Mark Twain's autobiography

[Stephen Whiteside]

Speaking of Robert Service, has anybody bought a copy of Mark Twain's autobiography? I've been circling the dangerous beast for some time now, and recently moved in for the kill. Well, you can't kill it. It's over 700 pages long. The best you can hope for is to restrain it for a while, I guess. Put it in a large cage. It's like a big monster you throw dead cows at every now and then to keep quiet. The book itself does not actually begin until page 201. The first 200 pages are just 'Notes'. It finishes on page 467, and then the 'Notes' take over again, and see it safely home.

He stipulated that it was not to be published until 100 years after his death. And he died in 1910. He figgered that gave him the freedom he needed to defame whomever he wanted. He reckoned he could only write it by recording events at random, as he remembered them. He tried it first chronologically, but couldn't do it. My guess is that that might be the way to read it, too. Just open a page at random. Two can play at that game, Sam! I'm not sure it's a book to read from cover to cover.

Still, it looks good. I'm looking forward to dipping into it. His description of the afternoon he spent with R.L.Stevenson is interesting. It finishes with a letter from Helen Keller - which I haven't read yet.

[Vic Jefferies]

Mark Twain! There is a name to conjure with.
Apart from everything else he liked Australia!

Vic

[Stephen Whiteside]

Yes, he liked Australia. After leaving here, though, he expressed some considerable anger that nobody had told him of the existence of the Aboriginal missions. They hid them from him, basically. Imagine if he'd visited one and written about it! What an incredible insight that would have offered!

[Zondrae]

morning Stephan.

Oh yes, perhaps Huck Finn may have had more adventures. This time down the Murray.

I am always surprised at how many famous people of yesteryear came to Australia. I think of us as being isolated. We forget (well I do anyway) that in past eras, people travelled in style and enjoyed the trip. It was not necessarily the end point that mattered as much as the voyage or journey itself. Whereas we tend to rush about, to arrive as quickly as possible, ignoring the places on the way in our rush to be somewhere else.

[Stephen Whiteside]

I love the idea of Huck Finn on the Murray, Zondrae!

[Vic Jefferies]

Mark Twain spent some time in Australia during his lecture tour of 150 countries.
Perhaps his most famous quote concerning this country is:
"Australian history is almost always picturesque; indeed, it is so curious and strange, that it is itself the chiefest novelty the country has to offer, and so it pushes the other novelties into second and third place. It does not read like history, but like the most beautiful of lies. And all of a fresh new sort, no mouldy old stale ones. It is full of surprises, and adventures, and incongruities, and contradictions, and incredibilities; but they are all true, they all happened."

Vic Jefferies

[Stephen Whiteside]

One Australian story especially sticks in my mind, Vic. It concerned an Aboriginal man whose leg had been badly wounded by a spear in a payback incident. He had been left with a bloody stump which he had tried to cauterise by plunging into a narrow pit filled with hot coals. Apparently it had not worked too well. He had heard of a surgeon in Melbourne who might be able to help him, so he had walked several hundred miles on crutches down to Melbourne in the hope of receving further treatment.

[Heather]

And....? What happened Stephen?

[Kym]

Well, I'm thinking that if he walked several hundred kilometres on crutches, his leg mustn't have been much of an issue. But I reckon he would have probably qualified to be in the Guinness Book of Records!

[Stephen Whiteside]

What happened, Heather? Mark Twain got on a ship and sailed to India.