Letters Written During A Short Residence In Sweden, Norway And Denmark in Around the World in 80 Books

Dec 29, 2014 Jim rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: travel, womens-_studies, history, non-fiction, philosophy

I read this one based on a friend's review of another edition. It is not my normal reading fare and I was quite pleased with what I found in these pages.

It was obvious from the start that Wollstonecraft was a very strong and determined woman, independent and intelligent to the max. The book is based on letters she wrote to her lover/common-law husband whose business interests she was pursuing during her travels in the Scandinavian countries. I doubt that she intended that they be published.

This
I read this one based on a friend's review of another edition. It is not my normal reading fare and I was quite pleased with what I found in these pages.

It was obvious from the start that Wollstonecraft was a very strong and determined woman, independent and intelligent to the max. The book is based on letters she wrote to her lover/common-law husband whose business interests she was pursuing during her travels in the Scandinavian countries. I doubt that she intended that they be published.

This trip occurred during the late eighteenth century, and certainly was no easy accomplishment. In the days before railways travellers travelled by carriage over rough roads. Teams had to be changed along the way and the traveller often had to depend on the hospitality of households along the way for meals and overnight accommodations. Additionally, a lot of the route was traversed by ship and rowboat. It was a long and slow journey, and Mary had lots of time to marvel at the countryside through which she passed. She was no shrinking violet when it came to dishing out her opinions, and she had plenty of them!

In fact, at times her remarks go right past what would be considered fair commentary and carry on to what could only be termed bitching. Bitching about the teeth of the hosts, the softness of the beds, the way they overdressed kids, smoking, drinking, the length of the meals, and so on and etcetera until it came as no surprise to me that Imlay had already replaced her as his paramour. To be fair, the letters were a private communication and quite possibly she had no idea they would see anyone's eyes but Imlay's.

What impressed me the most about our girl Mary is that she had an active mind and interests that covered all the points of the intellectual compass. She comments on morality, capital punishment, agriculture, the future of mankind...a finger in every intellectual and philosophical pie, so to speak. More importantly, many of her observations, made hundreds of years ago, still hold true today. Here's a sampling of quotes to show that her mind was not constrained to a single line of thought:

Health and idleness will always account for promiscuous amours, and in some degree I term every person idle, the exercise of whose mind does not bear some proportion to that of the body (P.35) (Are you fellows down at the gym paying attention to this?)

But few people have sufficient taste to discern, that the that the art of embellishing, consists in interesting, not astonishing (P.124)(Regarding landscaping)

I have always been of opinion that the allowing actors to die, in the presence of the audience, has an immoral tendency; but trifling when compared with the ferocity acquired by viewing the reality as a show; for it seems to me, that in all countries the common people go to executions to see how the poor wretch plays his part, rather than to commiserate his fate, much less to think of the breach of morality which has brought him to such a deplorable end. (P.155) (No question about where she would stand on modern TV programmes and violent video games.)

All commas in the quotes above are Ms Wollstonecraft's. Mary loved commas and I believe she applied them to the page with a shotgun. I have to say that I expected to have to fight my way through this book but I enjoyed it immensely. I will be hunting down more of her work in the future. In spite of her kvetching and superior airs, a fascinating woman! ...more

16 likes · Like · see review