Ever The Twain Shall Meet...

Mark Twain, undoubtedly, was the master of wit and sarcasm. And his work lives on, as hillarious (if not more) as it ever was. I obviously am in no position probably to comment on Twain's literary genius but everytime I read piece of his work I find hard not to laugh even if I am reading the same work for the nth time now.

I was recently reorganizing the books that I have piling on in the bottom shelf of my almirah. And I found Mark Twain's Selected Works. Its a small collection of Twain's stories and essays which I was probably reading for the third time. And the most interesting of his essays must definitely be "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences". Though I do like James Fenimore Cooper's - "The last of the Mohicans", but I still love the way Mark Twain goes about dismantling Cooper's style of writing.

Excerpts from the essay
He begins with:
"There are nineteen rules governing literary art in domain of romantic fiction -- some say twenty-two. In "Deerslayer," Cooper violated eighteen of them."

While explaining how predictable Cooper is:
"Every time a Cooper person is in peril, and absolute silence is worth four dollars a minute, he is sure to step on a dry twig. There may be a hundred other handier things to step on, but that wouldn't satisfy Cooper. Cooper requires him to turn out and find a dry twig; and if he can't do it, go and borrow one."

On Cooper's defying the logic:
"...even the eternal laws of Nature have to vacate when Cooper wants to put up a delicate job of woodcraft on the reader."

This is mean but its wicked:
"There have been daring people in the world who claimed that Cooper could write English, but they are all dead now..."

Twain's description of native Indians waiting to step onto an ark/boat and overpowering the occupants, is a laugh riot in itself. And Twain ends it like only THE Twain could:
"Counting these out, what is left is Art. I think we must all admit that."

You must read Twain to know what wit is all about, to understand how sarcasm works, and most importantly to laugh your butt off.

Read Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences at Project Guttenburg.
For great Mark Twain collection go to http://www.mtwain.com/.