Mark Twain: A Life

Powers writes in an easy-going, often humorous style that wears its learning lightly, often going for puns that might have made even Mark Twain groan: about Lew Wallace, the Civil War general and one-hit wonder who wrote Ben Hur, Powers says that his "entire literary career could be summed up as 'Ben Hur, done that'..." Powers has a deep appreciation of Twain's work, but doesn't shy away from presenting an honest portrait of a man who could be selfish, insecure, grumpy and vengeful. Twain was all of those things, but he was also brilliant, humane, and howlingly funny. Powers' biography is a great read.

With a Twainian twist or two in his own words Powers seeks to reveal the fascinating, contradictory, and ornery character that is Mark Twain. In this endeavor he is largely successful given the fact that Samuel Clemens was prolific yet enigmatic in many ways. Clemens is a true original, and about the finest writer America has produced. Controversy and acclaim followed him all his days and despite his written contributions he still has yet to be recognized as the iconoclast his is. The failure to appreciate Clemens is a result of the unfortunate tendency to judge him on the basis of contemporary issues and concerns and to overlook his originality and the striking force of his writing.

In this work then Powers has to reveal the Twain of show more the biography and allow Twain to be accepted on the basis of his life. The work then is mostly successful because Powers allows Twain to shine through. He mentions, but does not depreciate from Clemens the man, or Twain the writer. show less

"Mark Twain: A Life" is a highly detailed story of Twain/Clemens' unique life and his development as a man and a writer. Ron Powers offers a tremendously detailed account of Samuel Clemens' life and provides many insights about Clemens as a husband, a father, a friend, businessman, as well as an author. Powers clearly knows his subject and is quite fond of Clemens but offers a balanced portrait that is largely sympathetic but is not afraid to show the tempermental and abrasive side of Clemens as well. Clemens comes off as an often-brilliant writer, a loving husband and father, and an awful businessman. My only criticism would be that a few chapters seem a bit thin where more detailed information about Clemens' life was not available.

This is a stellar biography of a fascinating man. As much a history of the time as a history of an American icon, I enjoyed every moment of this book. Though a bit daunting to start this book and its 600-some pages, it was difficult to set aside; only the failure of my eyes to remain open into the later hours of evening prevented me from continuing the saga in a single, long sitting. Powers's writing is smooth, funny, contemporary without being trendy, and Mark Twain is a fabulous wonderful character through every page of this book.

Well written biography of Mark Twain. The author captures the life, humor, wit, and pain of Clemons. Ron Powers good book could have been great. He spends too many pages trying to weave the man with his characters. In the end it feels like he is trying to pad the book. Too bad.

Well-written, insightful biography of Mark Twain, but super-long. I loved it but I was ready for it to be done about 150 pages from the end.

A reader of this book could not, I think, complain because Powers did not include enough facts about Mark Twain. They could, however, accuse him of incorporating too much. Mark Twain was a very restless soul and was constantly on the move from place to place, but some of his travels were not, in my opinion, worth wasting paper and time on.

However, because of Powers inclusive bent I learned a great deal about Twain, his family, friends, illnesses, writing, stage craft, finances, feuds, and lousy business acumen. I was distressed to learn about his temper, his unkindness to his brother, Orion, and that he held grudges. However, he probably would not have been as good a writer if he had not been such a complex individual. Powers obviously show more spent many years studying Twain and the incredible amount of written material that was left by him and those whose lives were touched by him, but on occasion he bored me with information which was too similar to what I'd already been given. This book would have been improved by being cut by at least 100 pages. show less