{"id":1188,"date":"2011-10-12T22:15:21","date_gmt":"2011-10-13T06:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=1188"},"modified":"2011-10-12T22:15:21","modified_gmt":"2011-10-13T06:15:21","slug":"review-two-years-before-the-mast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=1188","title":{"rendered":"Review: Two Years Before The Mast"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Henry Dana’s Two Years Before The Mast<\/em> is a very well known memoir of an unusual experience.\u00a0 Dana was a college student and well-to-do Bostonian who took several years off from study to serve as a common sailor on a merchant vessel trading on the coast of California.\u00a0 This sounds like a recipe for gimmick book today, but that was not a common tactic at the time.<\/p>\n

There are a lot of memoirs that get lost in time.\u00a0 Dana has two major factors working for him.\u00a0 First his book is one of the only pre-gold-rush descriptions of California that was accessible to the Gold Rushers.\u00a0 Many of them retraced Dana’s path with gold on their mind and Two Years Before The Mast<\/em> under their arm.\u00a0 Second, he writes very well.<\/p>\n

I have read many historically interesting books that were deadly dull<\/a>.\u00a0 Even the best authors from more than 150 years ago can be opaque.\u00a0 Dana is a welcome surprise.\u00a0 His language is clear, evocative, and descriptive.\u00a0 While some of the turns of phrase are dated, his meaning is clear and his language flows pleasingly.<\/p>\n

He is a good enough writer that a simple diary would be interesting.\u00a0 The topic is inherently more interesting than that.\u00a0 Part adventure story, part travelogue, part behind-the-scenes story, Dana always has an interesting incident to relate in his clear prose.\u00a0 We are treated to two trips around Cape Horn – no Panama Canal <\/a>in 1834 – trading and hide gathering work in California, a survey of the coastline and population, and quality time on the ship.\u00a0 As a current Californian, it is fun to hear the descriptions of the people and land from years ago.<\/p>\n

My version also includes a chapter relating a later trip to California years later where he sees the changes from the Gold Rush and reconnects with some of the people he met years before.<\/p>\n

Overall a very interesting, well-written memoir of exciting times.<\/p>\n

Recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Henry Dana’s Two Years Before The Mast is a very well known memoir of an unusual experience.\u00a0 Dana was a college student and well-to-do Bostonian who took several years off from study to serve as a common sailor on a merchant vessel trading on the coast of California.\u00a0 This sounds like a recipe for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1188"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1190,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188\/revisions\/1190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}