Reading Now
Neilson De Mille a Quiet End a John Cory Thriller
In Tom Sawyer, Twain evoked aspects of the world that he had lived in as a child without bringing to bear on that world the moral awareness he had acquired as an adult. In his “schoolboy days,” Twain later recalled in his autobiography, he “had no aversion to slavery” and was “not aware that there was anything wrong about it.” But [by 1876] Twain was becoming increasingly embarrassed by his failure to question the racist status quo of the world in which he had grown up. While his own father, John Marshall Clemens, had been serving on a jury that sent “slave-stealers” to the state penitentiary, his father-in-law, Jervis Langdon, had been funding “slave-stealers’” activities.
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Why do you bother to interrupt a conversation
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Doing a catch up of YLC :)
Sounds like your sorta guy shaggers
But while watching a PBS documentary about Mark Twain (or Samuel Clemens as he was born) I realized that not only frustrations and hurdles but successes and satisfactions are fleeting and illusory.
Mark Twain’s life story provides a template through which to understand the weaknesses of the capitalist, consumerist worldview that we generally find ourselves stuck in: The perceived rightness of our aspiration for wealth, power, leisure, fame.
Twain denounced and reviled at these aspirations through his words but sought them endlessly in his deeds. He was not a hypocrite, I think, but a man conflicted, unable to reconcile his pleasure in material success and its trappings with his philosophical wisdom about the ultimate futility of striving mercilessly to fix anything that would inevitably change.
He made a fortune, built a beautiful home, surrounded himself with his loving and beloved family, and in the process set the seeds for losing it all (by financial overreaching).
The first two Buddhist worldviews teach us that not only must we practice acceptance and humility in failure and frustration, but also in success and satisfaction.
Pete,
The Gilded Age is the Mark Twain story I am reading. One of his early ones I think and written in conjunction with others.
I have his collection of works on my Kindle.
I have a lot of Buddhist works. I have no religion to speak of but I do follow some of the Buddhist teachings. Minus the robe and sandals.
I only read the Kindle in bed, always read before I sleep, very convenient for bedtime reading.
I have a good library of 'real' books, some are first editions and many procured from some out of the way places. I use ABE books quite a bit for something hard to find. I found a book written in the 30s by a rellie in a book shop in UK. Managed to acquire a first edition of Henry Kendalls poems via ABE.
Kindle is great as I can carry a virtual library with me when away from home.
Back to work, I am trying to run off around 10,000 words so as to get the feel for the narrative on this latest project.
No fun, it is hard work.
Take it easy.
SD
Yeah I do the same with my I pad prefer the I pad as I can use it for all my Comms . I have also an extensive library of hard cover . It's interesting to look at where my interests have roamed over the years . These days it's theLocal Library and Elecronic . I have quite a few hard to find on the history of SA including some family published editions.
‘With Your Wings’
A lost short story by John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck’s ‘With Your Wings’ was first heard in July 1944, when Orson Welles read it aloud at the end of one of his radio broadcasts, but was not then printed.
This sounds interesting .
I can throughly recommend Cultural Amnesia by Clive James a compendium of his readings
He has now written another one called Latest Readings .
Clive is Dying from Leukemia so possibly the last from a cultured man
A Mark Twain story. cannot recall the name, nearly finished.