More than anything I was struck by the hilarity of Mark Twain’s writing. I realize that he wrote serious pieces and parts of Huck Finn are serious as well, but everything that we have read so far has been so funny! The dry, sarcastic tone to most of the things he writes, and the fact that he makes so much fun of respected authors of the time without even a care. It’s funny that the people being made fun of and the people reading it don’t understand the fact that he is trying to be funny. The lack of understanding makes it even funnier to read after the fact.
Everything that Mark Twain writes that is supposed to be taken seriously as isn’t serious at all. He starts out his writing as though it is serious, maybe a brochure or a analysis of people and starts out like it is saying something good about the place or person and then he undercuts himself by saying something that comes across as negative. A good example of this is “A Visit to Niagara” where he describes Niagara Falls and its good features and almost immediately says something you would not want to see or hear about the place. Also when he makes fun of important people, the outrage and anger that people do in reaction is funny to readers of our time because its so easy for us to see that it is meant as a joke and obviously isn’t meant to be taken in complete seriousness. We can tell that it is a roast of that person. I love it, I love this type of sense of humor and it actually makes me want to read more by Mark Twain. I think that Mark Twain created the roast and was the first true comedian as we know comedians today.
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I agree. I had not read much of Mark Twain before and I was not aware of his comedic genius whatsoever. I wonder who would be a modern example of Twain, and I wonder if Twain would only be working in print if he was alive today. When he was alive, the only media option was writing, and it would be interesting to guess what form of media he would choose if he was alive today.
Twain is great at dry wit and the kind of parody we've seen. He was apparently hilarious in person, too, in his stage appearances. He did tour with other humorists, but his humor speaks to us in a way that theirs does not.
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