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ruthiella's review against another edition
3.0
This was the last book I needed to read to complete the Back to the Classics Challenge 2015 hosted at the blog Books and Chocolate. The category in this case was a Non-Fiction Classic. I am a big fan of Dickens’ fiction and I know that much of this U.S. visit served as an inspiration for part of Martin Chuzzelwit, which was the first Dickens’ novel I ever read, so I was keen to check this title out. Generally I liked it, but I still prefer his fiction. Famously American Notes engendered quite a bit of controversy and ill-feeling on this site of the Atlantic at the time it was published. However, as an American reading this over 150 years later, I don’t feel that Dickens’ was particularly unfair or even mean-spirited in his critiques of the U.S. A lot of what he found distasteful: the obsession with money, regardless of whether it was earned honestly or not, the obsession with partisan politics, etc. has not changed much in the intervening century and a half.
loram's review against another edition
3.0
Reading Dickens can be tedious at times and this has its moments, but overall I found it interesting to read the nineteenth century author's impressions of his trip to America.
His experience of the long voyage across the Atlantic and the differences in culture when he lands in America are known to have contributed to his background knowledge for writing his novel, Martin Chuzzelwitt, which describes shipboard life and the discovery of American culture in similar terms.
One of the observations that stands out is his experience of train travel in America and the way that women are treated politely when traveling alone, even having women only coaches. He contrasts the clean dress and polite mannerisms of poorer women in America with the grottier poorer classes at home, perceiving a vast difference.
Not all of his observations of America are complimentary though. His commentaries about slavery and chewing tobacco paint Americans as little more than savages in a civilized world and his reaction to what he found in those early, inhumane prisons was scandalous. Towards the end, he quotes some newspaper ads for help in capturing runaway slaves that highlight just how badly these slaves had been treated.
The contrast between American culture and Dickens' British experience is interesting in view of the fact that it had only been an independent country for a little over 50 years at the time, yet some of what he described sounds like a Western novel.
This is not the most riveting read, but it's interesting in a historical context.
His experience of the long voyage across the Atlantic and the differences in culture when he lands in America are known to have contributed to his background knowledge for writing his novel, Martin Chuzzelwitt, which describes shipboard life and the discovery of American culture in similar terms.
One of the observations that stands out is his experience of train travel in America and the way that women are treated politely when traveling alone, even having women only coaches. He contrasts the clean dress and polite mannerisms of poorer women in America with the grottier poorer classes at home, perceiving a vast difference.
Not all of his observations of America are complimentary though. His commentaries about slavery and chewing tobacco paint Americans as little more than savages in a civilized world and his reaction to what he found in those early, inhumane prisons was scandalous. Towards the end, he quotes some newspaper ads for help in capturing runaway slaves that highlight just how badly these slaves had been treated.
The contrast between American culture and Dickens' British experience is interesting in view of the fact that it had only been an independent country for a little over 50 years at the time, yet some of what he described sounds like a Western novel.
This is not the most riveting read, but it's interesting in a historical context.
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