Monday, October 23, 2006
JUST FINISHED: A Murder, A Mystery, and a Marriage by Mark Twain. Back into the swing of things, and sure, why not with a previously lost Mark Twain manuscript? Since it's breathtakingly short, this review will be shorter. The historical background: in 1876, after putting the unfinished Huckleberry Finn in a desk drawer, Sam Clemens tried to stir up interest in a sort of writing contest where he would contribute a bare-bones plot and let the contestants put flesh on it as they chose. To set the story contest into motion, he wrote the first one himself, and that was what found its way into print as a slim volume in 2001.
You can't fault the title for false advertising: there is a murder, a mystery, and a marriage in Twain's story, which doesn't really rank at level of a lost classic, even if it does have a hint or two of the master around the edges. It's all about young romance, a nasty old man who wants to flummox the whole deal for petty reasons, and a mysterious French stranger who is found in a field of snow with no footprints or carriage tracks anywhere near him. As I said, not the most compelling thing Twain ever wrote, but the wraparound material from Roy Blount Jr. (which takes up half the book) makes the purchase worthwhile; using this story as a launching point, he makes a very compelling case that the failure of the post-Civil War policy of Reconstruction was a clear dividing line between the early Twain of Tom Sawyer and the older man who roasted God and man over the same barbecue pit. The signifigance of this disillusionment falling during his hiatus from Huck Finn--he put his pen down before the violent resolution of the Grangeford/Shepherdson feud--isn't lost on Blount, and most likely contributed to richness of what many people have called the first American novel.
All this might not be new to more constant readers, but it's fresh to me. Recommended with the above reservations.
You can't fault the title for false advertising: there is a murder, a mystery, and a marriage in Twain's story, which doesn't really rank at level of a lost classic, even if it does have a hint or two of the master around the edges. It's all about young romance, a nasty old man who wants to flummox the whole deal for petty reasons, and a mysterious French stranger who is found in a field of snow with no footprints or carriage tracks anywhere near him. As I said, not the most compelling thing Twain ever wrote, but the wraparound material from Roy Blount Jr. (which takes up half the book) makes the purchase worthwhile; using this story as a launching point, he makes a very compelling case that the failure of the post-Civil War policy of Reconstruction was a clear dividing line between the early Twain of Tom Sawyer and the older man who roasted God and man over the same barbecue pit. The signifigance of this disillusionment falling during his hiatus from Huck Finn--he put his pen down before the violent resolution of the Grangeford/Shepherdson feud--isn't lost on Blount, and most likely contributed to richness of what many people have called the first American novel.
All this might not be new to more constant readers, but it's fresh to me. Recommended with the above reservations.
|| Eric 12:25 AM#
