Autobiography of Mark Twain -- Take 2

Remember how I used to read books, which isn't happening much anymore?  I miss those days.  I can't remember the last time I finished a book.  (I did not, for those of you who remember, finish Sugar In My Bowl - not because I didn't want to, but because it was due back at the library.  I hope to get going on that one again some day.)

So you can imagine my excitement when I again got caught up on my podcasts and flipped over to my audiobooks, and realized I had about a third of Mark Twain's autobiography to go!  Keep in mind that this book, which weighs in at a hefty 20 audio CDs, is merely the first volume of what will be a three-volume set.  I'm happy I finished it, even if it did take three months!

On the whole, I found this book to be quite funny, although also somewhat distracted in the telling.  He tells a lot of stories about other people, and if you miss the beginning of the story, where you find out who this person is and how they're connected to his tale (if at all), it's hard to catch up.  But no matter, each sub-story is entertaining in its own right.

I found one section especially amusing.  In this particular passage, the author is talking about his daughter's comment in her own diary about his "strong language."

"I was so careful during ten years that I had not a doubt that my suppressions had been successful; therefore, I was quite as happy in my guilt as I could have been if I had been innocent.  But at last, an accident exposed me.  I went into the bathroom one morning to make my toilet and carelessly left the door two or three inches ajar.  It was the first time that I had ever failed to take the precaution of closing it tightly.  I knew the necessity of being particular about this because shaving was always a trying ordeal for me and I could seldom carry it through to a finish without verbal helps.

Now, this time I was unprotected, but did not suspect it.  I had no extraordinary trouble with my razor on this occasion, and was able to worry through with mere mutterings and growlings of an improper sort, but with nothing noisy or emphatic about them - no snapping and barking.

Then I put on a shirt.  My shirts are an invention of my own.  They open in the back and are buttoned there, when there are buttons.  This time the button was missing.  My temper jumped up several degrees in a moment and my remarks rose accordingly, both in loudness and vigor of expression.  But I was not troubled, for the bathroom door was a solid one and I supposed it was firmly closed.

I flung up the window and threw the shirt out.  It fell upon the shrubbery where the people on their way to church could admire it if they wanted to; there was merely fifty feet of grass between the shirt and the passerby.

Still rumbling and thundering distantly, I put on another shirt.  Again the button was absent.  I augmented my language to meet the emergency and threw that shirt out of the window.  I was too angry, too insane, to examine the third shirt, but put it furiously on.  Again, the button was absent, and that shirt followed its comrades out of the window.  Then I straightened up, gathered my reserves, and let myself go like a cavalry charge.

In the midst of that great assault, my eye fell upon that gaping door, and I was paralyzed.  It took me a good while to finish my toilet.  I extended the time unnecessarily in trying to make up my mind as to what I would best do in the circumstances.

I tried to hope that Mrs. Clemens was asleep, but I knew better.  I could not escape by the window; it was narrow and suited only to shirts.  At last I made up my mind to boldly loaf through the bedroom with the air of a person who had not been doing anything. I made half the journey successfully."

I find this particular passage hilarious because I have, on occasion, been known to rely on verbal helps when they are required by such an emergency.  I know a few other people who have as well.  Not naming names.

But this is the gist of it: Twain has the kind of classical, flowing language and particular vocabulary which seems somehow to be more suited to the Colonial era, except that he's also wickedly funny and a pleasure to take in.