A century after his death, Mark Twain still makes waves

Apparently, Mark Twain is sexy. Again.

—‰'Sexy' is the word I keep hearing," says Ben Griffin, one of six editors who has spent years painstakingly putting together the remarkable "Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1," (University of California Press) which will be officially released Monday. "It's a little strange."

The massive pre-release buzz says it all. Mark Twain -- the man who counted Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Theodore Roosevelt among his friends -- has reignited his own cultural relevance in the 21st century.

Or, rather, the editors of the Mark Twain Project at UC Berkeley have, by respecting Twain's wish not to have his full autobiography published until he'd been dead for a century. Twain, who was born Samuel Clemens, died in April 1910.

"It's very extraordinary," says Robert Hirst, the book's general editor and curator of the Mark Twain project for 30 years. "And it's not because of UC Press. People like the idea of reading a book that's been suppressed for 100 years. It's his genius for selling something. He knew it would (take off)."

Hirst speaks at 10 p.m. from a hotel room in Missouri -- Twain's home state and the setting for much of his work -- where he has been giving interviews and lecturing about the book. His dinner has just arrived and he initially sounds tired after a long day.

But his voice brightens at the mention of his subject. "It's amazing," says Hirst, who talks about Twain


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in both past and present tense, as if to punctuate his modern relevance. "He's amazingly forward-looking, so talented and so bright. He was experimental. He is very modern, a very modern thinker. It's a real effort to tell you what was bursting in his head."

Until now, no one knew what that was -- at least the way Twain wanted it known.

The 760-page book -- the first volume of three planned -- already hit No. 2 on the New York Times best-seller list, thanks to preorders.

After dozens of aborted tries at writing his autobiography, Twain dictated his story to a stenographer over the last three years of his life, in a non-chronological way. He was interested in capturing the moment of telling and how the story emerged from his brain, rather than relying on a standard timeline.

The creator of Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer and so many iconic characters in American literature decreed that his book wouldn't be released until 100 years after his death so he could be as honest as possible without fear of recourse against those associated with him. It gave him the freedom to share views about religion, politics, the military and people in a way that would have been scandalous while he was alive.

"He's being very hard on the American armed forces and Teddy Roosevelt," Hirst says. "Also, there are some attacks on Christianity that he said shouldn't be published for 500 years. We don't think the 500 years was meant to be taken seriously."

Twain himself explains his 100-year moratorium in the book.

"I speak freely from the grave rather than with my living tongue, for good reason: I can speak thence freely," he writes. "When a man is writing a book dealing with the privacies of his life -- a book which is to be read while he is still alive -- he shrinks from speaking his whole frank mind; all his attempts to do it fail, he recognizes that he is trying to do a thing which is wholly impossible to a human being."

http://www.mercurynews.com/books/ci_16598694?nclick_check=1


Just ordered this from Amazon, can't wait to read it.

Most of his comments about Congress and other things in life still ring true today.

I have the book already. A lot of it consists of editorial remarks/interpretations.

It is over 700 pages btw.

I've been a huge fan of Mark Twain for a long time. He was living and working at the San Francisco Call in 1864 which was around the time that many of my relatives were living there. I love the way he describe the earthquakes! :rofl:

:dem:

There are a lot of excerpts from other books. If you've read a lot of Mark Twain already, you likely won't be overly surprised by anything.

Frankly I could have done without the extensive editorial interpretations. They take up at least 1/2 of the book.

"They gonna mess up American somethin fierce in the 21st Century. That's my pro-fessy."

- Mark Twane

Thanks for the thread, sufrommich.

and it is fascinating

looking forward to a good read.

that it's the only way he avoided being lynched by the good Christians of his day. Read it as an adult if you doubt this is true.

My own grandfather had a brief correspondence with Twain, but we never found any of the letters after his death. We can only assume that it ended badly and with Twain's pungent and full command of the English language.

until 100 years after his death. Oh - it would make no difference. He still would not be speaking his whole frank mind like Twain. It would all still be lies. But at least if he did that - we wouldn't have to see his smirking mug on the TV.

I cannot wait to read this. He has always been by favorite author.

This will be a real treat.