The total history of almost anyone would shock almost everyone. ~Mignon McLaughlin
I’m thinking I am really looking forward to Mark Twain’s Autobiography being published in November.
Sometimes I think about my own life and it reminds me of how we remember a book we’ve read or a movie we saw years ago. Perhaps I will contemplate writing some of it down.
Samuel Clemens: The chapters that immediately follow constitute a fragment of my many attempts (after I was in my forties) to put my life on paper. It starts out with good confidence but suffers the fate of its brethren – is presently abandoned for some other and newer interest. This is not to be wondered at, for its plan is the old, old, old inflexible and difficult one—the plan that starts you at the cradle and drives you straight for the grave with no side-excursions permitted on the way. Whereas the side-excursions are the life of our life-voyage; and should be, also, of its history.
I agree, Sam. The side-excursions are the best parts.
(You can read an excerpt at Granta and if you are like me and a researcher at heart you can search to your Twain-loving heart’s content at the Mark Twain Project. The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1
