tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post7585904673739468934..comments2024-03-29T03:04:00.853-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: Now what - Mark Twain, magazine writerAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-7427208655695922882015-04-22T10:22:16.454-05:002015-04-22T10:22:16.454-05:00How fun. The writers have some techniques in comm...How fun. The writers have some techniques in common, but how different in temperament, or maybe I mean attitude.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-12850529451139626332015-04-22T09:39:19.226-05:002015-04-22T09:39:19.226-05:00I had my own Twain marathon last week, lapping up ...I had my own Twain marathon last week, lapping up three books from around 1892: "The American Claimant," "Merry Tales," and "The Million Pound Bank Note." None was top shelf Twain, although the collections have some fine stories among the puzzling filler (a play in German, extended mockery of an old medical dictionary, a description of Berlin, a comparison of old and new sea travel, extended mockery of an obscure novella, etc.)<br /><br />I do prefer Allais, although I think it may be partly an accident of birth. Twain was working in 19th century America, which was populist, sentimental, prudish, folksy, xenophobic, and religious, and Twain's work is often stained with those qualities. Allais's Paris was freer, smarter, and livelier all around.<br /><br />And oh, how the lovable, folksy, big-hearted, zany inventor Mulberry Sellers, in "The American Claimant," made me yearn for the ingenious and truculent Captain Cap! Doug Skinnerhttp://www.dougskinner.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-5293970523351619542015-04-11T23:19:56.562-05:002015-04-11T23:19:56.562-05:00Letters from the Earth is in a sense a childhood b...<i>Letters from the Earth</i> is in a sense a childhood book for me. My father had a copy. I remember looking through it - I was too young to really read it - as if it were a prohibited book, even though it was in no way prohibited. I should actually read the dang thing sometime.<br /><br />I guess that is part of what I like about literary history, the way that writers who like similar, like peers, in their own age separate as time passes. Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-9246300992205773502015-04-11T17:24:07.275-05:002015-04-11T17:24:07.275-05:00I'll also recommend "Letters from the Ear...I'll also recommend "Letters from the Earth," which is mostly Twain's anti-clerical diatribes. He was good at that. I fondly remember discovering it in my impressionable teen years. <br /><br />You fully appreciate Twain (and Allais) when you read some of their contemporaries. I've been dipping into Bill Nye and Eugene Field, and, although they can be funny and charming, they just don't have as much imagination. In France, Georges Courteline wrote funny stuff about soldiers and bureaucrats, but he also seems mild next to Allais. Doug Skinnerhttp://www.dougskinner.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-14120938793130669812015-04-09T13:09:36.103-05:002015-04-09T13:09:36.103-05:00That book sounds great. Just the side of Twain I ...That book sounds great. Just the side of Twain I ought to get to know better.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-77827015964650660652015-04-09T12:44:06.176-05:002015-04-09T12:44:06.176-05:00BTW, if you like weird writings by Twain, here is ...BTW, if you like weird writings by Twain, here is a recommendation: The Devil's Race Track: Mark Twain's Dark Writings - The Best from Which Was The Dream? and Fables of Man (Edited by John S. Tuckey; U of California P [1980]). I am especially fond of the cynical little essay from December 1905 - "Old Age." It is a mirror that taunts me. I will have more to say about Twain's "Old Age" in an upcoming post at Beyond Eastrod.R.T.https://www.blogger.com/profile/13220814349193561823noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-61978116721241479392015-04-09T11:32:25.466-05:002015-04-09T11:32:25.466-05:00Inevitably I will do some murdering of Twain's...Inevitably I will do some murdering of Twain's humor by classifying his pieces. I think you are right about the rough road - it was a method of survival. Another column, another column, another column.<br /><br />I read and enjoy lots of biographies of fictional people, so maybe I should read more of non-fictional people. Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-23315616543581049352015-04-09T09:53:09.716-05:002015-04-09T09:53:09.716-05:00The most enduring humorists find ways to vary thei...The most enduring humorists find ways to vary their routines. Allais mixed in playlets, interviews with talking animals, literary parodies, verses, short stories, social satire, burlesque inventions. Benchley was equally adept at mock scientific talks, domestic sketches, parodies, and sheer nonsense. It must be a rough road.<br /><br />I'll be curious to hear what you think of "Pudd'nhead Wilson" and "The Mysterious Stranger." Both are favorites of mine: weird, rich, imaginative, and somewhat of a mess. "The Mysterious Stranger" is such a mess that he never finished it. It's rewarding, though.<br /><br />I've read "Tom Sawyer, Detective," which I didn't find particularly memorable. Coincidentally, I plan to read "The American Claimant" next week. I suspect I'll enjoy it. <br /><br />I sometimes enjoy bios of writers. Some writers make for more interesting bios than others. I recently read bios of Aleister Crowley (who had an extremely colorful life) and Lewis Carroll (who was weird, but led a pretty dull life). Doug Skinnerhttp://www.dougskinner.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-80503653426915836252015-04-09T09:17:09.314-05:002015-04-09T09:17:09.314-05:00Complete! I will bet that I will not read the com...Complete! I will bet that I will not read the complete Twain. Not even the complete novels, or complete travel books, or complete tales & sketches.<br /><br />The two Library of America volumes are a great service, though. I do want to have read through those someday. I have doubts that I will ever read <i>The American Claimant</i>, though, or <i>Tom Sawyer, Detective</i>. Who knows.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-67806165333077695272015-04-09T09:03:09.364-05:002015-04-09T09:03:09.364-05:00Postscript: And, Tom, consider this:
http://beyond...Postscript: And, Tom, consider this:<br />http://beyondeastrod.blogspot.com/2015/04/give-me-just-little-more-time-plans-for.html<br />All the best from Beyond Eastrod and the Gulf coast!R.T.https://www.blogger.com/profile/13220814349193561823noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-11275420413766579432015-04-09T09:01:19.152-05:002015-04-09T09:01:19.152-05:00I am thinking of doing a real Twain immersion next...I am thinking of doing a <i>real</i> Twain immersion next year, knocking off the rest of the big ones, like <i>Pudd'nhead Wilson</i> and <i>The Mysterious Stranger</i>, that I haven't read.<br /><br />The humor writing is easy and pleasant immersion. It's popular entertainment of an earlier era. Some of it is dead, but much of it still entertains, even if a sometimes more mildly than it once did.<br /><br />West made cutup story collages? That is pretty funny. <br /><br />I read actual biographies rarely, but I read lots of reviews of biographies, and reviews of biographies are mostly article-length biographies with some vague reference to the book. So in a sense I read a lot of biographies of writers, just not in book-length form.<br /><br />The Library of America volumes all come with detailed timelines that are practically biographies. The Twain one is long and useful.<br /><br />Now, memoirs, like <i>Roughing It</i>, I do read as books. A few every year. Once in a while one of them turns out to be a great work of art.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-81906654782475337932015-04-09T08:30:52.499-05:002015-04-09T08:30:52.499-05:00Your few words about Twain may provoke me to do so...Your few words about Twain may provoke me to do something I have held at arm's length for quite a while: read more by Twain. My previous encounters have included Huck Finn (over-rated), Pudd'nhead Wilson, The Mysterious Stranger (under-rated), and -- a long time ago -- Tom Sawyer.<br /><br />But first I want to reengage with and finish the Ron Power's biography of Twain; that will set the stage for reading Twain. I would also like to read MT's autobiography. <br /><br />Yet this suggests a couple of questions (i.e., it is my quirky habit always to include questions): do you read or avoid writers' biographies and/or autobiographies and memoirs? why?R.T.https://www.blogger.com/profile/13220814349193561823noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-72649298588691793382015-04-09T05:00:26.731-05:002015-04-09T05:00:26.731-05:00I keep meaning to immerse myself in Twain for a wh...I keep meaning to immerse myself in Twain for a while, not to the same level as yourself, mind you. My recent reading of Miss Lonelyhearts had actually reminded me that I should read some Twain as he was so crucial to the development of American humour particularly the dead pan humour of the tall tale. West himself tried his hand at tall tales of a kind, cutting and pasting together stories from magazines to make new ones. Not very successfully, I believe.<br />In the interim, your immersion will allow me to pretend to be knowledgeable ...Séamus Dugganhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com