"...

This profession I loved more than any other professions that I had then; I was proud
of her immeasurably "(Mark Twain)
Do you think it is a literary work? Not at all: about the craft pilot. Wonderful choice for
the great American writer - of the 74 years of his eventful life he most appreciated the
five that he fell to hold on the mighty river, driving up and down on it a little funny in its
luxury two-pipe steamers, trashy water, huge wheels, exuding clubs fat smoke ...
Youth, you say? And this, too. But no wonder Mark Twain returned to once again make
the journey more than twenty years later. This is what we have to return one of the best
and unusual books Twain - "Life on the Mississippi".
Lovers of action games, the story seekers holding this book, think, read page fifty or
sixty with all the growing bewilderment, and then completely throw off indignantly
exclaiming: "What is this book ..?" About life, on the cover it is written.

American novelist gives himself go and creates a cross between a travel essays,
memoirs and essay-novel. There is a place and history, and history; poetry and prose of
the river where the profession intertwine harmoniously, where a deliberately absurd.
Young at that time the U.S. seems boyish humor - it just a little rude, just built on
hyperbole, as well conducts the origin from the intoxicating feeling of fullness of life.

Readers of this book are lucky with the narrator: sane, a keen observer with a huge
personal experience, a supporter of progress; all interested in him, from the proceeds of
the cotton to the salaries of teachers and the number of residents received some letters
of town. His lead in the sincere delight ice production and operation of a spinning mill,
surrounding the river plants, mills, sawmills ... at the same time he is a stranger to the
enthusiasm and maliciously expressed, for example, Romanticism, Walter Scott, of
excessive flowery speech correspondents southern newspapers, on the railways .
Superbly master the art of set point, Mark Twain almost every of the smaller chapters
completes the story of any incident of life, sometimes turned into a legend - and
sometimes curiosity.

It was very interesting to read about the creation of pilots association, which was a
cross between a trade union and lodge for the initiated, the true history of the origin of
the nickname of the author (everything is much convoluted than tell us the foreword and
Wikipedia, the author has devoted a separate chapter titled "Our forefather" );
interesting Twain talks about eidetic memory (calling it "annoying"); Currently, the
excitement is his account of the accident that happened with the steamer
"Pennsylvania".But "Life on the Mississippi" - is not only a "motley assembly of heads."
It is also a remarkably quiet, soothing reading, combining freedom, space, movement -
the rapid, the smooth - probably just as Mississippi ...
"... And then it ended with the most wonderful journey of five thousand miles, which I
had the good fortune to do."