At 04:48 PM 3/19/2004 -0500, John Bird wrote:
>This usage has been very common, but never from Mark Twain himself.  See
>Hemingway's famous quotation about the novel--if they don't cut out the last
>part where he says this.
>


I suggest that people take a look at the passage in The Green Hills of
Africa where Hemingway's famous remark is made.  Not only does he seems
unaware of use of "Nigger Jim," but he gets the plot wrong, and he makes
the foolish comment that nothing before HF was truly worthy, he adds all
sorts of ridiculous statements about other writers: Moby-Dick is just
"rhetoric," and Thoreau is merely a naturalist and therefore uninteresting,
and so forth.  I have not yet made the time to examine The Green Hills of
Africa in depth in order to fully appreciate the exchange about American
literature -- perhaps the narrator/author is meant to be a pompous fool --
but I would suggest that one contribution to humanity Twain scholars could
make would be to NEVER EVER quote Hemingway on Huckelberry Finn.  I have
taken the pledge: I hope others will join me.

Hilton Obenzinger


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hilton Obenzinger, PhD.
Associate Director for Honors Writing, Undergraduate Research Programs
Lecturer, Department of English
Stanford University
415 Sweet Hall
650.723.0330
650.724.5400 Fax
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