What does /lit/ think of him? I just found out I have a copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and I wonder if his books are any good.
>>23363547He's the great American writer and did a lot to create the entire psyche of the United States (particularly the South, which has always been the region that has done the most to shape American culture despite assmad yanks denying this). He scratches a specific itch of late 1800s/early 1900s hokum Americana, social satire, and subtle fantasticality that no other writer I know of is able to match.Tom Sawyer is good but it's considered just a goofy children's humor book. The sequel, Huckleberry Finn, is the one that's considered to have better actual literary merit.
Everybody is forced to read Tom Sawyer/Huckleberry Finn in school, but his real best books are A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and his travel books. Twain was legitimately fucking hilarious, and his cleverness doesn't really shine in the books he's most famous for.
>>23363547For a comic writer who always saw himself in that light, he's less funny than profound to me.
>>23363547reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer right now (its right here on my desk in fact); getting close to the end. Its great - its funny, the prose is good (sometimes a bit didactic (not in a bad way, probably exacerbated by the third-person narration in this book (unlike the books to follow it which were narrated by a character)), sometimes gets into a sort of dark romantic territory describing ominous scenes; I think it represents how a child sees those sort of scenes, of night and the woods, that sorta creepy stuff); I don't have anything bad to say about it.bought The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn about a week ago. He's got a few others which I'll eventually check out too.The Mysterious Stranger seems interesting, but I don't know what to make of it - its unfinished and it seems too dark - it touches on some heavy, nihilistic, spiritual stuff; might skip it, or save it if I'm ever in the mood for something like Nietzsche.
>>23363602>Tom Sawyer is good but it's considered just a goofy children's humor book. The sequel, Huckleberry Finn, is the one that's considered to have better actual literary merit.A damn shame, because I wouldn't say either one has more than the other. They're both incredible. >>23363547Genuinely one of the best authors of all time.
He is fantastic, one of the best American writers. Great sense of humor, lots of goofiness, a fiery wit, but also a deep and heartfelt soul. A sublimely independent thinker, whose ideas have aged very well and should be read universally in today's America.
>>23363547His best work is his travel writing and no ones actually read it except every American "humorist" who rips off it. Vonnegut for example borderline plagiarizes Twains non fiction in terms of style of his jokes, it is like reading Wodehouse and then reading Douglas Adams.You can skip all his fiction, just read Life on the Mississippi and Roughing It if you read anything.
>>23363964lmfao, seeing this contrarian ass opinion grow here ever since i started shilling his travel writing has been hilarious. thanks for being so easily manipulated. not like they aren't great books, though.
>>23363547proto-Reddit
>>23363639>but his real best books are A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's CourtBased. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed that book
>>23364098>check the boru >first post mentioning his travel writing is by me>next few also by meNice try lemming.
>>23363547I enjoyed him more when I read him on my own than when I was forced to in school.
>>23363640You haven't read roughing it then. It's a very funny book. So funny Roosevelt named his cat after one of the stories.
>>23364098>>23364130Hey, I thought I was the one who was shilling his travel books on /lit/. I recommend Roughing It in every Twain thread I see
>>23364130nice try bucko, I first mentioned his travel writings back in 08 when Obama won.
>>23363547He has the vaccinated stare.
His house in CT is pretty crazy, worth the visit if you are ever in the area.
>>23363547His greatest work was never finished
>>23364116Different anon. I like it too but is was a little long
He's a good writer, but his essay where he seethes like an absolute jealous, catty bitch about James Fenimore Cooper lowered my estimation of the man considerably. The essay is still funny.
>>23366089>i respect him less because he produced something good
>>23364968I'm the Roughing It anon. Who the fuck are you? I've been posting that bit about the tarantulas for years
>>23366094>the clown is funny because he totally fucked up and fell on his face
>>23366099fuck you bitch I post the Brigham Young bit all the time
>>23366089Cooper was a garbage writer, though. Ever tried to read Deerslayer? It's shit.
>>23366089There's a reason why American literature professors skip over Brockden Brown and Fenimore Cooper to Hawthorne -- they're just not really good.
>>23366089>They require that when a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar Friendship's Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a negro minstrel in the end of it. But this rule is flung down and danced upon in the Deerslayer tale. Lighten up, Francis. It's hilarious -- the moreso because he is parodying the literary critics of his day,
>>23363547The most American author there's ever been, in a good way.
I would love to hear his opinion on current day issues. He was a self-proclaimed Jacobin. I think he would be a middle of the road Democrat today.Also impressed by the number of anons acquainted with MT's travel writing. A word of advice to any readers: read illustrated editions with the original drawings.>>23363639I used to agree with this sentiment but a recent-ish re-read of Tom Sawyer convinced me it's his best book. Reading Tom Sawyer after getting to know Mark Twain's work, life, opinions, times, etc. deepened my appreciation for the book. It's also a much better composed work than Huckleberry Finn. That said, I completely agree with you on his underrated travel writings. >>23363964Innocents Abroad is also a great book. Lot of good Old World vs. New World stuff and lighter reading compared to Henry James.>>23366089I thought it was a funny essay. Did you read it in the Norton anthology? Some day I will make an effort to read the Last of the Mohicans as part of my duty as an ex-English major.
>>23363640Humorists where often the most profound people at all. Well they used to be anyways. Now you just get dumb crap like>>23364968>LOL SPIDER-MAN POINT
Fucking sucks how none of these goofy ass Ohio faggots aren't taught in school anymore.Oh, what? You think this post is in jest or half-ironic or something? No, my aunt is a librarian, they don't do Twain no more cuh.
>>23363731The weirdest fucking thing is finding out Twain wrote Tom Sawyer Abroad. He had these two literal masterworks of the American literary canon and then there is a canonical sequel to them that turns them into literal Jules Verne Saturday morning cartoon shit.Tom Sawyer Abroad and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator are proof to me that good books can still be ruined by insane sequels that go off the rails.
>>23366910Shut up you persnickety faggot, if you hated memes so much you wouldn't be using 4chan.
