Mark Twain

The Trouble Begins at Eight...

For you Mark Twain savants, Sid Fleishman is coming out with a new biography this spring. (I was just at the SCBWI writers conference in Honolulu where he spoke.) And if you're a fan I'm sure you've seen the PBS video directed by Ken Burns entitled Mark Twain. If not, get it.
Linda Collison, author of Star-Crossed (Alfred A. Knopf;2006)

novella said:

I might be the only person on the planet who really dislikes Mark Twain's style.
I hate his fiction. I don't like the voices or his taste for exaggeration. I imagine him, a well-educated wealthy guy living in a giant house in Connecticut, inventing these 'American Southern' characters to 'teach' everyone else what America is all about. It's preposterous.

Sure, I know he travelled around and worked on a riverboat and had a few interesting jobs. Who didn't? It's sort of the equivalent of some kid thumbing across country in the 70's and then purporting to be an expert on middle America. Something about Twain is very George W. B. Fake, that is.

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Well, I red Tom Soyer as a kid. I am not American, at those times I probably would not even know where to look for US on a map. I saw black-colored people only on a TV - we did not have any in our country. And yet, I was sure that what he writes about is happening just around the corner. That if I will look outside my window I will see Indian Joe (we either had no indians in my country I completely forgot at times that things are happenning somewhere far-away in US. For me it was real, as if it was going on in my own town! As if I was part of these adventures! It is universal, I would say. Neither of his books were compulsory to read in our schools - we just did it if we wanted. And I am glad that he was a part of my childhood.

By the way, this one I just found on the net this small peace of Mark Twain's article about German language. Now as I work and live already a couple of years in Germany and I have to learn this terrible language, I was sooo happy to discover this little funny story! Since his experience with German so much reminds of everybody's else - but he managed to put his experience in words, and I was happy to discover it when I was most depressed about German grammar!

I can't say enough about Huckleberry Finn, arguably one of the greatest books in all of American literature. Twain undoubtedly had a gift of language and I'm coming to the realization more and more that he gave each and every character in the book their own individual "voice," something that a lot of writers fail to do. In Finn, we see the boys stumble upon a good deal of characters, and Twain does a marvelous job in giving them distinctive voices and mannerisms that separate them from one another. I'm noticing that this is not a strength of some writers that I've read as of late. Not ceratin how or why I got stuck on this detail, but just somethingthat I've noticed. Being a history buff, I shake my head when people try and ban Huckleberry Finn, though it is clearly an anti-slavery book that depicts many of the southerners in a poor light as hateful, uneducated beasts. Huck's father is the archetype of this caricature. The "Prince" and his friend are also interesting in that they are shysters of the first order. I haven't read this one for a long time, though when one of my students does it read it, I certainly don't mind reading along with them and enjoying it again.

Do you like or dislike Mark Twen? Please can you comment?

mehdirza said:

Do you like or dislike Mark Twen? Please can you comment?

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I very much with teh dislikeing of Mark Tawain because he is BURGLAR. Him never writing single book his very self. While young man Mark Tween travel in Europe and having to hide from army (because he spiing and would have development arrested if catched) he find library with book of GEORG STIERNHIELM "Finnen Hucklabärry & Tomas Sajersson" of stories of slavvry in south Sweden written hundreds revolutions around the sun earlier. Mark Taen steal all books (becuz he unnerstand a little Danish) and distroying them and publish as his own and get heap big monetary. But in 20th century, Sewdish scholar reading books and finding referees to Copanhagen and Stockholm see and regret being journalist of Mark Waint. I believe he is not journalist. I belileve he big nothing.

I are right, becuz I is most reacted guy.

novella said:

I imagine him, a well-educated wealthy guy living in a giant house in Connecticut, inventing these 'American Southern' characters to 'teach' everyone else what America is all about. It's preposterous.

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Well educated? Not that I know of. He learned literature by being a printer's devil.

Twain grew up poor in a small town on the Mississippi. The southern characters he "invented" were part of his boyhood.

Any money he had he earned himself and any strange jobs he took to earn that money. Wealthy guy in Connecticut? Yes, after he was a successful author. Then he lost it all investing in an early version of the linotype machine. A great concept, but Twain's inventor lost out to the competition and Twain went broke. Had to pay off his debts on the lecture circuit.

If you are going to dump on someone who wrote as well as Twain - Samuel Langhorn Clemens - then at least be accurate.

I love Huckleberry Finn and I laugh every time I read Political Economy.

beer good said:

I very much with teh dislikeing of Mark Tawain because he is BURGLAR. Him never writing single book his very self. While young man Mark Tween travel in Europe and having to hide from army (because he spiing and would have development arrested if catched) he find library with book of GEORG STIERNHIELM "Finnen Hucklabärry & Tomas Sajersson" of stories of slavvry in south Sweden written hundreds revolutions around the sun earlier. Mark Taen steal all books (becuz he unnerstand a little Danish) and distroying them and publish as his own and get heap big monetary. But in 20th century, Sewdish scholar reading books and finding referees to Copanhagen and Stockholm see and regret being journalist of Mark Waint. I believe he is not journalist. I belileve he big nothing.

I are right, becuz I is most reacted guy.

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I dicagre. Mark Twene waz a journalict in Nevada. I whent to the towne and newz office that he worced in. Did you now that he was an avid sigar cmoker? He would have about a dogzen a day, usually your smaller pettite corona kindz. He alco wrote kwite abit in beb. I meen, the guy would just right and right and right, in beb.

ja9 said:

As a satirist, he is without compare. As a storyteller he is mesmerizing. As a reporter, a travel writer, and/or an essayist he is the standard by which all others are judged, in my opinion. One of the few instances where a reputation is deserved.

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Samuel Clemens was absolutely a supreme satirist and storyteller. His wit is my favorite literary kind! And Following the Equator has a prized place on my bookshelf. The bar has certainly been set!

I am in the middle of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and loving Twain's humorous prose. I can't believe that I waited to long to get into this story.

Fantasy Moon said:

I am in the middle of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and loving Twain's humorous prose. I can't believe that I waited to long to get into this story.

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This is my favorite book by Twain. He also wrote a fantastic novel about the life of Joan of Arc. Probably the best thing ever written about her.

I read all his books as a child, and loved every one of them.
One thing that is obvious in his work is the way the concept of ""childhood"" has changed in the period since they were written- the boys are treated, and act as, small adults in many ways.

bleumana said:

This is my favorite book by Twain. He also wrote a fantastic novel about the life of Joan of Arc. Probably the best thing ever written about her.

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I'd forgotten that he wrote that one. Thanks for reminding me. I'll have to look into it in the future.