A Word on Words; 3010; Roy Blount, Jr.

oh no don johnson you know once again welcome to a word on words against roy blunt welcome back boy it's a good and here to talk about mark twain mark twain's a murder a mystery and a marriage a mystery and the americas into a martyr why but that everyone knows you are a regular says there are people who have favorably compared you to mark twain himself right american years he's a three star and nobody's been a funny set up this book is um was quixotic it seems to me it's a story that a

book but mark twain's concept and not putting down the story was different unique stories are no unprecedented in the holds the american magazine the literature editorial practices toppled about what he had in mind when he wrote this it's for unpublished work in march over eighteens only six he had william dean howells is friend and the editor of the atlantic monthly is also part of the weekend and they hatched a project which was that we're going to make up the skull and they would borrow twelve leading authors of the day and get them to reach write a story based on this a lot and there were other really a blindfold they were not one of those labs the worlds of story and then more productive suggest that their moral or rozsa brilliant

harry james and james russell lowell and charles dudley warner and oliver wendell holmes was distinguished a boston liberal tired lot literati to drive a story based on this plot in this plot is out of our flaws built saddleback woods village searches for drawing grew up in a full cry he saw you know people standing each other and learned and didn't and fierce eyes and things and i'll also why is the thing that mark twain was worse that amused world wonderful books but they also have to be so shapeless and water all around and other great mark lloyd bridges and moves inland by eilan n word by word is great command of the american language he almost created the american narrative language and nobody wanted it and so he was what noise does the

literature used to run a story based on his blog that he was all alone or alone but he kept being obsessed with this project and writing and writing letters dolls let's get these guys let's get this i often rail all during the summer and fall of eight teams and six unevenly later years egypt remittances are partly by cuts or get the post you're supposed to want those are the bench so much especially that of history the timing was was argued against it there are limits story right political crises in the history of the country that was the hays dylan race and which as it turned out in november hayes got the electoral vote dollars so will states certainly read them never gonna be recounted that were contestant and day until about a vault until a democrat which is in large part because of barbaro was suppressed himself of americans is a big bestseller and it was finally settled in and out of the house

representatives and the story hour grew up with was that it was the end of reconstruction always heard was that it is because the republicans but a deal with democrats that a year from their best art film australia's hasan let him be the president than they would give up or give up on reconstruction so and also a sign from historical turning there's a literary journey which was that the march ryan had written the first half about race than in senator son was donovan's at my barn and so looking back on those you think mark twain who was the sort of quintessential american figure writer and and redness was working on the great american novel falling slavery you value of them are going to finish very thin also do some about reconstruction but instead of the solution is is the plot so thin and the store shosh so shallow

that it's it's so it's a father wanted though to marry well and and she's they learn maybe the year to the locals great fortune and from that we've run those fist fight you talk about in a murder and industry luminaries was the plot so thin man men and shallow that homes and low and that hardly others simply weren't interested you think was right there to have flown to write about these rusty characters weren't dangerous this was the early henry james was still he will instead be able unintelligible and so it seemed odd that he would think that paul is the reward rally around a spotted body jeb bush and knowing the end one thing more easily use a very competitive rider so you get into any like to get over a lot of writers is a love

talk about dr tu lead scholars about this and confirm a suspicion that the belief that there is only one photograph in which mark twain appears of all the photographs in which his head is lower than anybody else but it is very alibi iraq two dollars reason they stood or the only one is what his daughter susan an hour above the monster lulu most the most exciting thing about this book is not mark twain story which is published here who first time what is interesting about this book is your ford and afterward the clothes you put mark twain and this idea for a story in time the context and i thought i'd done the context as you just said has to do with being partly finished was huckleberry finn

and if we if we follow your narrative of what transpired we find that that manuscript really sort of existed in two halves for a long time and there's a little history long history their main part of a turned up later much later in hollywood california yet he abuse or lost track of the first half of it eventually adopt a proposal in the first half of our griffin and you're with fellow in recent years in the truck and hollywood california writes our was sure it was also streisand uk tended to do this and all this right the first half or a big chunk of them sort of you know run around it would drift off into somewhere else and then he would begin within the house brought some order to take eighteen family member at and they didn't finish up at all years of the defendants turned in america akin king arthur's court come out between the first and the last

another getting acknowledging afterwards but you wrote a couple of things beyond it and also certainly what you're human rights for a while and does drop in the butt and the rope line with brett party but he did get into this is a first the campaign that he pull of the president and they never really on edge in those days to leave so i found that i wasn't all right they must've really been no longer a bow dryness a reconstruction because the assumption is that the verdict of the civil war was that it was you know in the free from slavery but should go out to be be boosted up and re constructionist most of the endowments so but it turns out that the reason coins issue in the haste elections cause he was four it is against

corruption and toes was the liquor up to a big city politician is opposed to the brain that civil service reform and sings like a fighter odd issue for research but then so then they look back in laws of mark twain had fallen so tortured to extend them prof fair he grew up his father had slaves in the global slave know in misery and there are lots of slavery in his own tail and many believe women wore incidence of valley like being a warm loaf about western month ago and then came back east and married the daughter of an abolitionist who gave the mouth and in buffalo new york start about marriage and also used to getting him well is the boston literati we're also radical republicans richard diffin radical republicans and we have today but now they're also avail you know

but then and so that's who he was raised but he wouldn't say what what about reconstruction so the felt that the lyrics for the war were about reconstruction in fact hayes it was campaigning on the platform of of appeasing was out promenading reconciling with the self undone they were you know they wanted them a video appeals and all railroads and stuff as much as the recession they did polls level of troops out of the south that were there were reinforcing reconstruction but they had just about given up or frederick douglass and rosa an address republicans before the invasion and said are you know live up to the promises promises to my people so no raises a long rehearsal the last waltz at that point and that i think partly explains mark leno's best was gung

ho about civil service reform and as you point out that orin his brother was an abolitionist and i would've thought that that would've been twain's and stay near mean all criticism out the canaries in an all lane effort to pull off the shelf to keep that american children are reading the racial native russian racial epithet of the other they're a little song der despite all that that jim was a single heroic figure in that novel and other delighted to see in light of the controversy this race around the earth and then you

provide and a foreign one i consider being with an l when the defense of the book as a culture as you put it anatomic contour though he was a live there was a third time he wrote back toward ten fifteen years of the war and i think that is a great plaintiff anti slavery well but the el nino winter and there's been a politics but until he came back east and forgotten with the eu but the right thing about march when brian think about slavery and other things is that is not that i'm in the argument that that there'll be just over a pound cannon is a much more polluting politically correct book about slavery and the added to its analysis of slavery is a lot more potent than the right fit but what about what to believe

in this story is full of references to innocence and your words in a sober golla surrogate gear keep popping up in this book more than nor necessary given the and i'm martin is writing about their american innocence although his first book was the first big boat was innocent abroad and they tried to call his last house now see that in you're going to listen to a poll by david the story is of the runways is ruthless but you wrote in you know in the late nineteen eighties at uniting century eighty days wrote about slavery and those nostalgic sort of popular way of size iran's all ballard song northern self get together and they're worried about dog or innocent always happy slaves mr kline and then he wrote about what iran about slavery it was and the more and he wrote

the story got and the far they go away from hannibal missouri in his boyhood the more he felt the shame of flavor and he felt that his boy this innocent villagers you grow up in for a mischievous boy could have done what everybody's friendship art was tainted by slavery and thirty let me just say though that you just tuned in which you're with roy blunt one of the great urban us about the mark twain's own book a murder a mystery and a marriage look for which or is written a forward and afterward that puts both twain's unpublished story mr quinn self i think in perspective let's talk about about a little bit more about the he has used his political instincts if you we read some of the speeches that

he makes it he's sort of sticking a needle and both sides it's it's almost the will rogers approach later later this was a democrat won in order but that markle and in fact it was a republican until leo eighteen eighty four election which was james blaine as grover cleveland and he blames the republican whip mr doyle after about guns and love and i know live for grover cleveland which any did this because you became a model which her work came from ms selma for what will the boom years nolo turn came from a derisive airliner derisive reference to visa high and mighty people like mark twain and the president of harvard and a couple alums is who were thought that blinds to corrupt and i were gonna be republican

opposite or four chiefs are referred to wobble they'd like that government but you are very likely to lose funny and also they learned to rise above them make fun of everybody equally and not alienate either party and you know and that in that election will wright covers you know elections allies through another one and one it was very dirty harry james he blamed james ye mine gonna laugh instead of lenin mama were <unk> saw roll cleveland an illegitimate child that came out that campaign and plane i lay i wouldn't surprise teddy tilted toward plain near the cleveland omar point least publicly wu tang li a puritanical about those xx in the nra last summer a day in fact there's no no real convincing her romances and mark twain that there's this is that after a

distant militia loyal village of those water story with those resolved by mary jane paul barclay about this is low and you know which is unusual because you know like traditional comedy and treasure at the marriott was open marriage with its a college marriages it's a tragedy it's a budget but he didn't know if he was married himself love apple ii but the coveted mainly for all his life until toward that but he'd been resolved like the major romance and and so it seems odd that he would be so dark of cleveland's deals of the job but he thought that the role was the reason was the purity a part a lot about corruption and purity and innocence until you leave he says a model of film i want that on my walk is pure from the marrow out well nothing i learned from being roy blunt about mark twain

was set them he yelled you the visionary bad businessman he was the publisher a book and tried to i use technology to a breakthrough in and become of a major publisher book son was all it was as you point out bankruptcy more is coming and he assumed those debts personally and as you say lectured all across europe in order to pay back those that is another time when he was you know learn the troubles hardens daughter about his favorite are about well is america but dumb so he his friendly and emails describe him as the most obese other laws southerner ever knew he settled in hartford connecticut and i one aspect of that above all we can do yellow eye novel couple years

in the village even done that second that there were both will move to harvard and he stayed there for land around in the summer to hell martha's in law's house where you are a lot of books but elmira new york but they're a dirty is big housing success was grant's no more red wrote very heroically well boys die about it and mark gross excess and also slave girl grandson had further worth of money for money only to wall street and pretty good deals and does so mark twain saved of the wealth of grant from poverty by a publishing branch of the more so well publishing funded well and an ego huge loyal to do as their party's de sela rising that he's sort of became the savior of general right but baum but then new robots didn't do so well and gradually this

when the promise of our view of the pope assuming that every cackling right after that flopped he wrote very good at king arthur's court which is full of derisive of references to the established catholic church in iowa job led him there but so we've lost or when they also invested heavily in a typesetting machine use of the typesetting you worked as a pipe several a printer's devil was a hit dubai and then there's this guy as one of only seen that would do it but it was so wonderful in all about their nose was really elaborate regime to survive and it sort of re created all the muscles and things are tight for something it was replaced that now bret hart and he were friends and then the animators wrote a play together but was fun that relationship

well martin and fell out with ebola for a awfully long barred had been a mentor a visit out west in california mining camps and bret hart was established out there as a writer before play was making eastman was established impossible for love and for more butter lombard was barely i would borrow money in a payback and he also stated that clemens is now for a long time and the friendship why would mom was a dairy based election which largely was energetically involved in our arms is clearly mr glazer have any be so indifferent <unk> never the thing is that i have arranged to get a job for both the trial of the televised the whole town called for a lot more though rama lama will find out of autism of the vote and said you are so the arms girl is kill innocents and he did

not here much for him at the end yeah i'd like to know what you heard that pays wasn't i go to give our job is available ambassadors of thing he wrote while letter to one of the longer and fewer letter to the president delivered by willie nelson who's related by marriage to the right beginning not to give our jobs the barna poll through a lot you know the yen if you if you take this concept of a sort of let's say let's take apart and yet great writers too to join in i can and i can imagine the entertainment that would involve a wonder and just it's you know toe speculation but i just wonder when today's culture if

you approach the same subject from the television doc you are a television soap and attracting half dozen great writers whether it might not fly moon moon yeah that it would be a shame to say you know what there is so writers would do this with his by what they were going to do these days in status to the town hall which diverts each chapter word below the problem of day buried and awesomeness our affliction to say but it would be a sin city have several of her movie directors director move your head but that that but they were probably wander away from the tunnel on our right is only a different family around happy ending or what's next for you i mean you've got

this long list of books so this is really sort of been a diversion for you how long did you work on this sort of our royalties on their side so well but i really got into it lasted for several months were awash in the right bar of iran really which owned the rig our lives i guess then how long before we will sit let us fall of two thousand and is convinced you you're finished and i'm melissa block of arguing with a bunch of these sort of and that they were the work of movie what's really who is called well it's about a dollar general wandered onto the actual law in missouri in the thirties and nora furlough or are you really are how she worked with his right he's got a great sense of story with an award or our

own deal but we're automotive archive your router and can you collaborate well i have this or i wrote it and then cheese and well as michael moore's story as you suggested would like to direct us because movies was but you know we've written a draft and new faces and also i will lasso collaborate wonderfully with the main happily with the star of her name valerie chef you know i've done two books of chavez's great dog pictures take pictures of care to get i found that with what the dogs would be saying hey we do what we have done a barnyard animal or are talking with roy blunt about his book and mark twain book a murder mystery a married side short right now and you watch your own words and johnson bought the breeding