3 ms·

The Impossible Contradictions of Mark Twain

51 points by mitchbob 2y ago

mitchbob 2y ago
https://archive.ph/2025.04.28-161933/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/05/05/mark-twain-ron-chernow-book-review https://archive.ph/2025.04.28-161933/https://www.newyorker.c...
gwern 2y ago
I read this the other day and did a little more reading about his _Autobiography_ project, and Twain's early life was even harsher than I had realized: https://gwern.net/doc/psychiatry/bipolar/energy/2023-cavitch.pdf https://gwern.net/doc/psychiatry/bipolar/energy/2023-cavitch...
- tbalsam 2y ago
  If you would like an original link non-heisted through the gwern domain, I'd encourage you to read it from the original UPenn link (University the professor who wrote this works at): https://web.english.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Cavitch_Twain_Talking_Cure_Literary_Form.pdf https://web.english.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Cavitch_T...
FrankWilhoit 2y ago
"They were innocent, he was damaged." But innocence is not contagious and damage is.
e40 2y ago
My grandmother was born in 1900 and every time I asked about her childhood she would say nothing and when pressed she would cry. Her parents died on consumption in the first decade of the new millennium. I think suffering was so much more common back then.
- alabastervlog 2y ago
  The time before antibiotics and vaccines is alien to modern people. Basically everyone suffered trauma we'd call fairly extreme, these days. The world also tended to be far more violent in the past than it is now. The TV show Dickinson has fun with this, juxtaposing its modern-sounding and often flippant dialog with things like whole families you knew dying of disease being a pretty common piece of news to receive.
  - vik0 2y ago
    >The world also tended to be far more violent in the past than it is now. Do you think people just dropped dead? Humans are not that fragile. The reason the average Roman age was relatively low is because of high mortality at childbirth. If you got to 20, chances were in your favor that you'd get to at least 60. This applies to non-roman, pre-vaccine societies too. >Basically everyone suffered trauma we'd call fairly extreme, these days. Eh, maybe. But at the same time, I don't agree that they would be "traumatized." Heck, I bet if you could place a modern human who has lived his entire life in a developed Western country even a couple of thousand years back, I think he'd get pretty acquainted with that way of life in no time. If there's one thing we're good at it's probably adapting to our environment. Life is a collection of habits. If you're used to death and destruction (though I am not saying that death and destruction were as common as you make it out to be), it won't phase you. Montaigne talks about this when comparing European society and moral norms to New World (Indian) societies and moral norms. >The world also tended to be far more violent in the past than it is now. No data proving this to be true, whatsoever. Plus it's a vast overgeneralization. More violent where? In what today we would call France? China? Canada? Turkey? Chad? Argentina? Was there even a single event nearly as violent as World War 2 pre-vaccines, which happened 80 years ago? Your postulation is on very shaky legs, at best.
    - derektank 2y ago
      >Do you think people just dropped dead? No, they intentionally killed each other. If I recall correctly from the last time I read Stephen Pinker's Better Angels of Our Nature the murder rate in pre-Industrialized Northern Europe is estimated to be between 50 and 500 per 100K which is anywhere from 10 to 100x as violent as the global rate today. And that's not including inter state or inter tribal warfare.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
  Century, I think
  - e40 2y ago
    Yep, thanks. Too late to edit.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  My family has a tape recording made in the 1960s of an old country doctor. Asked the most difficult period was, he answered without hesitation the Spanish Flu, not any of the mass grave yellow fever epidemics. "I would see an old friend in town in the morning, be asked to go check on him in the afternoon, and find the whole family dead".
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bsenftner 2y ago
Twain's autobiography is amazing. By his own wishes, not published till 100 years after death; I got a copy pre-ordered on the date. His views on Christianity are spot on scathing captures describing their hypocritical behaviors today.
actionfromafar 2y ago
[flagged]
- tomhow 2y ago
  Please don't post comments like this on Hacker News. In particular, the guidelines ask us to keep these principles in mind: Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43874504 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43874504 and marked it offtopic.
  - actionfromafar 2y ago
    Thank you.
photochemsyn 2y ago
[flagged]
- halayli 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - tomhow 2y ago
    We don't know why people vote the way they do, but in this case the comment breaks the guidelines, as does yours: Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - halayli 2y ago
      That is your opinion. If all you understood from my post was that I am commenting about voting, then you missed the point.
      - tomhow 2y ago
        I understood your point very well but that’s also not the relevant point. We never know why people downvote, which is why it’s against the guidelines to make an issue of it in arguments. Our job is to keep discussions within the guidelines, regardless of the position being advocated.
- tomhow 2y ago
  Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

51 points by mitchbob 2y ago

https://archive.ph/2025.04.28-161933/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/05/05/mark-twain-ron-chernow-book-review https://archive.ph/2025.04.28-161933/https://www.newyorker.c...

gwern 2y ago

I read this the other day and did a little more reading about his _Autobiography_ project, and Twain's early life was even harsher than I had realized: https://gwern.net/doc/psychiatry/bipolar/energy/2023-cavitch.pdf https://gwern.net/doc/psychiatry/bipolar/energy/2023-cavitch...

tbalsam 2y ago
If you would like an original link non-heisted through the gwern domain, I'd encourage you to read it from the original UPenn link (University the professor who wrote this works at): https://web.english.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Cavitch_Twain_Talking_Cure_Literary_Form.pdf https://web.english.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Cavitch_T...

FrankWilhoit 2y ago

"They were innocent, he was damaged." But innocence is not contagious and damage is.

e40 2y ago

My grandmother was born in 1900 and every time I asked about her childhood she would say nothing and when pressed she would cry. Her parents died on consumption in the first decade of the new millennium. I think suffering was so much more common back then.

alabastervlog 2y ago
The time before antibiotics and vaccines is alien to modern people. Basically everyone suffered trauma we'd call fairly extreme, these days. The world also tended to be far more violent in the past than it is now. The TV show Dickinson has fun with this, juxtaposing its modern-sounding and often flippant dialog with things like whole families you knew dying of disease being a pretty common piece of news to receive.
- vik0 2y ago
  >The world also tended to be far more violent in the past than it is now. Do you think people just dropped dead? Humans are not that fragile. The reason the average Roman age was relatively low is because of high mortality at childbirth. If you got to 20, chances were in your favor that you'd get to at least 60. This applies to non-roman, pre-vaccine societies too. >Basically everyone suffered trauma we'd call fairly extreme, these days. Eh, maybe. But at the same time, I don't agree that they would be "traumatized." Heck, I bet if you could place a modern human who has lived his entire life in a developed Western country even a couple of thousand years back, I think he'd get pretty acquainted with that way of life in no time. If there's one thing we're good at it's probably adapting to our environment. Life is a collection of habits. If you're used to death and destruction (though I am not saying that death and destruction were as common as you make it out to be), it won't phase you. Montaigne talks about this when comparing European society and moral norms to New World (Indian) societies and moral norms. >The world also tended to be far more violent in the past than it is now. No data proving this to be true, whatsoever. Plus it's a vast overgeneralization. More violent where? In what today we would call France? China? Canada? Turkey? Chad? Argentina? Was there even a single event nearly as violent as World War 2 pre-vaccines, which happened 80 years ago? Your postulation is on very shaky legs, at best.
  - derektank 2y ago
    >Do you think people just dropped dead? No, they intentionally killed each other. If I recall correctly from the last time I read Stephen Pinker's Better Angels of Our Nature the murder rate in pre-Industrialized Northern Europe is estimated to be between 50 and 500 per 100K which is anywhere from 10 to 100x as violent as the global rate today. And that's not including inter state or inter tribal warfare.
01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
Century, I think
- e40 2y ago
  Yep, thanks. Too late to edit.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
readthenotes1 2y ago
My family has a tape recording made in the 1960s of an old country doctor. Asked the most difficult period was, he answered without hesitation the Spanish Flu, not any of the mass grave yellow fever epidemics. "I would see an old friend in town in the morning, be asked to go check on him in the afternoon, and find the whole family dead".

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

bsenftner 2y ago

Twain's autobiography is amazing. By his own wishes, not published till 100 years after death; I got a copy pre-ordered on the date. His views on Christianity are spot on scathing captures describing their hypocritical behaviors today.

actionfromafar 2y ago

[flagged]

tomhow 2y ago
Please don't post comments like this on Hacker News. In particular, the guidelines ask us to keep these principles in mind: Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43874504 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43874504 and marked it offtopic.
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  Thank you.

photochemsyn 2y ago

[flagged]

halayli 2y ago
[flagged]
- tomhow 2y ago
  We don't know why people vote the way they do, but in this case the comment breaks the guidelines, as does yours: Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - halayli 2y ago
    That is your opinion. If all you understood from my post was that I am commenting about voting, then you missed the point.
    - tomhow 2y ago
      I understood your point very well but that’s also not the relevant point. We never know why people downvote, which is why it’s against the guidelines to make an issue of it in arguments. Our job is to keep discussions within the guidelines, regardless of the position being advocated.
tomhow 2y ago
Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html