On page 38, a quote defines Mark Twain quite well. From Powers book, Twain wrote, "When I was a boy everybody was poor but didn't know it, and everybody was comfortable and didn't know it." In his journal 1883, Twain asked what the difference between an Englishmen and an American were. When Samual Langhorne Clemens entered this world on November 30, 1835, the prognosis was not too positive for his childhood. Even Jane Clemens, Sam's mother, did not see potential in her son. Powers provides an explanation that premature babies often live in between a dream world and reality. Perhaps Sam's creativity originated as a premature baby. Jane Clemens was wrong about her son's expectations in this world. Sam was born into a large family. The father, John Marshall Clemens, reminds me of the Father from Sherwood Anderson's short story "The Egg." Both men had high ambitions of finding the American dream. In each story, both men were unsuccessful. The Clemens did not live the large, lavish Victorian lifestyle that was predominate in that time period. In fact, the Clemens were a poor frontier family that suffered from fatalities resulting from early deaths of their children. Jane made her children touch the face of their deceased siblings. Powers assumes this ritual came from Jane's Kentucky background. After the deaths of more children, Jane decided her children needed some Jesus. So, she took her children to a Presbyterian church. As a boy, Sam did not flourish well in the Church. In fact, the fire and brimstone approach scared young Sam. There did not seem to be much communication in the family in this area. Sam already felt guilty for his siblings' deaths. This new religious persecution confirmed his worst fears. Orion, Sam, Pamela, and Henry survived past adolescence. There was no mention of the Clemens seeing their grandparents. If so, this was never recorded. Marshall doted on Orion, the eldest, the way Sam doted on his eldest daughter, Susie, before her untimely death. Henry Clemens was seriously injured from the worst steamboat explosion in history and passed away. Orion made business ventures that turned out to be dead ends like his father. One thing I did admire about Orion's political campaign was his determination in supporting the prohibition movement. He was not too popular afterwards, however.In later years, Sam married a lady named Olivia, who went by Livy. As I read about the Clemens marriage, I realize the pair was not a good match. Livy was born into the Victorian lifestyle. She grew up surrounded by books, the arts, music, and wealth. Victorian values did not fit Sam too well. Sam made his living being Mark Twain. As an author, Twain was a traveling lecturer. As a woman, Livy lived with a physical disability. Livy needed a husband who would be at home at night and provide physical love to the family. Instead, she would be rushed to a city with her husband or sent home to rest.I don't understand Jane at all. I think Jane may have thought Livy was not good enough for her son, so she kept a distance. There is no mention of Jane being a loving grandmother to her grandchildren. I think the grandchildren and children were afraid of Jane. She seemed like a difficult person to relate to and get along with. When Jane sees Sam as an older adult, she is unable to recognize him.I think if Jane had not made her son promise to not further his education, Sam would have been an entirely different person and never been a writer. Sam loved his Mississippi ties. This is evident in his great American literature. I also believe if Sam had been single and free of obligations as an older man, he would have bought a house on the Mississippi where mud was mud. The Mississippi symbolizes a naturalism. This is where Sam can be free of death, debt, slander, and lawsuits. This is his wealth and comfort. Memories run free and active.
This is a truly magnificent biography. I give it four rather than five stars only because there were so many bits of trivia about other people who merely crossed Twain's path that they occasionally bogged down an otherwise fascinating and well-executed biography of this man and his myth. Powers is a gifted and eloquent writer and his prose flows beautifully. For those who have not read all Twain's works or have dim memories of grade-school readings the author does a marvelous job of contextualizing characters, plot, and places so the reader is not lost amid the many references and stories about Twain's enormous body of work. I had no idea that he was a man of such volatility and guilts nor that he was a terrible speculator who risked financial ruin repeatedly. His moral progression from a southern son of slave-holding parents to a hectoring anti-imperialist is detailed here with clear eyes and without fawning praise. Clemens was cranky and cantankerous while funny, acerbic and tempestuous. Powers is meticulous in uncovering and demonstrating Twain's uncanny ear for dialect and meaning as well as his struggles with toning down his love for slang, swearing and drinking hard. The sheer energy Twain deployed with his travels and writing of tens of thousand of words (by pen and paper of course) are preternatural. His adoration of his wife who could alone tame him was endearing. His many losses of brothers and children tragic. A steadfast and loyal friend he was quick to merciless revenge on those who he believed betrayed him and he was notoriously thin-skinned while happy to poke others. He was a humorist who was frequently very angry. He was a humorist who shattered literary conventions with seriousness of purpose.He had wished to be a clergyman but he wasn't sure about God and was less sure about any religion. "If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be--a Christian." He was indifferent to the boundary between fact and fiction and his recollections and his stories were entwined messily. Nuggets: He slipped bats and snakes into his mother's sewing basket and she told him tales of brutal and sadistic Indian attacks on her mother's people. He castigated the Bible as "blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies.""Next I am privileged to infer that is far more goodness than ungoodness in man, for if it were not so man would have exterminated himself before this...I detest Man, but nevertheless this is true of him.""There are many humorous,things in the world; among them the white man's notion that he is less savage than other savages." "Wrinkles should merely show where the smiles have been." Written by his friend, editor, confidant and fellow writer William Howells about Twain, "...the paradoxical charm of Mr. Clemens's best humor. It's wildest extravagance [springs from ] a deep feeling, a wrath with some folly which disquiets him worse than other men, a personal hatred for some humbug or pretension that embitters him beyond anything but laughter...At the bottom of his heart he has often the grimness of a reformer; his wit is turned...upon things that are out of joint, that are unfair or ...ignoble and cry out to his love of justice or discipline."
What do You think about Mark Twain (2006)?
For someone like me who has never studied the life of Mark Twain, nor 19th century history, at least not my attempts to not learn history in high school, this tome is quite an education. Thoroughly covers Mark Twain's life, including commentary on past writings by other authors about him. Why is it that most creative geniuses seem to be dysfunctional in everyday life? Maybe genius is part of a mental and/or emotional pathology. Anyway, not having read very many biographies, I can't say whether this one is exceptional or not, but it held my interest. The book provides plenty of information along with insight about its primary subject as well as how his life affected and was affected by the times. Well written and highly recommended.
—Doug
Powers's profile is much more nuanced than the common image of Twain as a genial wit. He certainly was flawed; Powers doesn't leave anything out. Twain was alternately supportive and hugely cruel to his hapless brother, Orion, whose particular talent was finding ways to lose money. I wonder if this ever caused Twain a twinge later, when he himself had to be rescued from financial peril by the industrialist Henry Rogers. It seems to me that Twain's books were driven more by commercial necessity than by artistic inspiration. He was a total 'quant' when it came to literature: assessed his progress by the number of words written, and seemed never to start a book without predicting the number he'd sell.Still, he was a brilliant aphorist and on the 'right' side of many issues. His attitudes towards racism were complex, but he saw and spoke out against anti-semitism in Austria at the turn of the century, and condemned US imperialism in the Phillipines.He convinced General Grant to write his memoirs; his publishing firm (during one of its rare periods of financial stability) actually brought out the book.Powers is a readable, playful writer. In an early newspaper story Twain is described as 'absquatulating' after insulting the Lady's Sanitary Commission in Nevada. Powers manages to find at least 5 more sentences where 'absquatulate' is the necessary word.This is a whole lotta Twain (627 pages not counting the footnotes), but worth it.
—Joyce
At times riveting, like when the author chronicles the writing of Huck Finn and his other texts, or when providing an overview of the newspaper and magazine industries in the Gilded Age. Often, though, it dwells too long on Clemens's financial troubles, his half-baked get-rich-quick investments, or on other esoterica like the political scene in pre-statehood Nevada. The overwhelming impression the book leaves about Twain the author is that, despite writing classics like "The Innocents Abroad," "Tom Sawyer" and "Huck Finn," he also released a number of duds, many of which he wrote by hurriedly cobbling together previously-written newspaper and magazine pieces with the attention of paying off his many debts. Still, much of the time this is a very compelling portrait of one of the country's first truly original voices and, undoubtedly, its first celebrity.
—Matt
