I read the first chapter or two of this book and then skipped around a bit. I wasn't a fan of the style or the fact that things jump around in the narrative. It's hard to follow, much harder than DeVoto's history of the West books.If you want to learn about Mark Twain there are some good insights and lots of details about the period, especially before his life. If you want to learn about him in a way that makes sense, however, I'd suggest another book.

My copy, a 1932 first edition fished out of a dollar bin, is a substantial slab of the bookmaker’s art. Cloth boards, durably sewn spine, rustic-artisanal typeface, stark woodcuts at each chapter head, and thick, heavy pages I had to separate with a paper knife. It’s a book I want to read at night, in a north woods cabin, snug in a stout rocker before a big fire, sipping whiskey with a “swell, smoky taste.”DeVoto calls his book “an essay in the correction of ideas”—a clunky enough description, b...

three stars as a book -- it's kind of unreadable, full of weirdly ferocious swipes at fellow literary critics of the jazz age (van wyck brooks comes in for some sonning in this book). but even apart from the amputated milieu, it's just written in this froofy, allusive, adjective-choked mode, and in way-overcooked sentences. half the time i could not be entirely sure what the hell devoto was talking about. BUT i give this book five secret stars for containing rad tidbits of frontier history/ameri...

three stars as a book -- it's kind of unreadable, full of weirdly ferocious swipes at fellow literary critics of the jazz age (van wyck brooks comes in for some sonning in this book). but even apart from the amputated milieu, it's just written in this froofy, allusive, adjective-choked mode, and in way-overcooked sentences. half the time i could not be entirely sure what the hell devoto was talking about. BUT i give this book five secret stars for containing rad tidbits of frontier history/ameri...

three stars as a book -- it's kind of unreadable, full of weirdly ferocious swipes at fellow literary critics of the jazz age (van wyck brooks comes in for some sonning in this book). but even apart from the amputated milieu, it's just written in this froofy, allusive, adjective-choked mode, and in way-overcooked sentences. half the time i could not be entirely sure what the hell devoto was talking about. BUT i give this book five secret stars for containing rad tidbits of frontier history/ameri...

One irascible, iconoclastic curmudgeon's celebration of his literary four-flusher.EXCERPT: He was a humorist. He had no formal education. His life had been spent in activity, away from what are known as artistic pursuits. He had had no discipline whatever in systems of aesthetics. The society that had formed him was mobile, not static. He had had no experience of continuous and ripening tradition. His mind flashed, sometimes, with a brilliance, a penetrating illumination that is unmistakable gen...

One irascible, iconoclastic curmudgeon's celebration of his literary four-flusher.EXCERPT: He was a humorist. He had no formal education. His life had been spent in activity, away from what are known as artistic pursuits. He had had no discipline whatever in systems of aesthetics. The society that had formed him was mobile, not static. He had had no experience of continuous and ripening tradition. His mind flashed, sometimes, with a brilliance, a penetrating illumination that is unmistakable gen...

One irascible, iconoclastic curmudgeon's celebration of his literary four-flusher.EXCERPT: He was a humorist. He had no formal education. His life had been spent in activity, away from what are known as artistic pursuits. He had had no discipline whatever in systems of aesthetics. The society that had formed him was mobile, not static. He had had no experience of continuous and ripening tradition. His mind flashed, sometimes, with a brilliance, a penetrating illumination that is unmistakable gen...

One irascible, iconoclastic curmudgeon's celebration of his literary four-flusher.EXCERPT: He was a humorist. He had no formal education. His life had been spent in activity, away from what are known as artistic pursuits. He had had no discipline whatever in systems of aesthetics. The society that had formed him was mobile, not static. He had had no experience of continuous and ripening tradition. His mind flashed, sometimes, with a brilliance, a penetrating illumination that is unmistakable gen...

One irascible, iconoclastic curmudgeon's celebration of his literary four-flusher.EXCERPT: He was a humorist. He had no formal education. His life had been spent in activity, away from what are known as artistic pursuits. He had had no discipline whatever in systems of aesthetics. The society that had formed him was mobile, not static. He had had no experience of continuous and ripening tradition. His mind flashed, sometimes, with a brilliance, a penetrating illumination that is unmistakable gen...

One irascible, iconoclastic curmudgeon's celebration of his literary four-flusher.EXCERPT: He was a humorist. He had no formal education. His life had been spent in activity, away from what are known as artistic pursuits. He had had no discipline whatever in systems of aesthetics. The society that had formed him was mobile, not static. He had had no experience of continuous and ripening tradition. His mind flashed, sometimes, with a brilliance, a penetrating illumination that is unmistakable gen...

One irascible, iconoclastic curmudgeon's celebration of his literary four-flusher.EXCERPT: He was a humorist. He had no formal education. His life had been spent in activity, away from what are known as artistic pursuits. He had had no discipline whatever in systems of aesthetics. The society that had formed him was mobile, not static. He had had no experience of continuous and ripening tradition. His mind flashed, sometimes, with a brilliance, a penetrating illumination that is unmistakable gen...

One irascible, iconoclastic curmudgeon's celebration of his literary four-flusher.EXCERPT: He was a humorist. He had no formal education. His life had been spent in activity, away from what are known as artistic pursuits. He had had no discipline whatever in systems of aesthetics. The society that had formed him was mobile, not static. He had had no experience of continuous and ripening tradition. His mind flashed, sometimes, with a brilliance, a penetrating illumination that is unmistakable gen...

One irascible, iconoclastic curmudgeon's celebration of his literary four-flusher.EXCERPT: He was a humorist. He had no formal education. His life had been spent in activity, away from what are known as artistic pursuits. He had had no discipline whatever in systems of aesthetics. The society that had formed him was mobile, not static. He had had no experience of continuous and ripening tradition. His mind flashed, sometimes, with a brilliance, a penetrating illumination that is unmistakable gen...

One irascible, iconoclastic curmudgeon's celebration of his literary four-flusher.EXCERPT: He was a humorist. He had no formal education. His life had been spent in activity, away from what are known as artistic pursuits. He had had no discipline whatever in systems of aesthetics. The society that had formed him was mobile, not static. He had had no experience of continuous and ripening tradition. His mind flashed, sometimes, with a brilliance, a penetrating illumination that is unmistakable gen...

One irascible, iconoclastic curmudgeon's celebration of his literary four-flusher.EXCERPT: He was a humorist. He had no formal education. His life had been spent in activity, away from what are known as artistic pursuits. He had had no discipline whatever in systems of aesthetics. The society that had formed him was mobile, not static. He had had no experience of continuous and ripening tradition. His mind flashed, sometimes, with a brilliance, a penetrating illumination that is unmistakable gen...

One irascible, iconoclastic curmudgeon's celebration of his literary four-flusher.EXCERPT: He was a humorist. He had no formal education. His life had been spent in activity, away from what are known as artistic pursuits. He had had no discipline whatever in systems of aesthetics. The society that had formed him was mobile, not static. He had had no experience of continuous and ripening tradition. His mind flashed, sometimes, with a brilliance, a penetrating illumination that is unmistakable gen...

One irascible, iconoclastic curmudgeon's celebration of his literary four-flusher.EXCERPT: He was a humorist. He had no formal education. His life had been spent in activity, away from what are known as artistic pursuits. He had had no discipline whatever in systems of aesthetics. The society that had formed him was mobile, not static. He had had no experience of continuous and ripening tradition. His mind flashed, sometimes, with a brilliance, a penetrating illumination that is unmistakable gen...

One irascible, iconoclastic curmudgeon's celebration of his literary four-flusher.EXCERPT: He was a humorist. He had no formal education. His life had been spent in activity, away from what are known as artistic pursuits. He had had no discipline whatever in systems of aesthetics. The society that had formed him was mobile, not static. He had had no experience of continuous and ripening tradition. His mind flashed, sometimes, with a brilliance, a penetrating illumination that is unmistakable gen...