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67 of 68 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Shaking Foundations and Prodding Sacred Cows, January 15, 2002
I first read "Letters from the Earth" in 1962, when I was a highschool student in Redding, CT. Redding was the last home of Mark Twain, and those who held his literary legacy as sacred, his library as a shrine, were definitely upset and embarrased when it was published. All this made it compelling reading for an adolescent who was beginning to notice the inconsistencies, hypocrisies and downright insanities of human belief. "Letters from the Earth" shook loose the stones of my foundation: a service for which I'll be forever grateful. Including himself in his witty attack on Earthly Man's frailties, Twain's observations encouraged me to trust my own perceptions, prod sacred cows, and ultimately to forgive myself for being at best, "a nickel-plated angel". I've read, reread, and revered most of Twain's legacy, but I think of this particular book as a treasurebox full of letters from a brilliant, irascible but loving uncle each of us should have known sometime in our lives. I only wish I'd remembered to share it with my own kids when they were adolescents. I must make amends right now...AFTER I've reread it myself.
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52 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Mixed bag, July 24, 2002
This book is probably not what you are expecting. If you are looking for a free-wheelin' adventure story along the lines of Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn, you will not only be disappointed, but most probably shocked. However, if you are looking for an entire book of irrevent writings - as I was - then that's not what you're getting, either. Something less than half of the book (say, roughly, 1/3) consists of deliciously irrevent writings, drained from Mark Twain's pen of bitter ink. The best among these is the title section, "Letters From The Earth", in which Satan writes back to archangels Gabriel and Michael about his visit to earth and the "human race experiment", after his banishment from heaven. In these letters, Mark Twain points out various absurtities and illogical assertions and beliefs about human religions, and unflinchingly describes the vanity and hypocrisy of many of its adherents. I was under the impression that the entire book consisted of these letters; however, I was wrong. It is merely the first section of the book, occupying some 30-50 pages. For people who are highly into this kind of writing, however - as I am - it is worth the price of admission alone. There are several other pieces in the book along this line - including the famous essays Was The World Made For Man? and The Lowest Animal - which display not only Mark Twain's essential pessimism, but his very rational mind and hilarous wit. These pieces are an absolutely essential read for the lover of satire: few better examples are to be found anywhere in literature. The rest of the book, however, is a mixed bag. It consits of various pieces from the "Mark Twain Papers" - a collection of his writings (mostly unfinished) the he decreed to have published sometime after his death. Among these are a few interesting pieces (most of them various satires, several on religious topics), while others are more broadly ranging: everything from a completely improvised tale that he used to put his two children to bed to an unfinished fantasy piece that the editor seems to attach rather a lot of importance to, but whose actual virtue is somewhat more questionable. These pieces range from vaguely interesting to mildly funny to downright boring. Several would've probably been better served by being included in other volumes, while several should probably have been left unpublished. Still, there are definitely some essential writings in this volume that any fan of Mark Twain - or satire, or irrevent writings, for that matter - will want to read.
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34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Satan's side of the story, May 30, 2004
Letters from the Earth is an assortment of unpublished-for-60-years writings by Mark Twain. They cover a wide span of subject matter ranging from critiques of the prose style of another writer to the author's construction of the Old Testament and God from the perspective of Satan. In addition to Letters From Earth (Satan's), the contents includes Papers of the Adam Family, The Damned Human Race, Something About Repentance, Was the World Made For Man, In the Animal's Court, The Intelligence of God, The Lowest Animal and others. Readers who are offended by careful examinations of the meaning and implications of holy or sacred writings of the Old Testiment will not enjoy this book. The author, whatever his actual religious beliefs, probably wasn't an Old Testiment Christian. In this series of short writings he takes specific stories from the OT and holds them into the light away from the long traditions that accompany them in most of our minds. He examines the evidence of the stories for hints of what sort of creature God must be if the OT is true. He extropolates what Satan might be. I'm an admirer of this author and I believe everything he ever wrote is worth reading and digesting. I put this book alongside his best. But I also admit that if I harbored a microbe of religious fanatic somewhere inside me I'd be hard-pressed to enjoy reading Letters From the Earth.
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