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  3. Mark Twain’s instructions were quite clear: his autobiography was to remain

Mark Twain’s instructions were quite clear: his autobiography was to remain

游客2023-12-07  14
问题     Mark Twain’s instructions were quite clear: his autobiography was to remain unpublished until 100 years after his death. You couldn’t imagine a writer doing something like that these days. Who could resist a pay cheque in the here and now for deferred immortality in the hereafter? More to the point, could any modern writer be certain their lives would still be interesting to anyone so long after their death?
    Hubris never came into Twain’s calculations. He was the American writer, the rags-to-riches embodiment of the American dream, and it never seems to have occurred to him that his popularity would fade. Nor has it. He is still the writer before whom everyone from Faulkner to Mailer has knelt. And even though his literary executors might not have followed his instructions to the letter — various chunks of his autobiography have been published over the years— this year’s publication of the first of three planned collections of Twain’s full autobiographical writings to coincide with the centenary of his death has still been one of the literary events of the year.
    They are about the abstract. Such as religion.
    "There are some extracts, including one in which he confuses the Virgin birth and the Immaculate Conception, in which he declares his religious scepticism robustly, about which Twain was extremely nervous," says Smith. "He was so worried he would be ostracised and shunned for this by God-fearing Americans that he actually set a publication date of 2406 for those sections."
    Imagine. A man so protective and nervous of his own reputation that he sought to keep some of the ideas he thought might alienate his public silent for 500 years. Yet equally a man so sure of his reputation that he had no doubts people would still want to read him 500 years after his death. There, in essence, is Twain’s ambivalence between the public and the private, between truth and spin. Needless to say, his executors didn’t adhere to the 500-year diktat and the American public continue to adore him regardless. Then Twain being Twain, he’d have hardly expected anything less. [br] Why would Mark Twain postpone publishing his scepticism on religion?
选项 A、He is not sure he’s justified in criticizing the religion.
B、He is curious about his reputation after 500 years.
C、He worried the public would not accept his criticism about religion.
D、He is forbidden from publishing it for his hostility to authority.
答案 C
解析 题目内容涉及第十二段吐温对宗教的态度。本段大意是，自传中有一段坚定地表达了对宗教的质疑，吐温对此段内容感到极度紧张，因为他实在是太担心会被敬畏上帝的美国人排斥和抛弃，这就是他为这部分设定出版日期为2406年的原因，可以得知，吐温推迟其对宗教质疑部分的出版时间的原因是他害怕会被信奉宗教的美国民众排斥和抛弃，即[C]。
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