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A review by msand3
The Travels Marco Polo by Marco Polo
2.0
Perhaps my expectations were too high, but this was an oddly disappointing book. I say "oddly" because it has all the elements of what could be a great journey narrative: exotic locales, narratives of folk tales/myths, descriptions of battles, details of the customs of faraway (and sometimes lost) civilizations, etc. And yet...it was stale, repetitive, and at times, a little dull. Not even the "true stories that Polo heard from reliable sources" (i.e. outrageous legends and myths) could hold my interest peppered between monotonous, dry descriptions of landscapes and peoples that I thought would be fascinating. By the time I reached the crazy/funny stuff (the search for Adam, the mountain where one can "see" Noah's ark, the dog-people, etc.), I felt like the pay-off wasn't worth it.
I found the most interesting sections to be on Kubilai Khan and India, perhaps because these were the areas most familiar to Polo. In the case of the former, I soon wished I were instead reading a book on the history of the Khans!
I think the most concrete example this book's bait-and-switch comes when Polo mentions in passing his observation of a "unicorn," while telling readers that he would soon give us details later in the book. Well, I kept reading to see just where this might lead, only to find that Polo is describing *SPOILER ALERT* a fucking rhinoceros! Normally, this would make me chuckle; but by this point in Polo's narrative, I was just annoyed.
I found the most interesting sections to be on Kubilai Khan and India, perhaps because these were the areas most familiar to Polo. In the case of the former, I soon wished I were instead reading a book on the history of the Khans!
I think the most concrete example this book's bait-and-switch comes when Polo mentions in passing his observation of a "unicorn," while telling readers that he would soon give us details later in the book. Well, I kept reading to see just where this might lead, only to find that Polo is describing *SPOILER ALERT* a fucking rhinoceros! Normally, this would make me chuckle; but by this point in Polo's narrative, I was just annoyed.