Customer Reviews

Mark Twain on Religion: What is Man, The War Prayer, Thou Shalt Not Kill, The Fly, Letters from the Earth (Forgotten Books)

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I agree, you can't go wrong with Twain. There are 16 stories/articles before getting to the four "religious" articles so the title is not exactly accurate.

"What is man" is way too long.
"At the Shrine of St. Wagner", is laugh-out-loud funny.
"Is Shakespeare Dead?" very reasoned and interesting.
"Letters From Earth" was as I remembered from years ago.

"Letters . . ." was the main reason to get this book, so the other writing I consider a bonus.

BTW, much, if not all, of Twain's works are on the net.
My main gripe is that when a story cites figures, or notes, they are not included in the text.

For the MOST part, I enjoyed this book, although it covers more than religion. It covers a broader range, noting his (Twain's) opinions on a variety of subjects. Still, a good read. The 1st or 2nd chapter "What is Man" is a bit long and I got the point early on, but that's OK, what the heck I'm reading Twain. I personally and especially liked "Letters From The Earth", "The Fly", "Thou Shalt Not Kill", "The War Prayer", and "Is Shakespeare Dead" was dead on so to speak! I thought the story "Taming the Bicycle" was quite cute as was "Concerning Tobacco" although really not about religion. I also liked "As Concerns the Diety" and thought "How to Make History Dates Stick" was an interesting teaching method and a method he personally used to instruct his own children, which made him only more real in my eyes.

Aside from His Genius, Twain was still only Human (as we ALL are), and had a variety of opinions on a variety of subjects (as we all do). This book is about religion (a good part of it anyway) , but it is also about his personal philosophy and opinions and thoughts on a variety of other subjects that for the most part I found quite interesting and entertaining.

Overall, I Enjoyed the Book. Of course, I think Mark Twain was the greatest literary genius in our country's history. I think this because his genius was more than just writing, he was a person of conviction and opinion (often, actually very often, against the grain and not too popular during his time). I think he was certainly a philosopher, of sort, and certainly a man of many talents. Wouldn't it have been great to have Twain around during our time to listen to and read his opinions on more recent, especially political and religious matters. You can only Dream!!!!!!

The disclaimer on page ii alone is enough reason not to buy this edition:

"Forgotten Books takes the uppermost care to preserve the wording and images from the original book. However, this book has been scanned and reformatted from the original, and as such we cannot guarantee that it is free from errors or contains the full content of the original."