New York – Historian Ron Chernow’s The last work can surprise readers who know him better for the book that inspired the musical “Hamilton” and for their biographies of George Washington and Ulysses Grant.
The “Mark Twain” of 1,200 pages will be published next week. It is Chernow’s first launch since his subsidy biography came out in 2017, and the first time he faced a literary writer after a career defined by the celebrated books on business leaders (John D. Rockefeller, the Morgan dynasty), the presidents (Grant and Washington) and, above all, Alexander Hamilton. His many honors include the Pulitzer Award for “Washington: A Life”, the National Book Prize for “The House of Morgan” and the National Circle of Circle of Critics of the Book for “Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Mr.”
But a book about Twain had been in his thoughts for decades, who goes back to when he saw Hal Holbrook Play on stage in Philadelphia in the mid -1970s.
“And there he was, with the white suit and cigarette and mustache and was launching a hilarious line after another,” says Chernow, 76, remembering that Twain jokes as “there is no clearly American criminal class, except Congress.” Twain was fascinated by Chernow as a prototype of the modern celebrity and found himself less attracted to “Mark Twain the novelist than the expert, the personality and the artist of the platform.”
Chernow is more comfortable, he feels more comfortable with the investigable world of the facts than with the most intangible qualities of the imagination. But he found a lot to identify with Twain, in relation to him as a widower (Twain survived his wife, Olivia, for six years; Chernow’s wife, Valerie Sarn, died in 2006), as a public speaker and as a lucky author of writing full time.
Chenow also closely analyzes subjects who are familiar with: politics and finance, in particular the various failed companies that left Twain less money despite their author’s royalties and the inherited wealth of his wife. Towards the end of the book, the historian addresses the friendships that an old Twain cultivated with teenagers and preteens, whom Twain called his “angle.”
“At that time, Twain’s behavior was considered the lovely eccentricity of a beloved humorist with a weak point for children. We observe that same behavior today and we find it strange and disturbing. It is important to obtain both perspectives,” says Chernow. “Twain’s behavior was Casto and none of the angels or their parents accused him of inappropriate or predator behavior. At the same time, there was such an obsessive quality about Twain’s care to these adolescents: he spent more time to them to their own daughters.”
During a recent interview in his Manhattan apartment in the Upper West Side, where his coca glass -Dietary Cola was in an illustrated roller coaster with a Twain sketch receiving an honorary university degree, Chernow also reflected on the Twain family, his politics and sadness in his soul. Chernow’s comments have been condensed by clarity and brevity.
“I really don’t know what he would say about Donald Trump. It could, yes, but I don’t want to guess. But we do know what he said about his own political figures. And he hated Teddy Roosevelt. He saw that Teddy Roosevelt had a very large, very self -absorbed ego and Mr. at the beginning of the 20th century.
Reading about the children of famous personalities is almost invariably sad, as it is often with Mark Twain. The one who suffered from this more acutely, I think she was the daughter of the middle, Clara, who was a bit competitive with her father and felt eclipsed by him, wanted to trade with her reputation, but then she did not want her to attract attention. She said she would be in a room with her father, and felt that she was only Mark Twain’s daughter, who was reduced to the level of a stool. And she also had a very interesting line, one that has a very contemporary ring: he would enter the room and flood the room with talking. “
“There is that moment when he goes to the Sandwich Islands and meets the American diplomat Anson Burlingame, who advises him to” cultivate your best, “what really really takes seriously. I think with Twain, if someone asks me, you know, did he marry Olivia for his money? I would definitely say. You, ” I idolize. ‘
“And the irony of Twain’s life is that he spends his whole life attacking the plutocrats on the one hand, and on the other, he is doing everything in his possession to become one. This man embodies in his person every trend of the time.”
“There is a tremendous amount of self -esteem in him. I have an appointment later in the book: he says that (the poet Lord) Byron detected life because he stopped. Twain said: ‘I am in the same way.’ You know, that is something really hard and hard to say.
