MONDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2010
A Twain Musing
Was reading an article on Mark Twain in the New Yorker last night. Seems tomorrow, 11/30, will be his 175th birthday and the 100th anniversary of his death.
Was struck by a fact that I had known, but hadn't thought twice about: that the man who in his day was arguably the country's most well-known and beloved public figure, had gotten his start as what we'd now call a stand-up comedian;
and had honed his unique style in California and later the 'Sandwich' Islands (as the Hawaiian islands were then known).
We tend to think of California as a land of cities, freeways, suburbs.... But in the 1860s, the landscape must have been dominated by natural beauty: the wildflower hillsides, perfectly placed oaks, roaring rivers, bountiful birdlife....
So, you take a young mind attuned to subtlety in the natural world (the article emphasized the great skill required to read the Mississippi and so steer a riverboat), and steep it in a place, California, that would become known--as would the Hawaiian islands--for it's 'mellow' vibe, and you have the makings of a prophet, a prophet of good-humor, which is just what the country needed coming off the Civil War.
He was a natural, he practiced a radical freedom and he found humor in just about anything. According to the article, he'd wander out on stage and suddenly act startled that an audience was in the same building. Later in life he told a New York Times correspondent that he'd never worked a day in his life; that his life was all play.
"Cursed is the man who has found some other man's work
and cannot lose it. The fellows who groan and sweat under
the weary load of toil that they bear never can hope to do
anything great. How can they when their souls are in a
ferment of revolt against the employment of their hands and
brains? The product of slavery...can never be great."
And I still remember my own roars of laughter when in my twenties I read the part in "Roughing It" where a prospector is mining bituminous coal, the name of which is somehow transferred over to his donkey and the creature's habit of biting his master in the rear.
Another point made in the article concerns the fact that in the 1850s being a riverboat captain was the equivalent of our 'rock star' status. So, the fact that Twain could have talked himself into being taken on as an apprentice when he was in his early twenties is a testament to his genius.
Then there's the language. Sure, we're used to a mix of 'high' and a 'low'-brow ways of speaking and writing, but it was Twain who began to connect and mix the two. Listen to an announcer's voice from the early 20th century and you'll be struck by the stilted, constrained tone, the adherence to a strict, 'correct' style that
marches at a jaunty pace. That was a high mountain of a climb-down and Twain lead the way.
The big question in my mind is what would he have been like without tobacco. In Ken Burn's treatment of Twain, one sees the man a hundred years ago, in a brief motion picture, in his seventies, and is reminded of his ever-present cigar. Could his blazing star have been even brighter, or did tobacco give him the drive he needed in the age he was born into?
Interestingly, Twain and his wife Olivia had only girls. And towards the end of his life, after several intensely sad losses (a daughter, his wife), he sought the company and writing of women. So much for cigars.
