Customer Reviews

A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland: with The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (Everyman's Library)

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In the Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, Boswell successfully brought together his two worlds--that of Scotland and that of London. Samuel Johnson is a microcosm of London--with its sophistication, its mental energy, its style, and its prejudices. Boswell was able to bridge, reconcile, and even merge the two worlds by his unwavering reverence for Johnson, and his unshakable belief in the essential goodness of his native Scotland and its inhabitants. Boswell did not try to explain away Johnson's idiosyncrasies (or even his faults) as somehow the result of some misunderstanding on the part of their Scottish interlocutors, and he did not try to disguise the nature of the Scots to Johnson. Boswell also was not embarrassed by the impression Johnson made on the Scots, nor the Scots on Johnson. He simply let everyone be who they were, and assumed the best on everyone's part. Boswell clearly embodies the best of both worlds.

The book is charming in the anecdotes and the reported conversations. I did have much difficulty in distinguishing many of the Scots from one another, as they almost all seemed to be named Mr. M'Leod. However, that probably could not much be helped as the clan name was (is?) so prevalent in the Western islands of Scotland. It was of much interest to see how important the concept of hospitality was in those days before instant communication. The travelers could expect to have meals and lodging provided by their social peers wherever they happened to travel. This book does not provide many descriptions of the geography or scenery of the Hebrides, but is more a memorandum of those with whom Boswell and Johnson dined, and stayed, and conversed. It would be fun while traveling in Scotland in the twenty-first century to have a companion book setting out the route and the stopping places mentioned in the Journal, with references to the particular passages referring to each place, annotated for what has happened to any landmarks that are no longer there, or are substantially modified.