Mark Twain

OK, I'll admit it, I've tried to stick with Mark Twain. I read Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer in highschool, as we are all required to do. I don't know if it was taught poorly or what, but it made me dispise Twain. Don't get me wrong, I'll defend to the end teachers wanting to teach it in classes even though he uses the n-word (this was recently a big hubub here in DFW). But both stories just seemed boring to me. It seemed that teachers picked to books because boys don't like to read and these are both boy stories. They meant absolutly nothing to me.

Except-I think the man is hillarious. His spot-on quotes are wonderful. I quote him all the time, so I really want to like him. But, I really don't want to go back to the boys stories. So please, someone explain or recommend some GOOD Twain to me.

Edited after coffee to correct some awful sentences and to clarify some points.

I didn't read Tom Sawyer in school, but sometime after College, and found it hilarious. However, another title I've read and enjoyed is A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court. The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calveras County and Other Stories are a few fun short stories. The hard part is getting past the colloquialisms Twain writes with.

I've heard Letters from the earth is supposed to be good and it's on my TBR pile. I know I've read others but they're not coming to me write now.

I was going to do a thread for Huckleberry Finn myself. I forced myself through half the book and finally had to give up. Huck was a brat and Jim was an idiot. I disliked both the characters and found the "plot" boring as hell - go down the river, something happens, go down the river, something happens, go down the river, something happens, blah, blah, blah.

I also like his quotes but can't understand the appeal of his novels if they are anything like Huck.

Ditto #3.
It's supposed to be satire of the times, but I think it only works if you lived in or around the times. Tom's okay. ish. But nothing I've read has impressed me.

Try reading The War Prayer. It's very short and it has pictures which are very good, and a very modern and thought-provoking premise.

This is interesting but a little puzzling, frankly, about liking the quotes but not the books.

Of course a reader is under no obligation to like Twain, no matter what teachers say. (I also suspect Twain would agree. He wasn't too sentimental about teachers.)

I'd also venture that if you still refer to the "n-word" instead of nigger, maybe timidity is getting in the way. It's not a matter of the word, but of what people do with the word.

I think Twain is great. (Not very original of me, I suppose.) Huckleberry Finn is a more adult book than Tom Sawyer, sure. But if Twain doesn't work for you, fine--but maybe he's still been constructive by inviting you to consider what does work for you. What are you hungry for?

Actually, wanting to like Twain is more because of my mother than because of any teacher-I'm too finished with highschool to care what they think about my reading habits. As for not using the "n-word"-I don't care for the word and I know it's a charged word, so I don't use it. He used it to make a point.

I'll check out War Prayer and see how I like it.

Twain? He is totally off the hook. I've forgotten the titles, but the stories of Adam and Eve, or Joan of Arc, or the Good Boy & the Bad Boy are LOL funny. I was surprised to see his name on this thread. I guess maybe Tom Sawyer was kind of lame, and I only enjoyed portions of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and Life on the Mississippi. But his short stories are outrageous and very entertaining.

I like Twain, but for those that don't, maybe try his short stories. They seem to be his best medium. I also grew up outside St. Louis, so it was literature close to home.

I agree the Adam and Eve one is laugh-out-loud funny.

"The Mysterious Stranger" will mess with your head.

The Mysterious Stranger is indeed a dark, weird, bitter story. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court also had some of that in its violent end.

I recently picked up Letters from the Earth. I expect more of the same, in that one.

Well, I think I'll try to resurrect this thread since I was looking for a discussion like this. I too read Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer when I was younger and didn't care for either one. Then I picked up a copy of Innocents Abroad and fell over laughing at his portrayal of himself and others. After perusing a few of his nonfiction works, A tramp Abroad and Roughing It among others I decided that I adore his nonfiction works. The recent release of his unexpurgated autobiography led me to reading Ron Power's biography and THAT (I haven't gotten to the autobiography yet) has led me to pick up copies of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn again to see if I can recognize the same humor and unflinching look at human behavior that I may have missed the first time.

>6 krolik: This is interesting but a little puzzling, frankly, about liking the quotes but not the books.


I think this phenomenom is very much like seeing the trailers of movies or TV series and thinking it looks like you'll really enjoy it but then when you see the whole thing you realize that the clips were the only good parts.

Twain is one of those authors who is 50% spot-on brilliant, 50% apathy and filler, and 50% dull observations. (Note, I do not do math in public.)

Now that I think of it, I can't think of a Twain title that doesn't have a chapter or two of complete garbage. The ending of that Great American classic (when Tom Sawyer shows up), Huckleberry Finn, is truly horrible.

But try also, his travelogues. It is well-worth picking the wheat from the chaff.

>5 weener: I try to read The War Prayer at least once every year. It is intelligent and very moving.

>13 SpongeBobFishpants:

My favorite member of the Coelenterata,

A Tramp Abroad is a classic example of what I said in my previous post. There's a lot of fluff but the early essays about the Blue Jay, and the dueling French, will make anyone pee their pants laughing.

I'm still reading Letters from Earth from Sam's darker years....

Whether the story in Twain's writing is interesting today or not, he was quite the wordsmith.

In his 1895 essay, "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses," Twain wrote: "When a person has a poor ear for music he will flat and sharp right along without knowing it. He keeps near the tune, but it is NOT the tune. When a person has a poor ear for words, the result is a literary flatting and sharping; you perceive what he is intending to say, but you also perceive that he doesn't SAY it."

Needless to say, Twain's writing was the opposite of Cooper's. Twain's "ear" even allowed him to write in "seven separate dialects" for different characters in Huckleberry Finn*.

I prefer Twain's non-fiction, but find anything he writes a pleasure to read, even if in short paragraphs.

*Bill Bryson, The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way

Oh, and don't forget the short story about the good little boy.

And all those essays about Adam and Eve.

And don't forget the War Prayer.

I've come to the realization that Mark Twain is my favorite author.

I'm currently watching Mark Twain on PBS

http://www.pbs.org/marktwain/

(and peeing my pants...)

>18 Sandydog1:, an understandable choice, to be sure. I read A Tramp Abroad last year and found it hit and miss, but I do love his humour.