pector@ihuxw.UUCP (Scott W. Pector) (04/04/84)
<forgive me, line eater, for what you are about to receive> Some books I read recently and comments on them: 1. "Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts" in the Mark Twain Papers, U. of California Press, in paperback or hardcover. This book is part of the collection of Mark Twain's published and unpublished works that is being brought out by the U. of California at Berkeley. There will be 70 volumes in all and 17 are available so far. For 60 years, there was a version of the "Mysterious Stranger" that was published after Twain's death by his literary executor and biographer, Albert Bigelow Paine, which was considered the "Twain-approved" version. However, Twain scholars in the 1960s found that this version actually consisted of an incomplete first manuscript, the conclusion of a third manuscript, and a connecting chapter written by Paine. The present volume provides a definitive version of each of the three manuscripts Twain wrote. The first is a tale of how three boys in a sleepy Austrian village in 1702 meet a nephew of Satan (also named Satan), who is an angel, and the adventures they have. It provides Twain an excellent vehicle for showing the abuses of the Church and the follies of humanity. The story rolls along for ~200 pages before Twain runs out of ideas and gives up. The second manuscript is set in Hannibal in the 1830s or 1840s, with Tom Sawyer and the other kids meeting a child named 44. 44 learns to speak and play by copying others' actions. Similarly, he learns from books instantly by reading them and incorporating every word in his memory. This manuscript is very short (~50 pages). The last manuscript is set in the same Austrian village but in 1502. Now Twain has found people who are historically correct for showing their follies and their slavery to the Church. No. 44 is the character who shows up at the village and becomes becomes an apprentice to the local printer and his shop-men. He becomes the friend of one of the other apprentices, August, and allows himself to become the butt for all the other workers. At the same time he shows August all sorts of miracles (time travel, changes in shape, etc.) and, at the end, communicates the truth about Life (as Twain sees it). All three manuscripts are interesting and, at times, quite funny. They should show that Twain had not lost his talents near the end of his life, as some of his earlier biographers and critics have suggested. 2. "Mark Twain and Huck Finn" by Walter Blair, published by U. of California Press (not in the series discussed above), hardcover only. This book attempts to show how the writing of and the ideas in "Huckleberry Finn" were determined in large part by the experiences of and the books read by Mark Twain strictly during the 10 year period (1875-1885) that he worked on it (in spurts). For example, Twain had been considered a "barbarian" by many literary figures in New England, the literary Mecca of the time. Twain attempted to compensate for this by doing a tremendous amount of reading. Many of the themes in HF are derived from his readings (the com- ments on monarchy expressed in the Duke and the Dauphin episodes, the follies and cruelty of the villagers along the Mississippi as typical of humanity, etc.). (An amusing side note: Blair mentions that many of Twain's friends and family were concerned about his dress. After many incidents involving this, one of his friends got him a tie. Twain was so upset with these incidents that he finally exploded and went and framed it. He showed it to his wife and friend, telling them how beautiful it was!) Also, many of the characters were derived from mixtures of real people and characters in other books. This point is fully discussed in the book. HF was also influenced by Twain's works during this period. The river setting and the characters were more or less rehearsed in "Tom Sawyer" (1876) and "Life on the Mississippi" (1883). One has only to compare descriptions of similar things (such as the river and St. Petersburg) to see how much richer Twain's style had become. There are many other things to be found in this 400 page book. The similarities between HF and Twain's experiences and readings in this 10 year period are so astounding that one can't say that he just rehashed his childhood experiences in writing HF. I strongly recommend this book for those who enjoyed HF and want to know more about Twain's life and its influence on his works.