vol. 1,2,3

Autobiography Of Mark Twain, volume 2

Volume 2

Plot

Starred Review* In the second volume of this meticulously edited autobiography, readers hear Twain contrast his work with autobiographies giving readers “an open window” showcasing the famous people in the authors’ lives. His autobiography, Twain explains, serves not as a window but as “a mirror, and I am looking at myself in it all the time.” To be sure, this volume—comprising material Twain dictated between April 1906 and February 1907, two years before ending his dictation—does afford glimpses of notable contemporaries, including Bret Harte, James Russell Lowell, and Helen Keller. But the narrative repeatedly shows the novelist scrutinizing himself: watching, for instance, how he scowls at the depredations of Jay Gould, how he smiles at the antics of a pet cat, how he grieves at the anniversary of his wife’s death. The episodes of self-examination spin out—as Twain acknowledges—like an “excursion . . . that sidetracks itself” unpredictably. But Griffin and Smith’s careful annotations clarify the chronology running through Twain’s reflections about the face looking back at him from his mirror—now set in the perfect deadpan of a master humorist, now contorted with the acute anguish of a distressed soul. A treasure deserving shelf space next to Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. --Bryce Christensen - From Amazon.com