Seeing Twain More Clearly
- Thread starter William Haskins
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If I'm only allowed one writing hero, Twain's it. So thank you for this.
I found this post at that link, which isn't Twain himself, but suggests what his voice and speech patterns may have sounded like. They work together well. I'll go to sleep happy tonight.
Ah. I need to re-see some of Hal Holbrook's "Mark Twain Tonight" stuff. Magnificent.
Also, there's a really good volume of Twain's collected occasional speaking appearances over his long career, published by the University of Iowa Press, titled Mark Twain Speaking. Laugh Out Loud stuff, throughout, with the subtly and sometimes acidly pointed nuances that, among American writers, no one has ever done better.
The closest successor to Mark Twain among American writers would have to be Kurt Vonnegut, whom I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with, as a dumbhick undergraduate student way back around 1967. But Vonnegut was, I think, gentler and more patient than Twain must have been, despite having closely similar sensibilities about the world and the human place in it.
caw
Also, there's a really good volume of Twain's collected occasional speaking appearances over his long career, published by the University of Iowa Press, titled Mark Twain Speaking. Laugh Out Loud stuff, throughout, with the subtly and sometimes acidly pointed nuances that, among American writers, no one has ever done better.
The closest successor to Mark Twain among American writers would have to be Kurt Vonnegut, whom I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with, as a dumbhick undergraduate student way back around 1967. But Vonnegut was, I think, gentler and more patient than Twain must have been, despite having closely similar sensibilities about the world and the human place in it.
caw
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Very, very cool. I love Mark Twain. I've read every thing he wrote that I can find, including his letters. Much of my writing style is strongly influenced by his. Give me the collected works of Mark Twain and Ray Bradbury, and I could stay happy on a deserted island for quite a spell.
I had the pleasure of seeing Holbrook perform that show live, many years ago. Love to see it again.
eta: a brief youtube.
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Ha! That's awesome. He looks grumpy, or at least feisty. And it's great to see things at a more normal speed. Gives us a feel for the way he moved. Perfect!
I love Twain as well. Thank you for posting this, William.
I love Twain as well. Thank you for posting this, William.
Few people born almost two hundred years ago had twenty first century sensibilities. They were creatures of their own time.
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He did damned well for a man of his times. Not everyone can be pulled into another century and still entertain and educate an audience. That's why we read the classics. In doing so we sometimes have to take our favorite author's personal prejudices with a grain of salt. And other times we have to discard a one time favorite. I'm keeping Twain but ditching Heinlein. ---s6
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That's incredibly sad. It says nothing about Twain, but much about you. For that matter, you really need to read it again. He was writing a satire against Cooper's books, and in this, he was right. If he went to far in portraying the Native American's lack of virtue, and to the white man of the time, this supposed lack of virtue was very real, and often accurate, by the standards or western civilization, then Cooper and others most certainly went too far in portraying their virtues. This is still done today. Whether it's political correctness, or just plain fear, Native Americans are usually presented today as something approaching a Greek God. It's almost impossible to sell something today that presents a Native American as an evil, murdering SOB, even though a fair number qualify perfectly for this role.
Twain was writing from his own personal experience, and there were certainly a large number of Native Americans who fit his profile perfectly, just as there were large numbers of whites who were just as bad.
Twain should not have applied his experience to all Native Americans, but like it or not, he was right about the ones he dealt with personally. For a man who lived where and when he did, I find his views perfectly understandable, just as I would feel the same about a Native American of that time period who applied his experience to all whites.
When you start applying today's sensibilities, which are as inaccurate as were Cooper's, to a man who lived when Twain did, you're simply asking the impossible, and pretending that you would have been any different.
He really wasn't as mean toward Jane Austen as it may seem. Most of his rantings about Jane Austen came from making fun of a friend of his who listed Jane Austen as his favorite writer.
Twain also said that he re-read Several of Austen novels just so he could make fun of them again, but I don't think even Twain would keep re-reading books he truly hated.
Many even say that Twain sold more Jane Austen novels than she did, and knew he was doing it.
Austen is most likely just one of Twain's contrary rantings, and his own library contained several Jane Austen novels.
Please. It says plenty about Twain.
You're perfectly free to disregard it, but judging Twain for it is entirely fair too.
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Tony Hillerman. Stephen King. Weren't there Native American bad-guy werewolves in Twilight?
I mean, yeah, there's still a lot of "noble savage" whitewashing, but are there any actual examples of writers who wrote a crime thriller about a Native American serial killer and got told "No, you can't do that"?
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