Quote:
Originally Posted by AnotherCat
Rasmussen in his Critical Companion to Mark Twain~A Literary Reference to His Life and Work is crueler than either of us; he refers to them as being political diatribes (Rev. ed. 2007, Volume 1, p.59).
I must sit through the Ken Burn's PBS films again (I believe one of Rasmussen's earlier books was a reference during its making?) as I haven't watched them for a decade or more (they demand a quite big lump of time); I seem to recall there is quite a bit on his business failure, personal stresses and strains, and demeanour during his later life-those building around the time of Connecticut....
One of the strengths I feel Twain had, at least in his earlier books up to Huck..., was that he did not publish his first novel until he was close to 40 years of age. Like some similar others he thus approached them in a mature way (as an example of another, his approximately contemporary Joseph Conrad also did not write his first novel until of a similar age). That contrasted against many writers who start at a much earlier age, who often come across to me as producing an over written school pupil essay type of outcome.
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I haven't read Rasmussen but then I suspect that most of my critical literature is probably somewhat old-fashioned now. I'll have to update.
I did, at one point in my post, nearly use "harangue" but then this was my 1000th post and I felt that I should be polite. LOL.