Quick Review on Mark Twain

Mark Twain: The Complete Novels by Mark Twain
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It's taken a good chunk of my reading time to work through Mark Twain's complete novels. Whew!

I thought I'd already covered Twain's works through college, but there are a couple of books here I never heard of before (The Horses Tale, for one) and a couple I thought I had read, but apparently did not.

If you've enjoyed any of Twain's books, including the two great American Novels, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, then you're RIPE to read some more. Some of the novels are fairly brief so you can tuck one in among your other book selections. That's one reason it took me such a long time to read. I finished a few other books along the way.

I can't possibly sort and winnow the best since, hey it's Twain! If you don't think you'd like Twain, give this a try anyway. You might become a fan and you've not wasted much time.

A lot of Twain's opinions are seriously gobsmacking and about 100 years ahead of the rest of us slowpokes. I thought "Puddn'head Wilson" was a kid's story, but was totally surprised by the view it gives us of race relations. The unfairness of it all and the recognition that many things have not changed is unsettling, to say the least.

I'll just finish up "Connecticut Yankee" and I'll be done with this book. It has a lot in it I didn't recognize when I read it in my teens. Now about all those short stories. I'll bet there's a whole raftload I need to read. I'll bet I can get a freebie from Project Gutenberg. Sam won't mind. He's dead and doesn't need the money.

You thought you knew Samuel Clemons' work? Maybe you don't know it as well as you thought.



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