Talk:Sailing Alone Around the World

2 changes

I've made two changed to the article:

1) Moved the literary genre of travel literature from the "see also" into the main body of the text. It is common and well established on many articles on Wikipedia to mention the genre or type of work in question in the first sentence and not just say it is a "book", but rather a "mystery novel" or some literary genre like that. Travel literature is more specific and more precise than just "book". Other examples on Wikipedia available on request.

2) Moved the date into a parenthesis at the end of the title- this is more professional and how it is usually done in professional encyclopedias. Saying "was a book written in 1900" is wordy and again, not as clean and professional as it could be.

-- Stbalbach 21:46, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, it's not "travel literature". If you'd read the book, you'd know that. Joshua Slocum was not a tourist off to visit the Maoris. If Magellan had written a book after circumnavigating the globe, would you have have classified it as "travel literature"? If Peary, back from the North Pole, had written a book (he did, in fact), would you have tossed it in with Liz Smeadley's breathless account of seeing the canals of Venice and classified it as "travel literature"? As a sop to the ignorant, I can see having "travel literature" as a "see also" suggestion, but insisting on this misplaced characterisation in the lead is absurd. If it's so important to characterise the book, don't you think the title ("Sailng Alone Around the World") and the remainder of the sentence (which explains the subject matter and context of the book) do that adequately?

Secondly, ... "1900" in parentheses is "clean and professional", but a straightforward English-language declarative sentence is, by inference, "wordy"? That's six words, only six words. Is that wordy? Only to you, I'd wager. Besides, putting the date in some kind of context resolves the ambiguity of whether the date refers to when the book was written/published or when Slocum made his voyage.

Sometimes I think Wikipedia's greatest shortcoming is that they let anybody, no matter who, touch the product. You waste my time. PeterHuntington 23:29, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

--

Travel literature is a literary genre studied in the academic world. There are entire encyclopedias on travel literature, people get PhD's in travel literature and there are academic journals on the subject. Slocum's account (which I have read) is part of that genre. It may also be called outdoor literature, which is how its categorized here on Wikipedia, a sub-genre of travel literature (with other names as well) - but "travel literature" is the most common and catch-all term. BTW I wrote most of the current travel literature and outdoor literature articles (which still need a lot of work) and am pretty well read on the subject. I realize that perhaps popular conception of what "travel literature" means may not match up with the academic world, but this is an encyclopedia, we use academic sources and methods. Literature of Travel and Exploration: An Encyclopedia lists Sailing Alone Around the World on page 263, volume 1.

As for the 1900, there is no ambiguity because the article is about a book, this is clear from the first line of the sentence. Again, this is just how its normally done, list the work with the date in parens right after it.

Any other comments? -- Stbalbach 12:58, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

The note will be soonest Jman96lol (talk) 19:09, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Any other comments Jman96lol (talk) 19:10, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Ethnic Europeans???

"Ethnic Europeans warned him" makes it sound as if there is some kind of subterranean racist script being played out here, but it doesn't say so explicitly. If anyone has read the book, and can VERIFY that such a script is easily seen, that any reader would "get it," then just put that in the description. If, on the other hand, such a script has to be inferred by some sort of post-colonial sleight of hand, then this description should be replaced with something neutral like, "Passing by Tierra del Fuego, he was warned...". The job in an article like this is surely to DESCRIBE not to INTERPRET. And of all the incidents in the book, why pick on this one as an exemplar of Slocum's self-sufficiency and quick-wittedness? Why not something else? Theonemacduff (talk) 05:04, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I've read the book. Simultaneously, you're right (in wanting to analyze the assumptions involved) but the article's current phrasing isn't wrong. Yes, racism was involved, although it was also a crime/piracy thing. But I'm going to edit the phrasing to your suggested phrasing because it sidesteps a digression into analyzing the assumptions within this article. Regarding that analysis, there are several factors involved. One is that his lifetime was a very colonial era throughout the world. There was an us-against-them mentality between the colonial people and the indigenous people. Racism is still common today, but it was 100x magnified back then. To evoke what I'm trying to express on this point, I would point to Apartheid as an example. Back then things like that were going strong, the fabric of many minds. If you visit 1890s Johannesburg (for example), most white people are going to tell you to "watch out for the blacks", and it doesn't surprise you, because, well, look who you're talking to (this plugs into your point about "any reader would 'get it'"). Slocum himself was not above or beyond his own era. We experience complexity today when we admire people of the past, at least for certain aspects of their character (such as admiring Slocum for his sailing skills and self-sufficiency), even though if you teleported them through space-time to today and tried to have a conversation with them that got into race and gender, it would be Quite Awkward. (For example, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson fought for liberty and democracy but were simultaneously slave owners and probably would think it wrong that women should vote. Hmmm, do we admire this person or not? Complex; yes for some reasons and no for others. For what it's worth, they're "the good guys" compared to the reactionaries and totalitarians of the world.) I'm not even going to try, at this moment, to touch on this in the article's phrasing (which plugs into your point "then just put that in the description"), because it's just going to sound to some other reader N months from now like bashing Slocum unduly (they would think it was some kind of bias; it takes whole articles to talk about such complexities without seeming biased, such as the articles Thomas Jefferson and slavery and George Washington and slavery). But another factor with Slocum at Tierra del Fuego, too, beyond racism, was a lawful-people-vs-crime antipiracy factor. You can detest pirates for committing violence and robbery against you (or trying to) as its own motivating factor, even without racism. To evoke what I'm trying to express on this point, I would point to the present-day piracy in Somalia problem. If some guy in a speed boat comes to your boat and sticks a gun in your face and holds you hostage, he's a bad guy (black hat vs white hat) regardless of race. Some people might counter that both hats are gray and he's Robin Hood, but that argument is a whole can of worms in itself and never really ends until it reaches all the way into "your 'terrorist' is my 'freedom fighter'." Again with the complexity. But of course, someone who is racist anyway, besides, (especially in the 1890s), would say, "See, piracy—that's what you get from 'Them'." Anyway ... Regards — ¾-10 18:37, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

1950s attempt to recreate Slocum's voyage

This section uses a June 1956 reference to Popular Mechanics, yet also refers to events of the 1970s. Furthermore it refers to "where the author of this addition met him and looked over the boat" - this seems to be both WP:OR and unreferenced. Autarch (talk) 15:49, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

It was clearly personal research / comment so I went ahead and removed it, copied here for interest. hindley (talk) 13:05, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Bob Carr and Sirius were in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in November 1976 after cruising the Mediterranean where the author of this addition met him and looked over the boat. Many world cruisers of the 60's and 70's reported meetings with Bob Carr and Sirius in ports in all oceans of the world so although there may be no official record of a circumnavigation it is without a doubt that the Sirius cruised very extensively and always in the manner of Bob's hero Capt. Joshua Slocum. Every part of the beautiful engineless Sirius handmade and maintained with only handtools.:

In November 1976 he had been in Las Palmas about a month where he had just completed making a new suit of sails from a bolts of canvas with nothing but a palm and needle and knife. A great character who was living his life as Slocum re-incarnate.:

Attribution

Text and references copied from Strait of Magellan to Sailing Around the World, See former article's history for a list of contributors. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 01:47, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Critical assessment

The article lacks critical (in the proper professional sense) assessment of the book. There is probably useful source in the recent major biography (2017), which is highly regarded by nautical historian acquaintances (though outside my field), apparently drawing on newly available family material and other previous overlooked sources. No doubt this will help interested editors improve this article. Stan Grayson "A Man for All Oceans - Captain Joshua Slocum and the First Solo Voyage Around the World" pub Tilbury House Publishers and the New Bedford Whaling Museum (isbn 978-0-88448-548-3) 401pp.

Press Herald review. Davidships (talk) 12:53, 21 October 2019 (UTC) Davidships (talk) 14:11, 21 October 2019 (UTC)