I am reading Lighting Out For The Territory, a biography of Sam Clemens as a young man out West. He was a real prick. Much of what he wrote was untrue - not even exaggeration, but false reporting. His practical jokes were more cruel than funny, as was his writing in those days, and he carelessly caused a forest fire that took out half a side of Lake Tahoe for miles back. In the abstract, someone could make a case for the line between biting humor and just biting someone and calling it a joke being hard to see at a distance, but I don't think one can give him that benefit. He was insulting for fun, and often.
I'm not sure I'm going to read him with quite the same eye again. Life On The Mississippi is one of my favorite books, and this biographer credits it with being mostly true, yet his other works may not withstand this undermining when I read them.
7 comments:
I do not think I can require artists to be pure of heart and angelic in their personal behavior, before I can enjoy their product, nor can I enjoy a rotten product simply because its producer is pure of heart and angelic. This is why I dislike the chains of political correctness.
OT: wanted to get in touch with you, but not seeing a Contact email on this blog. When you get a chance, could you drop a line to the contact address (for Jonathan) at the upper right of the ChicagoBoyz site? Thanks!
I lost my interest in Mark Twain while in college reading his Pudd'nhead Wilson. What I learned later in life is B.S. and is now called Political Correctness drips from the pages.
Dan Kurt
I haven't read Puddn'head Wilson, so you have me there. You are seeing Clemens as an early version of political correctness? I'd be interested in a paragraph or two about that.
re: " I'd be interested in a paragraph or two about seeing Clemens as an early version of political correctness." AVI
I read the book circa 1962. My memories are now more than half a century old. To do it justice I would have to re-read the book something I would NEVER do willingly. The book is free here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/102?msg=welcome_stranger.
I suggest you read it if you want. I remember this much: 1) Pudd'nhead Wilson is a Northerner who arrives in the South to bring enlightenment to the Morlocks, 2) Blacks are as capable as Whites basically, 3) Nurture is more important than Nature, 4) Southern Whites are evil. (There are probably more salient points I have forgotten.)
I could be wrong in my memories but at the time I was making a shift from being a programmed Democrat to a Libertarian. Now I am to the Right Genghis Khan. The book came to me at a crucial period in my life. If I wanted to relive my youth's intellectual development I would re-read some George Ade not Mark Twain: http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Ade%2c%20George%2c%201866%2d1944.
Ade's Single Blessedness is one of the reasons I got married.
Dan Kurt
AVI:
I am reading Lighting Out For The Territory, a biography of Sam Clemens as a young man out West. He was a real prick.
Regarding Twain being a scoundrel, I am reminded of Hal Holbrook's impersonations of Mark Twain: "Quitting smoking is easy. I have done it hundreds of times." While this is the remark of someone who is self-aware, it is not the remark of someone with moral strength.
By now we should be aware that great writers of literature are not necessarily good people nor necessarily wise people. Consider, for example. Graham Greene, who made this statement in the 1960s.
"If I had to choose between life in the Soviet Union and life in the United States of America, I would certainly choose the Soviet Union, just as I would choose life in Cuba to [sic] life in those southern American republics, like Bolivia, dominated by their northern neighbor, or life in North Vietnam to life in South Vietnam."
That is the remark of a scoundrel who also wrote good fiction- whose political views approach fiction more than they do reality. (I am certain that in 1958,Graham Greene would have also preferred living in Cuba to living in Bolivia. Life Expectancy in Batista's Cuba was 20 years greater than in Bolivia, with ~ 4 times the physicians per capita compared to Bolivia.)
Dan Kurt
I lost my interest in Mark Twain while in college reading his Pudd'nhead Wilson. What I learned later in life is B.S. and is now called Political Correctness drips from the pages.
As I read Pudd'nhead Wilson in elementary school, my memory is faded. I need to reread. In Twain's defense, I would point out that the politically correct damn him for using the N word in Huckleberry Finn. Twain is simultaneously damned- not by the same people- for being both politically correct and politically incorrect.
BTW, Twain had two weeks experience in a Confederate militia.
IIRC WRT Puddn'head Wilson, the "Nurture is more important than Nature" is partly the other way around. An octaroon and a rich white baby are changed in the crib, and the "bad blood" shows up in later life. Nurture is huge, of course--the restored heir is never able to take advantage of his position, thanks to his training and lack of education.
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