I will have to admit, for a guy who's been dead for over 100 years, he still knows how to turn heads. The author first caught my attention in elementary school when I was required to read segments of 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' a book which I've recently found to have been
banned from public schools, a strike for which this society will hold any person who fails to maintain political correctness, dead or alive; that damned human race. Others may be heartened to learn that his legendary status continues to thrive in the Theatre if not in the minds of young impressionable students. Presented by the Bohemian Theatre Ensemble in 2010, the Tony-Award Winning musical
'Big River' ran 1,000 performances on Broadway. Not a bad follow-up to a series of at least 35 film
adaptations that spans over 60 years from the 1930's on up through the turn of the following century. One begins to wonder just how suffused this man's work really is with the American culture today.
In my mind, Mark Twain's 'The Mysterious Stranger,' a work
posthumously published and not without controversy in 1916, stands as a
testimony to the long celebrated literary figure's nostalgic motif that has
been stuffed in the back of the collective American subconscious. That is, many
have heard of the author by name only and so he remains the politically
incorrect writer identified as the man standing next to Einstein in a
historical line-up. Upon closer examination of 'The Mysterious Stranger' the
author's persona begins to move and take form. One hasn't to read much of the
story to realize that Twain is not just a gifted writer but a captivating force
that draws you into another world that he created, an illustratively magical
world that unlocks the mysteriousness of the stranger. Thumbing the pages, one
loses himself in a lucid account of familiar characters hewn together in a
timeless landscape revealing, quite beautifully, his mastery of the English
language, a criticism for which Twain, to his credit, never outgrew.
Continuing, Twain develops in the characters a stunning
array of complexity and wonder offering, amidst a balanced and amusing cast, a
pair who diametrically compliment one another. Shadowed behind the interaction
of these characters we uncover Twain's brilliant cynicism that is so often
accused of tainting the condition of mankind. A character whose actions are
dictated by uncompromising adherence to a set of ethics or morals, usually
determined by an active and superfluous force i.e. popular opinion, religious
order or societal prejudice etc., find themselves prey to a series of
occurrences which challenge their position. Twain provides this noticeable
tension typically in a manner that is palpable and poignant often engaging the
reader to shoulder this weight and in some insipid way we end up sympathizing
with the villain, or worse. In this work we find evidence of a humble
philosopher vying the plight of cause and effect. Twain’s ability to cast light
on the apparent struggles inherent in the human condition is questioned through
the perspective of the ‘mysterious stranger.’
‘Well, I will tell you and you must
understand if you can. You belong to a singular race. Every man is a
suffering-machine and a happy-machine. Two functions work together
harmoniously, with a fine and delicate precision, on a give-and-take principle.
For every happiness turned out in one department the other stands ready to
modify it with a sorrow or a pain – maybe a dozen. In most cases the man’s life
is about equally divided between happiness and unhappiness. When this is not
the case the unhappiness predominates- always; never the other. Sometimes a
man’s make and disposition are such that his misery-machine is able to do
nearly all the business. Such a man goes through life almost ignorant of what
happiness is. Everything he touches, everything he does, brings a misfortune
upon him. You have seen such people? To that kind of a person life is not an
advantage, is it? It is only a disaster. Sometimes for an hour’s happiness a
man’s machinery makes him pay years of misery. Don’t you know that? It happens
every now and then.’
Reading further, we understand the mysterious stranger to
argue the mechanics of man to be utterly foolish because they are built on the small
trivialities of vanity, feelings and ambition. The mysterious stranger argues
that man lacks intelligence and provides fair examples to aid his conclusion
inevitably ending with their short-sightedness, yet another product of the
human condition. Since man cannot see into the future he will never know good
fortune from ill. An interesting concept indeed when one stops to consider the
gravity of this sort of circumstance, which he did. By now in case you have been
wondering, the character of the mysterious stranger is an angel, actually, as
some of the preceding thoughts imply. From this vantage, Twain is able to
address some of the quandaries that mystifies himself, like the agency of what
becomes of a man after he has lived here on this earth, especially when his
position is full of misery.
“I have changed Nikilaus’s life;
and this has changed Lisa’s. If I had not done this, Nikolaus would save Lisa,
then he would catch cold from his drenching; one of your race’s fantastic and
desolating scarlet fevers would follow, with pathetic after-effects; for
forty-six years he would lie in his bed a paralytic log, deaf, blind, and
praying night and day for the blessed relief of death. Shall I change his life
back?”
Of course, this condition is off-set rationally by the
angel. What is comprehensible and sound is not always apparent to these
creatures who possess only Moral Sense. What is gained from pre-mature death in
this condition could be understood in this manner, consider the fate of
another,
“What you are thinking is strictly
human-like, that is to say, foolish. The woman is advantaged. Die when she
might, she would go to heaven. By this prompt death she gets twenty-nine years
more of heaven than she is entitled to, and escapes twenty-nine years of misery
here.”
The meddling only continues as a contrast. Another
character, Ficsher, is affected positively from this experience. Instead of
being riddled with trouble and die at an early age, Fischer now ‘lives to be
ninety, and have a pretty prosperous and comfortable life of it, as a human
lives go.’
We
can’t help but feel relieved for Fischer to some degree. It seems that up until
this point the mysterious stranger has an insufferable maniacal streak that
should not let up; as famous as Twain’s wit is, we must also account for its
endurance. Maybe Twain's wit deserves more credit on account of his religious
skepticism where it embraces cause-and-effect because Fischer’s post mortal
state left him far from the ‘pearly gates.’
Finally, we are faced squarely with Twain’s nostalgic motif,
well, perhaps just a reflection of it; one that is mysterious because it is
lucid and unfamiliar and hides in back of the American subconscious. To say
that we have broadened our scope of Twain’s intrigues and nuances within his
work would be considered a grave misunderstanding. However, it would be
incorrect to state that his critical analytical thought is charming. Make no
mistake Twain could find some pretty incredible things to say about
controversial issues, even through some of the most innocent characters,
‘Mark Twain spoke his mind about slavery and race relations
“in the mouth and in the mind of an illiterate 11-year-old boy. Jim is one of
the greatest human creations in all of literature. And so is Huck. But Huck is
more than that. Huck is the source of the modern American writer, of which
Hemingway is an example. Huckleberry Finn … inspired the modern American novel.’
— Herman Wouk
What I find interesting about Twain is the manner in which he
approached his own biographical narrative. Evidently, he allowed his memory,
the published works, to be sown in the field of American culture for some time.
It was allowed room to grow and flourish for decades in the minds and hearts of
readers to the extent that it had a legitimate chance to weather the changing
climates of social, political and religious struggles.
America
has been imbued with the reckonings of his literary genius for more than five
generations, an admission which Twain modestly acknowledges,
“My books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks
water."
And now we are here at the threshold of one man’s utterance
from the grave. Celebrating the 100
th year of his departure from
this life, we stand face-to-face with a man who was patient enough to satisfy the
enduring curiosity of others with his own pen.
The ‘Autobiography of Mark Twain’ will be released as a three volume series beginning with the first release in 2010 and the words will be relished by some like a glass of vintage wine, one sip at a time.
