The Great Amused Voice from the Grave: Mark Twain

Above The Timberline

by Wayne Mergler

ANCHORAGE, AK—(Weekly Hubris)—11/22/10—Famed American writer Mark Twain spent the last years of his life working on his autobiography. It was to be an enormous work, filled with the usual humor, biting social criticism, irreverence, and sharp insights into the world that had, long before, made him a beloved and revered figure. Indeed, it could be argued that Mark Twain was the most beloved literary figure of his day, and not just in the United States, a reputation that, in many ways, continues now a century later.

In the years before his death, it must have been exciting for his fans to anticipate this already widely-touted autobiography. They well knew that they need not expect the ordinary from Mark Twain. His originality, his delightful humor, his audacity kept his readers reading and wanting more. What could be better, at the end of a long, successful life, than a long, detailed, tell-all autobiography? And, best of all, what would be in it? No one ever knew quite what to expect from the original mind that had given America—and the world—such a diverse canon of work, including Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Pudd’n’head Wilson, Letters from the Earth, Life on the Mississippi, Roughing It, and Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc. What could possibly be left to say? Certainly there were many who felt they already knew Twain’s autobiography. Many of his books, perhaps all of them, were clearly autobiographical, after all.

Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn drew heavily from Twain’s boyhood, lived as the young Sam Clemens of Hannibal, Missouri. Life On the Mississippi told in great, rollicking detail about his apprenticeship as a steamboat pilot on America’s greatest river. His short story, “A Private History of a Campaign That Failed,” describes with humor and zest his short-lived stint as a Confederate soldier in the Civil War. Then, in Roughing It, Twain writes about his trip west, as a young man, with his older brother, Orion Clemens, giving the world one of the first and surely one of the best accounts of adventures in the Wild West of America.

From there he chronicled his many travels in books such as The Innocents Abroad and A Tramp Abroad. Indeed, most of his work is so unabashedly autobiographical that one might reasonably wonder what was left to tell in a hugely long autobiography. But Mark Twain was never one to do things the way others do them. On his deathbed, he made an intriguing deal with his publishers and lawyers. He made them promise that his autobiography would not be published until one hundred years after his death.

Why such mystery? What could be in those memoirs that he wanted the world to wait a century to read?

Fortunately for us today, the wait is over. Or, at least, one-third over.

Twain died in 1910. As it is now 2010, the hundred-year promise is up. And, sure enough, right on schedule, comes the first installment of Autobiography of Mark Twain (Volume One), published with great diligence, scholarship, and love by the University of California Press and members of the Mark Twain Project. It is the first of a projected three volumes, the final two to come out at an as yet unspecified date. Though this publishing event may not make significant ripples in the everyday life of ordinary people, those of us who are Twain scholars or Twain readers or, simply, The Obsessed, find this very exciting news.

For one thing, Mark Twain is a big deal. He is generally considered by writers and critics and academics to be our greatest American writer. I know, I know. Such claims are made by whoever has their own favorite author to celebrate but, in Twain’s case, it pretty much holds up. Enormously popular in his lifetime, Twain’s books have continued in popularity over a century and more. Always controversial, then and now, they stay in the forefront of American letters and thought for a variety of reasons.

No writer has ever been as American as Mark Twain. With the possible exception of Walt Whitman, no other writer celebrates America and Americanisms and being an American quite so unabashedly or proudly as Mark Twain. That does not mean to say that he didn’t see our warts. Twain always writes with a sharp, critical eye, yet his big-heartedness, his rollicking and boisterous sense of humor, his joy in language, politics, history, and society makes his books quite unlike anyone else’s. He is the ultimate American writer, the essential American writer. When asked (and I have been) to recommend a writer who most represents America and the American people, I always unhesitatingly recommend Mark Twain.

Anyone who knows me or who reads this column (Bless you!), knows already that my favorite writer is Charles Dickens, but Mark Twain is certainly in my top five (Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and T.H. White are the others, if you were wondering.) But it’s not too much of a stretch, if you love Dickens, to extend that love to Twain. Though they are not alike as artists, Dickens and Twain have a great deal in common. Surely Mark Twain is America’s Charles Dickens.

Just as Walt Whitman and Herman Melville together have been called our Shakespeare, Twain is our Dickens. Born on opposite sides of the pond, Charles Dickens (1812-70) and Mark Twain (1835-1910) are arguably the largest literary luminaries of their respective nations and, more importantly, have come down the decades as representatives of their nations, their cultures, and their people.

At first glance, they may seem little alike. One was an early Victorian, one a late Victorian. One was as English as tea and crumpets, the other as American as red clay and Kentucky whisky.

They never met. Twain surely read the great Dickens; everyone did. But Dickens would not have had the opportunity to read Twain, as he did not publish his books until after Dickens’ death. But this most English of English writers and most American of American writers can each be read almost as textbooks of the sociology, politics, history and psychology of their respective peoples. Both authors are known for their humor, their pathos, their compassion. Both created works that combine hilarity with sobering darkness. Both were so immensely popular with their readers that they became household names almost overnight.

Both men were born into working-class families, both had memorable childhoods, which in many ways never left them and from which they drew, over and over again, literary source material. Both created some of the most memorable child protagonists in world literature: Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, Tom Canty, Becky Thatcher, Oliver Twist, Pip, David Copperfield, Little Nell.

Dickens traveled to America, was disappointed in much that he saw here, and wrote a travel book (American Notes) and a novel (Martin Chuzzlewit) in which he brutally criticized us; Twain traveled to England, was disappointed in much that he saw there, and wrote a travel book (The Innocents Abroad) and two novels (The Prince and the Pauper and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court) in which he brutally criticized the English.

Both were eccentric, demanding, difficult, arrogant, self-centered geniuses. Both were quick-witted, hilariously funny, and much loved. They emerge today as larger-than-life figures, and it is doubtful that the world of letters will ever see their like again.

So, the news of this “new” Autobiography of Mark Twain is a major event for Twain fans. What new could there be in this first massive tome? I am, at the moment, immersed in it, about halfway through the text. It is made up of more than just Twain’s memoirs. There are essays by and about Twain, notes and more notes, critical explorations. Some of it (as expected) is delightfully funny; some of it (also expected) is dark and profound.

One gets the sense that Twain wanted to wait a century before revealing his innermost thoughts because he figures that we, his descendants, will be a more enlightened race than he is used to. Or maybe not. He is far too smart to really believe that. But it is true that Twain spent an annoying amount of time battling with censors, including his own beloved wife, and never felt that he could really “let loose” and say exactly what he wanted to say. So now, here is his chance, though I have yet to get to any passages that I think could not have been read with comfort by any of his contemporaries. Maybe that stuff is coming up in later volumes.

Twain was often irreverent, sometimes nearly obscene, always satirical and witty, usually hilarious. His was not a world of political correctness, but he felt somewhat restrained by matters of good taste. Now is his chance, from the grave, to say exactly what he wanted to say. I trust that he has done it, but we may have to wade through a great deal, three long and dense volumes, to find it all.

Still, it seems to me that it will be worth the effort.