{"id":345,"date":"2006-07-27T02:08:27","date_gmt":"2006-07-27T06:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=345"},"modified":"2018-08-22T07:36:03","modified_gmt":"2018-08-22T11:36:03","slug":"14716-%c2%a0%c2%a0-bernard-devoto-mark-twain%e2%80%99s-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=345","title":{"rendered":"14716. (Bernard DeVoto) Mark Twain\u2019s America"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"06-07-27<\/a>Bernard DeVo\u00adto was was one of the lead\u00ading Mark Twain schol\u00adars, as well as being a his\u00adto\u00adrian of the Amer\u00adi\u00adcan far west, a pas\u00adsion\u00adate advo\u00adcate of nature con\u00adser\u00adva\u00adtion, and a lead\u00ading advo\u00adcate of civ\u00adil lib\u00ader\u00adties. In this curi\u00adous book, writ\u00adten in 1932, he devotes most of his ener\u00adgy to crit\u00adi\u00adciz\u00ading oth\u00ader Mark Twain Schol\u00adars. The book is clever, acer\u00adbic, and some\u00adtimes down\u00adright nasty, but enter\u00adtains pre\u00adcisely for those rea\u00adsons. DeVo\u00adto detest\u00aded the scholas\u00adtic habits of reify\u00ading abstrac\u00adtions (The Fron\u00adtier, Puri\u00adtanism, The Artist, Mate\u00adri\u00adal\u00adism) and bas\u00ading grand explana\u00adtory the\u00ado\u00adries on triv\u00adial or dubi\u00adous evi\u00addence, or no evi\u00addence at all. Some\u00adtimes his sar\u00adcasm grates on the read\u00ader, but often it is just so good (that is to say, cru\u00adel, like Scot\u00adtish humour) that it brings up a smile from that lit\u00adtle reser\u00advoir of mal\u00adice that hides some\u00adwhere in even the kind\u00adest read\u00ader. Here is his treat\u00adment of one well-known pun\u00addit: \u201cHe exhibits the amateur\u2019s rev\u00ader\u00adence for the prin\u00adci\u00adple of ambiva\u00adlence. This, in his lay psy\u00adcho-analy\u00adsis, is a device for the rec\u00adon\u00adcil\u00adi\u00ada\u00adtion of con\u00adtra\u00addic\u00adtory evi\u00addence. It explains that a fact can be both its lit\u00aderal self and a sym\u00adbol of its oppo\u00adsite, that one fact can prove a giv\u00aden asser\u00adtion on one page and a con\u00adtra\u00addic\u00adtory asser\u00adtion on anoth\u00ader, that the two facts which seem to indi\u00adcate irrec\u00adon\u00adcil\u00adable con\u00adclu\u00adsions real\u00adly mean one thing \u2014 the pre\u00adferred thing.<\/em>\u201d Boy, I wish I could write sar\u00adcasm of that dis\u00adti\u00adlla\u00adtion. DeVo\u00adto could prob\u00ada\u00adbly take on six coral snakes and a griz\u00adzlie before break\u00adfast, then move on to seri\u00adous sar\u00adcasm after cof\u00adfee. Psy\u00adcho\u00adan\u00ada\u00adlyt\u00adic crit\u00adi\u00adcism was the bab\u00adble of that time, but I\u2019m sure he would make mince\u00admeat of today\u2019s equiv\u00ada\u00adlents (\u201cpost-mod\u00adernism\u201d, for example).<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bernard DeVo\u00adto was was one of the lead\u00ading Mark Twain schol\u00adars, as well as being a his\u00adto\u00adrian of the Amer\u00adi\u00adcan far west, a pas\u00adsion\u00adate advo\u00adcate of nature con\u00adser\u00adva\u00adtion, and a lead\u00ading advo\u00adcate of civ\u00adil lib\u00ader\u00adties. In this curi\u00adous book, written \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[946,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-reading","category-bu-reading-2006"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=345"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9540,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions\/9540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}