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Post by Speck on Mar 28, 2003 0:17:24 GMT -5
I just have to be one of those people that corrects almost every grammatical error she sees.
For Example...
"Can May I go to the bathroom/loo/dunee/restroom/water closet?"
Sure, I know "Mark Twain" did that type of writing in his books to get a feel of the language, but it kind of gave me a headache trying to decifer it.... Hmm... Why can I understand Shakespeare almost perfectly, but have trouble with "Mark Twain" books?
PS-- Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions, but doesn't "Mark Twain" use that type of language through all his books? Unfortunately, I can't give enough description to have those of you who don't understand what I mean by "that type of language"....Sorry to all of those who are confused.
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Post by Tdyans on Mar 28, 2003 0:37:48 GMT -5
I just have to be one of those people that corrects almost every grammatical error she sees. For Example... " Can May I go to the bathroom/loo/dunee/restroom/water closet?" Sure, I know "Mark Twain" did that type of writing in his books to get a feel of the language, but it kind of gave me a headache trying to decifer it.... Hmm... Why can I understand Shakespeare almost perfectly, but have trouble with "Mark Twain" books? PS-- Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions, but doesn't "Mark Twain" use that type of language through all his books? Unfortunately, I can't give enough description to have those of you who don't understand what I mean by "that type of language"....Sorry to all of those who are confused. Although there's probably a colloquial/vernacular feel to a lot of his stuff, it's not to the same extremity in all of them. In a book like Huck Finn, yes, Twain writes in the voice of an illiterate 11 year old Southern boy. If you really can't stand the grammatically incorrect, you'd never make it through, but if you can just let go and allow yourself to be immersed in that voice, (and it does take time) you might find that you enjoy it. The only other book I've read by Twain is Roughing It. It's not as well known as Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, etc. but it's very enjoyable. I can't recall if it's perfectly grammatical, but I know it's moreso than Huck Finn. But Twain does like to give a real representative voice to his writing, and sometimes that just means not having absolutely perfect grammar. But like I said, it's a really enjoyable, funny, interesting book, so if you can see past the "rules of the English language" a bit, you might give it a try. |
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Post by sara on Mar 28, 2003 1:22:20 GMT -5
I'm currently reading Twain myself - Life on the Mississippi. I'm not finding myself a fan of Twain's brand of humor myself. Some parts of the book are utter trash. But there are OK parts, and enough golden moments to make it worthwhile reading, espeically since I feel the liberty to skip ahead of the more tiresome sections.
The other Twain book I've read is Tom Sawyer, which really is a very enjoyable book. I've also heard about Roughing It (it's in Gold Rush California, right?) and know a few people who consider it one of his best books. Maybe one day I'll give it a try.
EDIT : By the way, in "Life on the Mississippi", Mark Twain describes how he came by that pen name (his real name being Samuel Clemens). Originally "mark" was a bit of steamboat pilot terminology, and (I think) "twain" meant 20, so you'd here on steamboat workers the phrase "mark twain" a lot. A legendary steamboat pilot, one Mr. Sellers, did a little paragraphs of writing for various jounals of sorts on piloting. When Samuel Clemens was a cub pilot himself, he wrote an expansion of one of those bits of writing, filled it with ridiculous gunk, and had it published under "mark twain" as well. The mockery make the pilot strongly dislike young Samuel (the steamboat pilots were a well-connected community), and in Life on the Mississippi it is said that he appreciatedf that special dislike against him made by such a legendary man.
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Post by Tdyans on Mar 28, 2003 1:30:31 GMT -5
The other Twain book I've read is Tom Sawyer, which really is a very enjoyable book. I've also heard about Roughing It (it's in Gold Rush California, right?) and know a few people who consider it one of his best books. Maybe one day I'll give it a try. I know my professor did. A big chunk of it is about the Gold Rush, but the narrator (I think it's at least semi-autobiographical) ends up jumping from place to place and occupation to occupation. There's even a short period where he's in Hawaii. It all kind of lampoons the whole idea of the West as land of opportunity. I'm pretty sure I've read Tom Sawyer at least once too now that I think of it, but it doesn't stand out in my memory, being that it was probably back in middle school... |
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Post by sara on Mar 28, 2003 1:36:24 GMT -5
For anyone who cares, here's the exact passage from Life on the Mississippi which describes the story about Sellers - yes, it's in public domain, I got it off gutenberg, d'you think I would type thia all up myself?
Many and many a time did this ancient mariner appear on the scene in the above fashion, and spread disaster and humiliation around him. If one might believe the pilots, he always dated his islands back to the misty dawn of river history; and he never used the same island twice; and never did he employ an island that still existed, or give one a name which anybody present was old enough to have heard of before. If you might believe the pilots, he was always conscientiously particular about little details; never spoke of "the State Of Mississippi," for instance,--no, he would say, "When the State of Mississippi was where Arkansas now is;" and would never speak of Louisiana or Missouri in a general way, and leave an incorrect impression on your mind,-- no, he would say, "When Louisiana was up the river farther," or "When Missouri was on the Illinois side."
The old gentleman was not of literary turn or capacity, but he used to jot down brief paragraphs of plain practical information about the river, and sign them "MARK TWAIN," and give them to the "New Orleans Picayune." They related to the stage and condition of the river, and were accurate and valuable; and thus far, they contained no poison. But in speaking of the stage of the river to-day, at a given point, the captain was pretty apt to drop in a little remark about this being the first time he had seen the water so high or so low at that particular point for forty-nine years; and now and then he would mention Island so and so, and follow it, in parentheses, with some such observation as "disappeared in 1807, if I remember rightly." In these antique interjections lay poison and bitterness for the other old pilots, and they used to chaff the "Mark Twain" paragraphs with unsparing mockery.
It so chanced that one of these paragraphs1 became the text for my first newspaper article. I burlesqued it broadly, very broadly, stringing my fantastics out to the extent of eight hundred or a thousand words. I was a "cub" at the time. I showed my performance to some pilots, and they eagerly rushed it into print in the "New Orleans True Delta." It was a great pity; for it did nobody any worthy service, and it sent a pang deep into a good man's heart. There was no malice in my rubbish; but it laughed at the captain. It laughed at a man to whom such a thing was new and strange and dreadful. I did not know then, though I do now, that there is no suffering comparable with that which a private person feels when he is for the first time pilloried in print.
"My opinion for the benefit of the citizens of New Orleans: The water is higher this far up than it has been since 1815. My opinion is that the water will be 4 feet deep in Canal street before the first of next June. Mrs. Turner's plantation at the head of Big Black Island is all under water, and it has not been since 1815.
Captain Sellers did me the honor to profoundly detest me from that day forth. When I say he did me the honor, I am not using empty words. It was a very real honor to be in the thoughts of so great a man as Captain Sellers, and I had
wit enough to appreciate it and be proud of it. It was distinction to be loved by such a man; but it was a much greater distinction to be hated by him, because he loved scores of people; but he did n't sit up nights to hate anybody but me.
He never printed another paragraph while he lived, and he never again signed Mark Twain to anything.
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Post by sollunaestrella on Mar 28, 2003 16:43:23 GMT -5
I had to read a (large) excerpt from Huck Finn. I hated it. Although grammar normally bothers me a lot, it didn't really in this book; but I still didn't like it. It's just not the type of thing that I would read at all.  |
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Post by Tracy on Mar 28, 2003 16:46:01 GMT -5
Our class were reading Tom Saywer as a class reader, but we all hated it, so the teacher changed it to Skellig ^^ I like THAT book  |
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