Finally, in Florence in 1904, I hit upon the right way to do an Autobiography: start it at no particular time of your life; wander at your free will all over your life' talk only about the thing which interests you at the moment; drop it the moment its interest threatens to pale, and turn your talk upon the new and more interesting thing that has intruded itself into your mind meantime.
Also, make the narrative a combined Diary and Autobiography. In this way you have the vivid things of the present to make a contrast with memories of like things in the past, and these contrasts have a charm which is all their own. No talent is required to make a combined Diary and Autobiography interesting.
And so, I have found the right plan. It makes my labor amusement — mere amusement, play, pastime, and wholly effortless. It is the first time in history that the right plan has been hit upon.
I spent about ninety minutes browsing this new book, but found it only moderately interesting, with more emphasis on the "moderately" than the "interesting." If you're obsessed with Twain, you'll find it worth the $20, but the above paragraphs sum up the main problem with the text.
I wonder if Bob Dylan read this before he wrote his Autobiography a few years ago. That's exactly how its structured.
One problem in literary studies is what a scrupulous literary scholar and critic makes of an author's autobiography. Is he telling the "truth"? Fudging dates? Suppressing disconcerting or unflattering detail? And what about the often complex relationship between the life and the work?
Incidentally Mark Twain presided over the publication of the post-presidential Civil War Memoirs of Ulysses Grant, which seems to have made the president's family (he was dying of thraot cancer) and Twain good money.
When it comes down to it, I think Twain is a bit overrated.
Twain's autobiography has been under embargo at UC Berkeley for the past 100 years according to the terms of his will. So this is all new previously unreleased material although it is interesting if Bob Dylan wrote in a similar fashion.
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