Susan K. Harris on Mark Twain
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In Green Hills of Africa, the 1935 account of his safari, Hemingway made his most enduring statement of literary criticism. He wrote that "all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. [. . .]\\xa0 There was nothing before.\\xa0 There has been nothing as good since."
What does that mean? Is he right? Was there a strategy behind what seems to be a high compliment?
One True Podcast welcomes Susan K. Harris to tackle this iconic quote and to gain a better sense of Hemingway's relationship to Twain and how they compare as craftsmen. En route, we take up other significant questions, like how to make sense of the final part of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn--which Hemingway called "cheating"--and how to better understand the very notion of influence between artists.\\xa0
This episode was recorded on April 15, 2020.