The Travels of Marco Polo

A slow and (honestly) not very enjoyable read, but Marco Polo's book is obviously very important, and was ground breaking at the time. Reliable - no, but there is much that is accurate, mixed with plenty he clearly never experienced personally yet records as he was obviously told these stories by others.

My edition was complete with loads of footnotes which pointed out the differences between various editions, which adds little for the lay reader, but clarifies, I suppose where things were perhaps recorded incorrectly in one version, or tidied up later in another.

Polo, or perhaps Rustichello's formulaic phrasing is painful and annoying - it seems like every page we are given “Now I must tell you about another Kingdom... the people here are idolaters, ruled by a ... and speak their own language. They pay no tribute to anyone ... and as there is nothing else worthy of note we shall continue on our way.”

While the base text was repetitive and dull, the anecdotes between kept me interested enough to seek out the next one. Small asides - on strange customs and behaviour (albeit many unbelievable); explanations on how ships were constructed; stories of collecting diamonds using raw meat and scavenging birds, etc.

Counterbalancing these were the repetitive running down of all non-Christian and non-Muslim people as idolators, savages, ugly and unclean. Somehow Polo manages to make so many of these ‘kingdoms' sound the same, which was surely not the case as he travelled through them. For so many he reduces them to their trade goods, their leadership and then moves on. Many have speculated that he was writing a book on trade - guide book of sorts, and I can see that - distances travelled (in days), who the people pay tribute to, whether they are Christian, Muslim or idolators, their language - yes that would all tie in. Perhaps Rustichello looked to broaden the appeal of a trade guide but adding the anecdotes in? How dull it would have been without!

However, I am glad to have completed this book, and can move on!

3 stars.