Twain at his lowest ebb is still pretty towering, but TSA comes across as far-fetched and frivolous compared to Tom Sawyer and the magisterial Huckleberry Finn. It's sad to see HF's endless run of good quotes stumble along to an ending so abrupt the author might as well have written Screw it all I'm off for a whiskey Twain out.

I know some people take Tom Sawyer Abroad as a bit of a satire of contemporary adventure novels (a la Verne). To be fair, the book does have some good moments (and in my opinion reads a lot better as Tom Sawyer's daydreams rather than an actual sequel). Still, for me, it ended up slightly souring what came before.

Although I liked the conversations between Tom, Huck, and Jim, they really have no business in an rip-off Jules Verne balloon adventure to Egypt. Mark Twain should have created new characters for this fantasy instead of reusing characters so out-of-place. It reminded me of the types of stories my dad used to make up for me, in a way, but, seriously, this is an idiotic book by America's greatest author. Skip it.

Narrator was Glover Gardner and was good but not as good as my first two Tom and Huck narrators.

La terza avventura del ciclo di Tom Sawyer ci porta dall'America all'Egitto tramite una mongolfiera, invenzione di un bislacco genio che ad un certo punto precipita (devo ancora capire come) e lascia da soli i tre protagonisti (sì perché da Le avventure di Huck Finn c'è anche il negretto Jim). Non succederà niente. Non ve lo consiglio. Non ha senso. Due stelline e non una perché? Perché mi sta simpatica la Sfinge di Giza, va bene?

This seems to be an unpopular opinion, but I believe Tom Sawyer Abroad is way better than the first two books. This was way more entertaining (I laughed out loud many times more than I expected, especially considering what a quick read this was) and the pacing was better as well. The debates Tom, Huck, and Jim get into were so well written. I think Twain did a really great job thoughtfully putting together each passage and interaction. For such a short and adventurous book, I felt there was still a fair share of depth. So far, this is the only book in the series that I would recommend.

Why I read even the less-popular Twain:

"It was a new business to me, and I asked Tom if countries always apologized when they had done wrong, and he says -
"'Yes, the little ones does."

Likewise:

I thought he must be losing his mind. But no, he was in real earnest, and went right on, perfectly ca’m.
“A crusade is a war to recover the Holy Land from the paynim.”
“Which Holy Land?”
“Why, the Holy Land—there ain’t but one.”
“What do we want of it?”
“Why, can’t you understand? It’s in the hands of the paynim, and it’s our duty to take it away from them.”
“How did we come to let them git hold of it?”
“We didn’t come to let them git hold of it. They always had it.”
“Why, Tom, then it must belong to them, don’t it?”
“Why of course it does. Who said it didn’t?”
I studied over it, but couldn’t seem to git at the right of it, no way. I says:
“It’s too many for me, Tom Sawyer. If I had a farm and it was mine, and another person wanted it, would it be right for him to—”
“Oh, shucks! you don’t know enough to come in when it rains, Huck Finn. It ain’t a farm, it’s entirely different. You see, it’s like this. They own the land, just the mere land, and that’s all they DO own; but it was our folks, our Jews and Christians, that made it holy, and so they haven’t any business to be there defiling it. It’s a shame, and we ought not to stand it a minute. We ought to march against them and take it away from them.”
“Why, it does seem to me it’s the most mixed-up thing I ever see! Now, if I had a farm and another person—”
“Don’t I tell you it hasn’t got anything to do with farming? Farming is business, just common low-down business: that’s all it is, it’s all you can say for it; but this is higher, this is religious, and totally different.”
“Religious to go and take the land away from people that owns it?”
“Certainly; it’s always been considered so.”

It says this was written by Huck Finn, but I have my doubts. For the most part, it sounded more like huckster than huckleberry. Huck, Tom and Jim take a balloon ride across the Atlantic, through the Sahara, and to Egypt, and basically nothing happens. Oh, there's some carnage along the way, but it's all thrown out with such insouciance and good humor that it's hard to care much or even get involved. At best, it's amusing and mildly diverting. But the whole exercise just feels like Twain cashing in on his past success. I can't blame him for it, but it doesn't make for great reading. Thankfully, it was short, and even a bad impersonation of Huck Finn's voice is still entertaining. But it makes me wonder why I read this, instead of re-reading the real thing. Dare I go on to "Tom Sawyer, Detective"?

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