The Impossible Contradictions of Mark Twain

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.ph&#x2F;2025.04.28-161933&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.newyorker.com&#x2F;magazine&#x2F;2025&#x2F;05&#x2F;05&#x2F;mark-twain-ron-chernow-book-review" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.ph&#x2F;2025.04.28-161933&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.newyorker.c...</a>

I read this the other day and did a little more reading about his _Autobiography_ project, and Twain&#x27;s early life was even harsher than I had realized: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gwern.net&#x2F;doc&#x2F;psychiatry&#x2F;bipolar&#x2F;energy&#x2F;2023-cavitch.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gwern.net&#x2F;doc&#x2F;psychiatry&#x2F;bipolar&#x2F;energy&#x2F;2023-cavitch...</a>

&quot;They were innocent, he was damaged.&quot; But innocence is not contagious and damage is.

Twain&#x27;s autobiography is amazing. By his own wishes, not published till 100 years after death; I got a copy pre-ordered on the date. His views on Christianity are spot on scathing captures describing their hypocritical behaviors today.

My grandmother was born in 1900 and every time I asked about her childhood she would say nothing and when pressed she would cry. Her parents died on consumption in the first decade of the new millennium. I think suffering was so much more common back then.

[flagged]