONLY account of Mexican California by an American, but the descriptions couldn't be better written or more interesting, and not just because I'm a "Californico" (Spanish for resident of old California). I'm also a history and geography buff. History and geography doesn't get better than this, with wonderful action and extraordinary description of the locations and people in Mexican California. Both halves together make this a 5 star book.
3. Did you miss that he switched ships (unheard of at the time)? His first ship, "The Pilgrim" was a coastal trader. A replica is at Dana Harbor in Orange County, CA, well worth visiting.
4. Dana's descriptions of the terrible floggings and other abuse of sailors by a brutish Captain and mate of the Pilgrim are totally not boring. Did you miss that Dana became a lawyer on his return to New England? He defended seamen in court pro bono for his entire long career, and was instrumental in getting the first laws passed giving merchant seamen legal rights and protections.
"Two Years" is must reading for anybody who loves a good story, true adventure, good narrative writing, or who loves California and America and wants to know more about who we are and how we got this way.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Thrilling, tedious
Comment: It took me quite a while to read this book; I wouldn't call it a page turner. But I'm quite sure I will remember it as vividly as almost any book I've ever read. It is a very detailed, true description of an exceptional, very-well-educated young man's two year stint on a trading ship which sailed from Boston around Cape Horn to a very primitive, pre-Gold-Rush, California and back. There isn't a whole lot of suspense because we know, since it's a true story, that the author makes it back. And there isn't a great deal of concern about his shipmates and the other people he meets in his amazing travels, because their characters are never consistently developed. Rather, Dana may spend a page on a specific person and then never refer much to that person again. But I believe that this is the way Dana intended it -- as a story of the sea, and merchant seamen as a class of people, and the incredible dangers and hardships they face on a daily basis. In that regard, the main character of the story becomes this universal seaman, sometimes Dana, sometimes an unnamed or named crew member (but often named just as Mr. S______ or the like), sometimes spoken of as a composite ("Jack"). This gives the tale a transcendent, universal feel and makes it all the more powerful -- rather than the typical bad-guy, good-guy approach. The details of how the ship and crew function and the operation of the sails, etc. are explained in great and loving detail in nautical/technical terms that were, in the beginning, often incomprehensible and boring to me -- but for which I gained a taste for reading as the story progressed, even if I still didn't know quite what was actually happening or what exactly he was describing. Especially memorable was his ship's return trip around unpredictable, fierce Cape Horn with an exhausted, ailing, too-small crew. The afterword that was written 24 years later when Dana returned to a post-Gold-Rush California and reviews the places where he had his adventure as a young man, including reacquaintance with some of the characters of the main story, was one of the best parts of the book; quite poignant. If you want to experience a completely different way of life in a very different time, this may be the book for you...
Customer Rating:
Summary: Everyone from California should read this
Comment: This is a good read for anyone who loves adventure and a great read for anyone interested in Californian history. More to the point, this book was *THE* book on California for Americans living between 1840 and 1860. Dana's insights into the culture, customs, and early history of California are fantastic, as are his predictions (one of which is that California would one day become an economic powerhouse).
This book was listed by National Geographic as one of the 100 best adventure books written. The adventure portions are definitely interesting (clinging to life ropes 100 feet above deck during a blizzard at Cape Horn is hard to beat for a real-life experience), but the nautical jargon is a bit pedantic at times. It is the small pauses between the sailing that hold the most interest, at least to this reader. And the final, bittersweet return to California in 1859 holds perhaps the most interesting passages. It is here we see Dana come to grips with a common theme - the reconciliation of nostalgia with progress. (And what a quick progress it is - from a single shanty in 1835 to 100,000 citizens in San Fransisco in 1859!)
My personal favorite passage is a comment that is probably as true today as it was in his time - the difficulty in understanding a life other than your own if you fail to adventure once in a while. "His is one of those cases which are more numerous than those suppose who have never lived anywhere but in their own homes and never walked but in one line from their cradles to their graves."
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| Editorial Reviews: |
A young man tells of his experiences as a common sailor and provides a realistic portrait of the brutal life of nineteenth-century seamen.
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