The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 26 April 1999
by Mark Twain
Until the end of his life, it is said, Mark Twain desired to return to Hawaii. In 1866, he spent four months in the islands, and the hypnotic tropical landscape left a deep impression on him. Twain wrote a number of letters from Hawaii that were published in the Sacramento Union. Later, wanting to pad out Roughing It, he assembled these letters into an essay on his time there. The text of this little book is made up of that essay. Twain, not an easily impressed writer, indeed seemed overwhelmed by the beauty of Kilauea and Haleakala. He tells stories about Hawaiian royalty, some history (from Captain Cook, to Kamehameha and Pu'uhonua O Honaunau), and changes the culture were undergoing at the time. Some of the cultural paradoxes he observed linger today. Twain reveals his own cultural predjudices when, even while admiring their remarkable relics, he refers to the natives as savages and praises the work of the missionaries. There is little of Hawai'i in 1999 that resembles Hawaii of 1866, but the ancient landscape and the mesmerizing volcanoes remain. I usually only skim through introductions in literature, but the foreword by A. Grove Day should not be skipped. He quotes from Twain's earlier letters, gives valuable historical data, and postulates the effects Twain's trip had on his later writing.
Also by Twain: [The Innocents Abroad]
[Other Books in or about Hawaii]