By Bergotte Mark Twain understood that civilisation is a confidence trick. Not a failed experiment or a work in progress or a fragile achievement requiring defence, but a sustained, organised, multigenerational deception in which human beings persuade themselves and each other that the cruelties they practise are either necessary, natural, or invisible. His comedy —Continue reading “The Human Condition According to Mark Twain”
Tag Archives: Mark Twain
Mark Twain: The Wit Who Invented America
Mark Twain was not merely a writer; he was a voice so distinct, so irreverent, that it seemed to belong to America itself. Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in 1835 on the banks of the Mississippi River, Twain became the first truly national humorist, a man who captured the cadences of ordinary speech, the hypocrisies ofContinue reading “Mark Twain: The Wit Who Invented America”
