Is Mark Twain’s old age best forgotten? | Hacker News Reader

Is Mark Twain’s old age best forgotten?

spectator.co.uk

33 pointssamclemens18 comments

I read Letters From The Earth. On the surface it's a rather scathing mockery of mainstream Christianity and morality of the time, but there's more to it. A disturbing and difficult work. Bitter, seeped in frustration both of the soul and libido, viciously polemic, yet sometimes tender and wistful. It mocks religion, but mostly to get at the real problem, of how religion alienates man. Maybe from himself. Or from God even, if you want to view it that way. Some sort of deep spiritual or moral scream of frustration and despair wrapped in some flowery religious allegory. I am rereading it now and some of the letters are indecipherable in their overall meaning, if any.

It's probably fitting that it's up on sacred-texts.com though whether it should be there as satire of religion, or as accidental revelation, I'm still undecided.

https://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/twain/letearth.htm

Coincidentally, an Indian mystic named Kabir Das [1] also criticized the narrowness of contemporary orthodox religious practice and is also up on sacred-texts [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabir

[2] https://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sok/index.htm

Do these people not understand how much ugliness they reveal about themselves when they cannot envision a platonic friendship between the old and the young? Whether projection or cynicism, I don't trust them.

I think it's more of an American culture thing. I was living in Austria with this co-living community. The lady hosting me had 3 kids, ages 3-10. Because I grew up in the US I actively avoided interacting with them, which the host found weird, as she was probably hoping I would at least teach the kids something.

One time I stumbled upon a playground in Seoul, looking for a place to do some calisthenics. It was completely empty. I made an Instagram story captioned 'found a gym.' Two friends immediately joked 'be careful, don't get arrested.'

Then again I do think there's gotta to be some sort of underlying tension between a straight man and a female of childbearing age, no matter how platonic the relationship. In the US we automatically assume pederasty or grooming.

> I do think there's gotta to be some sort of underlying tension between a straight man and a female of childbearing age

Sorry, I think this is a self-own, to be honest. This is not inevitable. That's not an every man thing, that's a you thing. I mean that kindly, as a kindly wake up.

Really? I thought that was the reason fathers are less cuddly/affectionate with their daughters as they grow older.

If true, let's observe that parents and children mutually stop cuddling as they get older. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters. Whatever the reason, I think sexual tension makes the least sense.

Pedophilia is so often on the news in the US (and UK) I'm not surprised. Similarly, I remember there was a period a few years ago that the British news I was reading was so intensely focused on toxic masculinity, their inherent desire for rape and violence against women (thanks, Guardian) for a while I carried the fear in myself I could become one of those disgusting people, even though there has never been a thought of violence in my head.

I'm in my 30s, I find my paternal instinct growing and joy whenever I see a family with happy children, yet news has conditioned me not even to smile at a stranger's kid that might make a funny face at me, even though I'd like to make a funny face back at them.

What a sad world we live in, scared to death because it sells news rags.

This [1] and this [2] might set some context here.

[1] https://ugapress.org/book/9780820355856/mark-twains-aquarium...

[2] http://www.twainquotes.com/angelfish/angelfish.html

I dislike this take. Twain produced great works near the end of his life, including The Mysterious Stranger and numerous essays. The characterization of the "Aquarium Club" as an "embarrassing obsession with prepubescent girls" seems like slanderous manufactured scandal clickbait. Futhermore, Twain was still touring the world and paying off his debts, and his money problems are pretty interesting. Why not recall Twain's later years as dark but revealing, productive, and inspired?

This article reminds me of how critics said Carlin was getting dark and cynical and unfunnny in his last few specials. Now I see clips from these same specials celebrated daily on Twitter.

It's good to separate the artist from the art. That said, I'm disappointed to learn he was apparently a pedophile.

Only a "pedophile" in the sense that Michael Jackson is a "pedophile". The girl pictured in the photograph never recalled any impropriety.

Not a great analogy for the point you're trying to make. A few people close to Michael Jackson alleged impropriety.

The ones who alleged impropriety had prior track records of extortion.

You have to actually dig deeper and read all the allegations and evidence. In particular the statement of support by Corey Feldman.

That seems ungenerous. There's no evidence of impropriety. Twain outlived his wife and two of his three daughters, and characterized the "aquarium club" as "surrogate granddaughters". Twain's only actual granddaughter was born a few months after his death in 1910, and since he celebrated children in works like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, the idea of the "aquarium club" consoling the embittered old man with a dose of childhood optimism seems plausible.

It seems an ungenerous viewpoint of the world that holds one only enjoys the company of a child not their own for purposes of pedophilia, or the company of young women because one is doing them.

It is almost literally pedophilia, the love of children--but I'm really commenting on the shortfall of English which uses love for many different feelings.

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