Sparks from the divine ragbag
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1711280,00.html
Ron Powers' enjoyable biography, Mark Twain: A Life, has a tendency to
all-American bombast, but shows Twain's life and mind are as compelling
and energetic as his prose, says Philip Horne
Saturday February 18, 2006
The Guardian
Mark Twain: A Life
by Ron Powers
723pp, Scribner, =A325
His voice was once compared to "a little buzz saw slowly grinding
inside a corpse", though a more friendly auditor called its sound "deep
and earnest like that of one of the graver musical instruments". Samuel
L Clemens, alias Mark Twain, was at least consistent in provoking
contrary opinions, often in the same person, often in himself. This
ambitious, murderously aggressive wit - who patented the Wild-West
tall-tale manner of "roughing it" for general literary consumption and
had been jailed for drunkenness and brawling - could also be tender,
even tame, and was intermittently racked by spasms of
not-fully-justified guilt. This could make things uncomfortable for
others, as a young relative noted: "He did have a strong conscience
that worried him at times until he had proved to his own satisfaction
that other people were to blame for his sins."
Mark Twain
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/dd2a8f94b67234df
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