O perspectivă critică a lui Dickens asupra vieții americanilor din secolul al XIX. În călătoria sa prin mai multe orașe americane prezintă, ca într-un jurnal, frumusețea locurilor, dar aruncă o lumină nu tocmai favorabilă asupra politicii americane (fapt cu ajutorul căruia volumul a fost publicat în comunism, trecând cu brio de cenzura acestuia).

Long and winding road through old America. I liked his reflections on Slavery and the end piece when he speaks of American character. There is also some imagery well worth the reading, as in most every Dickens book.

2.75 stars (ok)

My last of the Dickens canon I gave read this year. I wish he had more nonfiction, and I guess I need to read his Boz stuff for that. Great and critical insight into America, and nit very complimentary. He was angry about copyright and pirated editions of his work in America, which is justifiable. I would have loved to hear the chats he had with Poe and Emerson. The book shows. His interest in the working poor and the jails. Def worth reading or listening to on Audible, which I did.

Gives a good feel of what travel around America was like at the time, so there are great passages with Dickensian descriptions of America that are priceless.

On slavery, he found it so disturbing an institution that he changed his travel plans after spending a few days in the South. His very interesting observation was that, at that time, in that place, even if you found slavery despicable, there was no practical way to avoid it as you were served by slaves when entering restaurants, hotels, while traveling. So he felt compelled to leave.

He also observed our congress and said this:

"It is the game of these men, and of their profligate organs, to make the strife of politics so fierce and brutal, and so destructive of all self-respect in worthy men, that sensitive and delicate minded persons shall be kept aloof, and they, and such as they, be left to battle out their selfish views unchecked."

I love the pattern of that language

Definitely not a "stand-out" Dickens. The last chapter - a treatise on the evils of slavery - may be the most "valuable" part of the travelogue. Truly, more of the text was Dickens complaining about his travels than remarking on the character of the American people or observations about the country.

Starts off funny describing the inconveniences of a stormy Atlantic crossing in 1842.

The Boston chapters are about work done at schools for the deaf, mute, and blind, as well as institutions for the insane, paupers, and prisons. This might seem an odd catalog to the modern reader of sites to see, but it makes sense if you keep in mind Dickens’ strong concern for how the least well off in society are treated (and that he began his own life in debtor’s prison and as a child working for low wages).

The institutions he visited in Boston seemed admirably well-run and a benefit to the people housed therein. Later he visits prisons, poor houses, etc in other cities and what he finds are appalling conditions. Apparently, in the U.S. prisoners used to be confined with a literal silent treatment: they weren’t allowed to speak to each other and no one spoke to them. In other prisons, prisoners were kept continuously in solitary confinement, no matter how many years or decades they were there. Absolutely appalling.

Dickens was correct in his criticism of these and other inhumane practices he observed, including slavery. I appreciated that he eloquently wrote about the injustice of prisoner treatment and the keeping and torture of slaves. He wrote understandably about his shame at being served by slaves when he very briefly visited the South, and correctly cataloged examples of the terrible treatment of slaves, the inhumanity of holding any person in bondage, and the violent culture it perpetuated in the U.S. among all types of people.

I have mentioned my having been in some uncertainty and doubt, at first, relative to the sleeping arrangements on board this boat. I remained in the same vague state of mind until ten o'clock or thereabouts, when going below, I found suspended on either side of the cabin, three long tiers of hanging bookshelves, designed apparently for volumes of the small octavo size. Looking with greater attention at these contrivances (wondering to find such literary preparations in such a place), I descried on each shelf a sort of microscopic sheet and blanket; then I began dimly to comprehend that the passengers were the library, and they were to be arranged, edge-wise, on these shelves, till morning.

This vignette of travel on a canal boat between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania displays Dickens's customary whimsical sense of humor in his account of a six-month visit to the United States in 1842. The humor tends to focus, as here, on the mechanics and conditions of the travel itself, and on the quirks and foibles of his travelling companions and others he encounters. For example, he is astonished at the universal practice among American men of chewing tobacco and yet near-universal abstinence of using spittoons, to great humorous effect.

He focuses his journalistic eye for detail on more serious subjects throughout, as well. He attacks slavery as poisoning the moral life of Americans, black and white alike, and calls out the hypocrisy of Southerners' arguments that public opinion moderated slave owners' treatment of their slaves, by listing a catalog of broken bones, whip marks, amputations, gunshot wounds, burns, brands, and more, taken from descriptions in their own newspaper ads for the return of runaways. He toured many American prisons, workhouses, and institutions for people with disabilities and found them generally superior to those of England.

I enjoyed this book, both for its window into a time in American history with which I'm not very familiar and for its insights into Dickens's life.

Dickens traveled to American in 1842, filled with much anticipation and excitement but also, I suspect, some preconceived notions. Certainly, the resulting volume, "American Notes," reveals a Dickens disaffected by some of what he saw, bemused at times, and thoroughly outraged (and outrageous) at others. If we look back to his earliest works, "Sketches by Boz" and "The Pickwick Papers," then a satirical portrayal of American society and its inhabitants should not be surprising. I think what is surprising, for me at least, is the overall tone of this book. It is much less humorous and a great deal more condescending than previous works. This is the beginning of the cranky Dickens, the one who has become pedantic, judgmental, and condemning as opposed to the Dickens of the sly wink, the wry commentary, and the broad caricature. Nevertheless, this is a valuable read for the travelogue and observations that Dickens provides. It is also important to note how wildly popular and well-known Dickens was, making his celebrity experience vastly different than the average traveler would have encountered. Overall, this is a quick read which reveals not only much about America in the 1840s, but also about Dickens himself and the worldview of an Englishman at that time.

Dickens shows rather than tells us for the most part here what America was like at the time he visited it. Most of the account is about his journey around the American states and parts of Canada. We read details of what travel was like and also about his visits to hospitals and asylums. Of course the prose is a little different from what the 21st century reader normally expects. It is nevertheless very readable and tightly written. A section near the end of the book exposes the horror of slavery. A further section reports on crimes, including gun crime. Only finally is there an essay about Dickens' opinion of America. The latter is a little pompous and is far less engaging than the rest of the book. On the whole, though, a fascinating read.

There ain't nuthin' wrong with chaw!

Interesting account of notes from Dickens' travels to the United States in 1842. Very different from the notes of Alexis de Tocqueville who visited only a decade earlier. The latter has a decidedly more positive view of America's democracy, and was able to hold the paradox of American liberties with the practice of slavery. Dickens, however, was more shocked by the South and could not seem to reconcile the two. He takes great consideration of America's prisons and not as much on her industry. I believe he felt let down by the Republic he had hoped to see.