one doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Or drink.

The above is an eye-opener

K and R

Mark Twain was very upset about what the Belgian King was doing in the Congo too.

My Dad was born in Glasgow (he would have been a Trump supporter), but I recognize those people as mine, the Celts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Leopold's_Soliloquy

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~drbr/sitting.html

Mark Twain..was he possibly the first famous anti-Imperialist in the US in the sense he was
considered a brilliant author but also had celebrity status at the same time, I wonder?

Brilliant take down, I couldn't write anything like that if my life depended on it.

He was a big entertainer in his day, made lots of money doing lectures, travelled all over. He was Jane Fonda back then, he really got into them about the war in the Philippines too.

There is a strain of anti-establishment literature in the USA that goes all the way back, the low style, Steinbeck or example, and Twain falls squarely within it.

My father was born in Glasgow in 1892, emigrated to Canada at the age of 16, worked his way across to Vancouver on the Trans-Canadian rail line, got in the Great War, got a leg half shot off, lost all his teeth, rehabilitated, worked his way down the coast to LA, owned a car park in Hollywood in the 1930s, married my mother, a widow with 3 children at the age of 52 or so, and then had 3 more, I was the first of those. He died at the age of 91, in Victoria, Canada, almost made 92. Tough people. That's what I remember.

I was only aware of his condemnation of racial bigotry..the larger sense you posted
I am not as familiar with..not aware of the depth he took on politically.

Although I'm not what an academic would consider knowedgeable.

Since I got older, I have come to dislike some things about his writing, his women are romanticized cartoons for example, he never really left his comedic roots, but then that's how they thought back then, and I have to forgive him everything for "Huckleberry Finn" and "Life on the Mississippi".

Like I said, they don't like to talk about it much now. There are a lot of people from those days they don't like to talk about much now.

It's too bad, he was brilliant.

Well one had to have some connections to that time to relate. (I grew up in the South..so when I read I could understand..but, few could these days)

Those books are viewed very differently these days... because few can understand the context of that time in today's world. I think Huck Finn was considered a book to be banned for Racism a decade or so ago....because the context and Twain's depiction just wasn't acceptable.

About Huck, although I can see the point. When I was young I read a book named "Hound Dog Man", I assume you can sort of guess the subject matter, but I was very fond of it as a book about dogs. Having come across it again, I find it basically unreadable because of the constant racist language. I read a lot of southern literature when I was young, not just Faulkner, but I fear a lot of it would be difficult now.

Having grown up before the Civil Rights revolt, I can tell you that the language is not invented. Being very WASP-ish and male I heard it all. I am still kind appalled/amazed at some of the things people have said to me "jokingly".

And in literature I think they did right to be true to that, to tell the truth.

I think "Life on the Mississippi" is a fine work, reminds a bit of "Moby Dick" for example in the time spent on technical details of a job. And similar style, still very of 19th century. But I like that sort of thing anyway.

Thomas Wolfe...was a disturbed person... but, I read him at a difficult time in my life where I could relate to his dreamlike rantings and they were comforting to me. I couldn't deal with reading him now, though. Many Southern writers at that time were on the cusp of the change coming. They wouldn't be comfortable or rewarding reads to many's tastes these days, though.

Still they were part of their time and part of the "change" and therefore contributed....I like to think.

Does anybody read Jame Branch Cabell any more?

I remember liking Wolfe in my adolescent phase.

And a lot modern ones writing low-grade fiction. A lot of Southern writers were good at being gritty. Some were pretty funny.

Looked him up on Wiki. I can see why you would like him Will check out...

some ways. Historians have said Twain became cynical in his later years. But, I think he just became a Realist. PBS did an excellent Documentary on Twain's later years. He was amazing. But, he did end his life darkly but still had that quick wit.

For the dark humor and being from the same period. And Vidal's style is a lot different, what I've read of him. And Vidal was an upper class person, like Lewis Lapham, unlike Twain.

But I can see what you mean too, both social critics and gadflies, successful writers and speakers, and rather similar in their political views. The anti-imperialist echoes are there too.

Such different backgrounds.....but, the closest thing that came to my mind for cynical entertaining wit who carried to later life. But, of the two, probably Twain, for his time, expressed early America the best for his life experience..although Vidal had that connection to history in his writings in his own time about the past.

So yeah.

And Twain did come to it later in life.

Must be some vibes about Celtic History in the air, these weeks. My partner's family has been doing their Scotch-Irish History collecting photos and such and sending e-mails sharing (Unusual)....and, makes me wonder if there's something in our "uncertain times" leading some of us to collect our thoughts about who we are and where we came from after reading here.

But Jeff sort of asked, and it's sort of unusual, so I thought I'd explain a little.

Great read, wasn't it?

Still it was good to share anecdotes and let loose a little over heritage on this thread.