h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Seems us of Irish descent have a nose for getting into trouble?

Don't know much about life in 1844, but I read "The Pathfinder," published in 1840. Thank you for bringing the period to life, Dmitri. You're doing at least as well (and maybe better than) Cooper did, but the setting there is upstate New York, not Pittsburgh. A distance of 250 miles. Okay, Brookville is 80 miles Northeast of Pittsburgh. Whatever.

anyway, good work .

Thanks, Paul. If I at least write better than Fennimore Cooper, I'll die happy.

It's interesting you mentioned Upstate New York. I mean, *really* interesting, considering what's coming in this novel...

For FWR: do you remember Mark Twain's essay on Fennimore Cooper, called 'Fennimore Cooper's Literary Offenses'?

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3172/3172-h/3172-h.htm

Writing Right a rip-off then DG?

I shall instantly do a thorough re-write... for Mr Twain's sake.

Although I can't promise to stick to #3 or #13.

This is evocative.

But I was getting confused. If the wagon train people are Irish Catholics, why are they handing out Nativist propaganda?

In your case, #3 is otiose. Mr Twain never read a zombie story, though he was familiar with ghosts, vampires, and the like. Come to think of it, he did a great spooky bit...I'll see if I can find it...

#13 is my absolutely favourite. That rule can be broken if you're Slip Mahoney.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6IwcnZlh2Y

Here's some spooky Mark Twain:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/74/74-h/74-h.htm

Search for the part beginning 'It was a graveyard of the old-fashioned Western kind.'

Sorry, MVP, missed your post.

The emigrant train drivers weren't Catholics - or, they might have been, who knows? But the drovers, drivers, and other itinerants would pass along any pamphlets, newspapers, adverts, in short, any printed matter as they went along.

People were starved for news in that era. The broadside at least gave everyone an idea of what was going on.

There will be more discussion of propaganda and the mails in days to come. You've anticipated a point.

At least, these people were passing stuff on. In 'Roughing It', Mark Twain describes stagecoach drivers who dumped pamphlets and newspapers in the middle of the desert in the 1860s. They claimed it was mail 'for the Indians'.

"Last of the Mohicans" still seems to be taught in American literature courses. Cooper made enemies easily. Twain may have been one of them.

I don't blame him for his mediocrity any more than I blame Plato for holes in his logic. When you're one of the first in a field, people who come later can build on your work, or learn to avoid the mistakes you've made. That's not something you can do.

I have zero compunction about disliking the work of James Fennimore Cooper. Or Charlotte Yonge. I can like or dislike what I want.

I suspect Mark Twain felt the same.

I wasn't asking you to make any changes in your opinion, Dmitri. I like to try to see things objectively, without letting opinions enter into it. And, yes, I can live with your potential decision to view my "objectivity" as a foolish notion. I respect all your rights. Please respect mine.

Is there anything I can do to get back in your good graces, Dmitri?

I will try harder not to be annoyingly know-it-all in your presence. For what it matters, I don't like Cooper either. I honestly wasn't trying to convince anyone of anything, except for the role that a spark of genius can play in raising all boats. Ralph Waldo Emerson gathered around him some of the brightest literary lights of the time, and they inspired *each other*. Mozart and Haydn inspired each other. I love to read about clusters of greatness. I'm not here to put anybody down. I just want to see love rewarded.

You read too much into what I said, Paul. I was only joking with you.

That's a relief. I still feel guilt about things I did last year at this time. Maybe I can't live them down, but......

I thank you for publishing so many of my 42-word stories in the Post (and also some by other researchers).

Life's too short, don't worry. Onwards and upwards.

And the 42-word stories ended up in the anthology. People are still buying those, you know.

So we give people stuff to read, and help pay the light bill around here, which is good.

Glad to hear it.