tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25740524.post135429882468780327..comments2024-03-11T13:16:19.098-04:00Comments on Ad Orientem: Mark Twain's unvarnished autobiographyUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25740524.post-38448053194784125452010-07-10T11:24:14.621-04:002010-07-10T11:24:14.621-04:00I don't doubt the importance of bringing out a...I don't doubt the importance of bringing out an unexpurgated edition of Twain's autobiography. But I was in high school, lo, forty years ago, when I picked up a cheap paperback anthology called "Letters to the Earth" which was sufficiently revelatory of the later Mark Twain: very funny, yes, but cynical, bitter, and ultimately committed to a heartless determinism in a Godless universe. The joke turned out to be on us.<br /><br />I doubt I'll read the new autobiography--I have a few Library of America volumes I haven't gotten around to reading, but I prefer his earlier irreverence, which was in the service of a humane mockery of hypocrisy, not part of a defeated argument for nihilism.rick allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07612435616018593956noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25740524.post-76278805310463312002010-07-10T10:02:08.494-04:002010-07-10T10:02:08.494-04:00I can't wait! (c:I can't wait! (c:Matushka Annahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10522097149212770814noreply@blogger.com