Nu wil ik wel eens iets meer weten over zijn bedenker.
For a biographer, Twain has every possible attraction as a subject except sexual or family scandal. He's an undisputed giant of literary fiction, but as well as Huckleberry Finn he wrote comic fantasies, sci-fi, satire, memoirs, journalism, polemics and travel books. Widely travelled in the US and abroad, he met the key political figures of the 19th century's closing decades as well as other leading authors. His life is full of extraordinary incidents and encounters, from his youthful experiences as riverboat pilot and miner to his years of global fame. And it remains riveting to the end, rather than following the usual pattern of uneventful decline; Twain's final phase saw him battling bankruptcy, pulverised by bereavement, and writing a series of prophetic attacks on US militarism. All this explains why biographies are not exactly rare, but Powers argues that his predecessors tend to be "scholarly critics" in whose efforts the human being, his voice and humour go missing. This Pulitzer prize-winning life captivatingly succeeds where they failed, finding a way of writing that is coloured by Twain's verbal larkiness but never merely imitates him.
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