A Warmup for Boswell, and for Me

The cover and title of this book drew me in long ago when I picked it up for $3.95 in a used book store. After a sufficient aging period on the shelf, I finally pulled it out and dug in. (I had recently purchased a nice leatherbound edition of Boswell's titanic Life of Johnson, which led me to seek out a decent reading copy of it so I could learn firsthand why it's so well regarded, which led me to pick up this volume to satisfy my compulsive need to read things in order -- Boswell wrote his half of this book, you see, as a kind of prepatory exercise for his much more ambitious Life.)

I'm happy to report I was not disappointed. This was a great firsthand introduction to both Boswell and Johnson, both of whom were extraordinarily interesting men. Johnson for his uniqueness and wit, Boswell for his representation of the 18th century British gentleman. The book is really two journals (Johnson's first, and then Boswell's) of the pair's months-long journey together to the outer isles of the Highlands area of Scotland in 1773, just 28 years after the 1745 rising against the king. Boswell was 32 and Johnson was 63 and a legend of English journalism and criticism at the time. Boswell had wanted to get Johnson out of London and into the countryside of Boswell's native Scotland, in particular to see the rustic ways of the Highlands before they disappeared, which they nearly had already.

This book, like most travel journals or diaries, is best taken a few days' entries at a time, or even one entry at a time. I recommend keeping it by the bedside, to turn to at the end of the night just before going to sleep. Not because it's boring; it isn't. But it's broken up in such a way to make it practical to be read in that fashion, and it usually focuses on good conversation the pair had with someone over dinner. So even if you didn't have a relaxing evening with friends, food, wine and pleasant conversation, you can sit with Boswell, Johnson and their friends for just a few minutes and escape from your own 21st century life's demands.

I'll give a few excerpts over the coming days, but will open from this one that made the back cover (and my wife's list of facebook quotes!):

When I was at Ferney, in 1764, I mentioned our design to Voltaire. He looked at me as if I had talked of going to the North Pole, and said "You do not insist on my accompanying you?" "No sir." "Then I am very willing you should go."

--page 161 (Boswell).