[SKRIVA] Litterär sensation: Mark Twains memoarer
- From: Ahrvid Engholm <ahrvid@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <skriva@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, <sverifandom@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 28 May 2010 14:35:18 +0200
Det här hade jag tidigare ingen aning om och det blir säkert en grej som kommer
att omtalas: nu kommer Mark Twains (Samuel Clemens) memoarer!
Enligt uppgift ägnade Mark Twain de sista tio åren av sitt liv med att
åstadkomma 5000 sidor iofs oredigerade sidor memoarer. I en not till
manuskriptet sade han att han inte ville att det skulle publiceras förrän om
100 år. Den gränsen har nu nåtts (han dog 1910) och University of California,
Berkeley, där manuskriptet förvaras, släpper i höst vad som väntas bli första
delen av en memoartrilogi. Delar av manuskriptet har tidigare varit
tillgängligt för forskare, men mycket "okänt" lär komma fram.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/after-keeping-us-waiting-for-a-century-mark-twain-will-finally-reveal-all-1980695.html
Vi läser bl a (och det låter som om det kan bli en hel del syrligheter och
elakheter...):
"Scholars are divided as to why Twain wanted the first-hand account of his
life kept under wraps for so long. Some believe it was because he wanted to
talk freely about issues such as religion and politics. Others argue that the
time lag prevented him from having to worry about offending friends.
One thing's for sure: by delaying publication, the author, who was fond of his
celebrity status, has ensured that he'll be gossiped about during the 21st
century. A section of the memoir will detail his little-known but scandalous
relationship with Isabel Van Kleek Lyon, who became his secretary after the
death of his wife Olivia in 1904. Twain was so close to Lyon that she once
bought him an electric vibrating sex toy. But she was abruptly sacked in 1909,
after the author claimed she had "hypnotised" him into giving her power of
attorney over his estate.
Their ill-fated relationship will be recounted in full in a 400-page
addendum, which Twain wrote during the last year of his life. It provides a
remarkable account of how the dying novelist's final months were overshadowed
by personal upheavals.
"Most people think Mark Twain was a sort of genteel Victorian. Well, in this
document he calls her a slut and says she tried to seduce him. It's completely
at odds with the impression most people have of him," says the historian Laura
Trombley, who this year published a book about Lyon called Mark Twain's Other
Woman.
"There is a perception that Twain spent his final years basking in the
adoration of fans. The autobiography will perhaps show that it wasn't such a
happy time. He spent six months of the last year of his life writing a
manuscript full of vitriol, saying things that he'd never said about anyone in
print before. It really is 400 pages of bile." ...
Another potential motivation for leaving the book to be posthumously
published concerns Twain's legacy as a Great American. Michael Shelden, who
this year published Man in White, an account of Twain's final years, says that
some of his privately held views could have hurt his public image.
"He had doubts about God, and in the autobiography, he questions the imperial
mission of the US in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. He's also critical
of [Theodore] Roosevelt, and takes the view that patriotism was the last refuge
of the scoundrel. Twain also disliked sending Christian missionaries to Africa.
He said they had enough business to be getting on with at home: with lynching
going on in the South, he thought they should try to convert the heathens down
there."
In other sections of the autobiography, Twain makes cruel observations about
his supposed friends, acquaintances and one of his landladies.
Parts of the book have already seen the light of day in other publications.
Small excerpts were run by US magazines before Twain's death (since he needed
the money). His estate has allowed parts of it to be adapted for publication in
three previous books described as "autobiographies".
However, Robert Hirst, who is leading the team at Berkeley editing the
complete text, says that more than half of it has still never appeared in
print. Only academics, biographers, and members of the public prepared to
travel to the university's Bancroft research library have previously been able
to read it in full. "When people ask me 'did Mark Twain really mean it to take
100 years for this to come out', I say 'he was certainly a man who knew how to
make people want to buy a book'," Dr Hirst said."
--Ahrvid
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IQ-HJÄLP! (DN NoN 00.02.07)
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