To tell the truth, I'm not really sure what version of this I read. It
was on the kindle I still have on long-term loan from a friend (thanks
again, Amy!), and I'm not going to wade through to try to figure out
which one exactly it is. I read some of Mark Twain's autobiography.
And
it's a lot like being at a family reunion, listening to an interesting
but very meandering relative tell you all about his life. And whether
that sounds like fun or hell to you may indeed indicate how you'd feel
about this book. I would actually enjoy it, and I enjoyed this. Twain,
as I am in no way the first to say, can turn a phrase like nobody's
business. He's witty, he's caustic, and he has a cat named Lazy who
rides around on his shoulder sleeping.
Twain apparently decided
that writing a memoir chronologically would be boring to write, and ended
up taking as much time to write as it did to live. So he decided to try
something different - to dictate on whatever he felt like dictating on
on a particular day, and so these stories follow a daisy chain of
reminiscences, and as he finishes one, he starts on another, and they
are in no way in order.
It's a little strange at time, and
sometimes the patter lags, but I love Twain's writing style, and I enjoy
hearing his stories, even about when they're about wanting an
inventor's nuts in a...what was it? It wasn't a vice. Something similar
and painful.
Much of this book is about his deceased daughter
Susy, and her own memoir of her father. There's a great deal of a father
commenting on his daughter's childhood biography of him, and then
spinning yarns.
Also, in this edition, whichever it is, about
his friendship with Ulysses S. Grant, and the vagaries of renting a
villa in Italy.
Hopefully this will give you an idea of whether
or not it is for you. I enjoyed it thoroughly, but I can imagine that it
might have irritated others to no end. I look forward to future volumes
myself, though.
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