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From:
Harold Bush <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 6 Apr 2010 14:40:54 -0500
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List:  Barbara Schmidt strikes again!  What an excellent, incisive, and
deeply informative review-- this is precisely the kind of reviewing that
makes me proud to be on this Forum.  thanks, Barb, great job.

Schmidt here presents a devastating critique of Trombley's book, with
excellent additional comments about and comparisons with Michael Shelden's
own "even-handed" approach; plus useful tidbits about and comparisons with
the Lystra book.

The entire Lyon affair (no pun intended) is tawdry, murky, and hard to pin
down, so I still have not got all the conclusions straight.  But what makes
Schmidt's account here so valuable is that she provides in the short space
of a review all of the relevant differences between these 3 biographers, and
allows her readers to compare and draw their own conclusions--or, at least,
to know what the issues are, and what is at stake.  Most intriguing (for me,
anyway) is Schmidt's implication that Trombley's championing of Lyon and her
story has its roots in some sort of feminine bias--or, the opposite:  that
anti-feminist bias has not allowed "objective" critics of the past to listen
to Lyon's version of the events.

 ~  finally, More congratulations to Barbara Schmidt!  her work on the Forum
is easily overlooked, but her judgment in all things Twain is impeccable
indeed!!


-- 
Harold K. Bush, Ph.D
Professor of English
Saint Louis University
St. Louis, MO  63108
314-977-3616 (w); 314-771-6795 (h)
<www.slu.edu/x23809.xml>

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