The Travels: Defacing a Man's Greatest Adventure

On top of just looking kick-ass, the Penguin Clothbound Classics edition has a good bit of extra reading, references, and a lengthy background introduction that's pretty darn educational.

Marco Polo was one of my heroes growing up, I mean how many people in all of history had an opportunity to journey to a place shrouded in mystery, potentially never to see home again? So obviously years later when I learned that he had written a book of his travels once he arrived back in Italy (well more was hauled back, but I'll get there), I had to buy and read it. Well I finished it, and I must say that I've never read anything so insulting in a long time. You see, the insult isn't to myself as a person or reader, it's in fact directed at the author by his co-author, a professional romance writer by the name of Rustichello of Pisa. Effectively this romance writer managed to transform Polo's journey that lasted from seventeen until he was forty-one into a fantastical journey into every western stereotype of the Far East complete with constant revisionism to fit a christian-centric worldview. However, despite this I still feel that the book should be read, because even with the inaccuracies it remains an excellent example of good travel literature and the pure, distilled spirit of adventure.

The story of how this book was written is a story worth telling in and of itself, even once Marco arrived at the Khan's court in Peking. He got into the Khan's good graces by telling him about Italy and the lands he passed through along the Silk Road, and the Khan liked his style of travel commentary and documentation, so he sent Marco on effectively all-expenses paid trips around the empire and other countries so the Khan could better understand how the people of other cultures lived so he could rule them better. His state-sponsored journeys would take Marco all around East and South Asia. Eventually though, Marco wanted to come back to Venice (his father and uncle had left for home years ago), and the Khan let him return, but in the home stretch his ship was boarded by the Genoese, who were now at war with Venice, and he was thrown in prison. His cellmate was this Rustichello fellow, who was a romance writer (as in a fantasy writer) who specialized in the Arthurian legend and once did work for King Edward I of England. To pass the time, he told Rustichello of his travels, and afterward Rustichello told him that it was boring and that nobody would want to read about that. What the fuck? To make a long story short Rustichello wrote The Travels around Marco's framework (this is the most charitable definition) and it was an immediate and massive success, quickly becoming a must-read around Europe and inspiring generations of future explorers and traders. This book was Christopher Columbus' favorite book, and was considered an essential book for young boys (those that could read). Perhaps this also furthered the idea of the opulent East that drove European trade efforts for centuries, but that's just a theory of mine after reading this. The most striking thing about the work though, beyond just the story behind it, was its accuracy. This book was still accurate well into the 1700's, meaning that The Travels managed to stay relevant in Marco's intended fashion for at least four hundred years. And that's what I call a legacy!

The Travels itself doesn't have much of an overarching story throughout, though the Khan's Court has a few short arcs. It's a hard book to nail down, being a mix of guidebook, fairytale omnibus, and history book. It's separated into nine chapters, which are more themes/locations than anything else, with a circular flow. You start with the journey across the Middle East, and end at the Arabian Sea, comparatively close to home. Even though it could benefit from some further organization by topic, there is none, instead just being a stream of information only separated by paragraphs and line breaks.  It's also frustrating to read, not because of the old language and turn-of-phrase, but also by the literal sea of bullshit written by Rustichello of Pisa in order to get to the meat of the book: what actually happened. Fortunately, Rustichello is pretty bad at his profession (maybe why he was in prison), so not only do these fantastical interjections insult Polo by even being in his story, they aren't even half-decent in quality. There's also a lot, and I mean a lot of pro-Christian propaganda and falsehoods found throughout the book, it's quite frankly insulting to anyone who is even a vague Christian. For example, according to this book, the faith of the Chinese christians (ignoring that Chinese christians didn't show up in notable numbers for hundreds of years after) in essentially 'nothing', no joke, was so stirring that the Khan declared all other religions false, made Christianity the official state religion and its practitioners inviolate, and on his deathbed converted. Though it's easy to tell which bits are inventions and which are not, it is just so infuriating to have to wade through this sea of excrement in order to get to what the book is all about, education and the very spirit of adventure. The sections that were obviously written by Marco are absolutely incredible. Sure, it doesn't seem exciting, quite the opposite, but you can feel the wonder of him at his journeys in this entire other world, and that is what I came here for. He describes the things, animals, and cultures he sees in European analogues, so that his countrymen can understand, but without judgement. His bits, compared to his co-author, actually show a reverence and curiosity for other cultures that's honestly heartwarming, and it's what makes the length of his journey make sense. Why would he want to go home where he would be just a merchant when he could see places and lands that no other European had ever seen? The man went on one of the greatest adventures any human has ever been on to date, and the fact that his adventure was not only called boring, but was edited to fit someone else's idea of an adventure makes me so goddamn sad. If the study of historical documents is saving lives even after death, then this is nothing short of murder.

Reading The Travels (aka Book of the Marvels of the World and Il Milione) filled me with a lot of emotions in my read-through. Amazement, fury, wonder, but most of all sadness were what I felt reading this throughout its three-hundred-plus pages. It's a magical book, and I mean that even in the grounded segments it feels like you're in another world, and I really think it's something that everyone should experience. Make no mistake, I hate Rustichello of Pisa for what he's done to Marco's Story. However, at the same time I can't just write off the significance of this book, because even with all the fantasy and pro-Christian slop it's still a real-fantasy book (if that makes any sense), made all the better because in the true parts it actually happened, and it took place in our world, and I think that means something special. Adventure is still out there, even if it doesn't seem like it today.