Mark Twain, Part 2

     The second half of The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain wasn’t much better than the first. In fact, I found it less amusing and/or witty than the first half.

     By the time I came to the end of the book, I had only marked 12 quotations that I had found funny or that had made me think. The fact that I only found 12 quotations interesting enough to mark for later reference out of a 257 page book says a lot, I think.

     Nevertheless, I have narrowed down my favorite quotations for tomorrow’s class, and I have selected my favorite quotation to blog about tonight. My favorite quotation can be found on pages 76-77:

     “Returning home after a weekend in the Maine woods, Mark Twain was lounging in the smoking car of the train to Boston, He could not resist the temptation to boast to the rustic-looking New Englander seated beside him about the twelve big fish he had caught.

     “‘The season is closed for fishing now,’ he confided, ‘ but just between you and me, my friend, out there in the baggage car I’ve got two hundred pounds of the best rock bass that you ever laid eyes on.’

     “‘Waal,’ drawled the New Englander, ‘that’s interestin’, but d’ye know who I am?’

     “‘No,’ said Twain. ‘Who are you?’

     “‘Waal,’ said the homespun gentleman, ‘I’m the state game warden.’

     “Mark Twain puffed on his cigar. ‘That’s interestin’,’ he said. ‘But d’ye know who I am?’

     “‘No. Who are you?’ asked the warden.

     “‘I’m the damnedest liar in the United States.’”

     I found this quotation very funny. I did not expect the cognitive shift of Twain using his reputation as a liar to get out of the trouble he had put himself into, and I thought it was very witty of him to do so. The nature of this wit and cognitive shift reminded me a lot of what we read in Tales of Juha.

     Juha is usually presented as a character who can get out of any situation with extreme wit and unexpected wisdom, and I feel like several of the Twain quotations I marked as favorites involved Juha-esque wit.

     With that being said, however, I’d like to point out that my overall reading experience with this book has not been pleasant. I enjoyed Tales of Juha very much, and even though a few of Mark Twain’s quotations reminded me of things Juha would say or do, there were too few of them in The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain.

     As I said in my last blog, I feel like this book was mostly filled with pointless quotations that were neither witty nor funny. I’m glad I found a few quotations that I enjoyed, but I do not feel as though I found enough enjoyment in this book to want to recommend it to anybody else to read.