belated answer to Mark Twain Q

[Robin Landseadel]

Try some of Mark Twain's later, eviler works like "Letters From  
Earth." Twain and Pynchon share a similar disregard for plutocrats,  
both are wonderful verbal comics.
On Jul 30, 2009, at 6:40 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:

> Page,
>
> Very little close Twain influence traced in most of the best books  
> on TRP's work that I've read. Just the general great comic  
> talents.....hey, he does the Jumping Frog on stereoids; on surreal  
> over-the-topness.....
>
> Curious to me: Tony Tanner at the end of his seminal monograph [his  
> ideas were seminal before this summary monograph] of 1981, mentions  
> a long list of writers who Pynchon has absorbed in his opinion.   
> Twain and James are
> mentioned.
> However, early in the monograph, when he has mentioned writers who  
> have influenced TRP and quoted Barthes on "mixing words", meaning  
> other writers' words, neither Twain nor James are on that list.
>
> I don't know Twain well but as with James, I do not myself see much  
> direct influence as we can point to with so many others.
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