It was funny to me how quickly the first few reviews of the Ken Burns
documentary were shouted down by cries of "nitpicking."  Funny, because the
first person to use the word was Burns himself, in Elmira this summer after
previewing a 30-minute excerpt for a packed crowd that included many Mark
Twain scholars.  "Let the nitpicking begin!" he told us, in what was I'm
sure mostly a joke--but I'm sure not totally a joke. He must feel some of
the reaction to his film is "nitpicking," and I can understand why he would.
But I think he's wrong.

My first reaction to these charges on the list against scholars and critics
was indignation.  But when I thought about it, I realized that "nitpicking"
is exactly what scholars and critics seem to do--and what we must do
sometimes.  If paying attention to detail, not being satisfied with accepted
wisdom, checking facts scrupulously, questioning the mainstream with new
interpretations, and looking under rocks and in forgotten corners for the
facts seems like "nitpicking," then that's just a lay person not
understanding the mindset a scholar must adopt.  (Except for the scholars
and critics who really are nitpicking, and some do.)

I for one would like to hear a few more (dozen) reactions to the Burns film,
from anybody who wants to, scholar or not.  I hope nobody who wanted to say
something held back because a few people used the new "n" word.  I plan to
do that tomorrow when I have a little more time.

It's funny how easy it is for some people to criticize a professional for
expecting others to use care in the way they use words and facts and
opinions.  I want my surgeon to pay scrupulous attention to detail, and my
lawyer to do the same--but I hope I need the services of neither.  If it
weren't for Twain critics and scholars, we would have only the Paine version
of Twain, be reading the Paine version of "The Mysterious Stranger," see
"Tom Sawyer" and "Huck Finn" as merely boy books, see Twain as merely a
humorist, and so on.

This may seem like old news to some, but I'd like to reopen a discussion
that I think was prematurely truncated. Burns's Mark Twain was one of the
biggest recent public events concerning the author our forum is devoted to,
and deserves a good bit more discussion, if folks have a mind to, as I do...
+++++++++++++++
John Bird, Picker of Nits
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