Twain - The Private History of a campaign that failed

The Private History of a campaign that failed (1885). By Mark Twain 

Journalism in Tennessee still stands as my favorite Twain short story to date. But this one hits a little close to home in what I'm currently writing (My Completed Autobiography, evolving title) in that it captures a farcical historical event that is close enough to reality it might as well be true. Of course, I'm no Twain scholar so it may very well be true.

The interaction between the "soldiers" in this little tale are hysterical. Their jockeying for rank is my favorite part, especially, "nobody would cook; it was considered a degradation; so we had no dinner" (Twain, 47). In spite of the levity of the story it hits some profound history to as some of the failed soldiers would go on to be professionals in the Civil War. It makes light of a hard situation that is funny without truly making fun of the characters- no mean task. It's a good story and I hope to one day be able to capture a tone like it to inject enough humor in order to maintain the humanity in a story about inhumanity.

Twain - The Stolen White Elephant

I'm enjoying my Mark Twain short stories. I still feel that Journalism in Tennessee is my favorite thus far, but in reading Twain's The Stolen White Elephant I'm realizing that I like detective stories. Now, that said, I haven't read a Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie or any other "serious" detective fiction. But, I've loved Law & Order since at least high school; I think I liked it earlier, especially the crossover episodes with the Baltimore based Homicide: Life on the Street. I know I liked those when I was young and before I moved out of the area. But, it also made me never want to enter the city...

But, earlier on this blog and in one of my nascent stories I've mentioned the similarities between Douglas Adam's Dirk Gently and Raymond Queneau's Morcol in The Flight of Icarus and now having read Twain's short story The Stolen White Elephant, I'm finding that I really enjoy farcical detective stories. I'm also noticing a trend about such characters. They are, simultaneously, bungling and cunning. They have the great balance of bafoonery and intellect that allows them the expertise of the  charlatan. Money moves them. I guess that's a well-worn thought because even in serious journalism we question the ethics of the police. Maybe we should simply make them well paid and then they wouldn't have to worry about bribes. That however would be a socialist notion and thus, completely unacceptable in America. We can't stand an ounce of socialism. On a side note, I'm very concerned that I'm not going to get my social security in forty years or so when I'm eligible. These aren't related thoughts, but my mind is always doubled over in multiple trajectories.

As for Twain's short story, it's great. It is silly and full of sharp language. That makes it easy to read and easy to pause and reread a fantastic passage or sentence. With Twain, it's often the sentence that you reread because of it's incredible sarcasm within its brevity. "Next morning it was all in the newspapers, in the minutest detail. It even had additions, consisting of Detective this, Detective that, and Detective the other's 'theory' as to how the robbery was done" (Twain, 28). Beautiful. Concise. Caustic.

The thing that I like so much about this story is that it incorporates an odd structure using the "telegraph" as a medium. I had this idea for a short story (which is still peculating within me) that makes use of a similar medium. Interwoven in the story will be some background narrative, but the story will be moved forward by a different medium - comments posted on Internet "journalism". I thought it would be a new novel and innovative technique. Twain wrote The Stolen White Elephant 101 years before I was born. What did Solomon say???

Twain - A literary nightmare

Humorous Stories and Sketches

Mark Twain

1996

A Literary Nightmare (1876)

Once again I find myself amazed at Twain's ability to grasp a reader with a story about a rather mundane topic. He builds and builds in this story a farce entirely based on the premise of a jingle being stuck in his head! Pretty funny, but so far Journalism in Tennessee remains my favorite.

Twain - About Barbers

Humorous Stories and Sketches

Mark Twain

1996

Often I find myself gravitating towards surreal, fantastic, science fiction, magical realism or otherworldly fiction. But, I think  I am most impressed with writers who stay in the strict confines of the ordinary and yet retain my interest. With a blisteringly quick pace I often find myself bored with fiction that doesn't transport me to some place or time that isn't logically possible. Mark Twain in general and About Barbers specifically need not take me to a galaxy far, far away to retain my attention. He described the barber shop where the narrator panicked over being taken into the worst chair and I got it. He described the barbershop I went to in High School. Though separated by 125 years between when the story was published and when I was frequenting the small town barbershop of my youth, Twain's opening still rings true: "All things change except barbers, the ways of barbers, and the surroundings of barbers. These never change (Twain, 13).

"He was decaying inwardly while still alive, and this gave me much concern" (Twain, 15). That's funny.

The other two parts I found especially humorous were the way the barber dried the mans face off (un-Christian like) and the barber's attempts to sell the man some products he didn't need. Barbers never change. 

Twain - Journalism in Tennessee

Humorous Stories and Sketches

Mark Twain

1996

Journalism in Tennessee

I found this story much more humorous than The Jumping Frog. Here are the best lines about the assistant editor nearly losing his life on the first day of the job:

"The shot spoiled Smith's aim, who was just taking a second chance, and he crippled a stranger. It was me" (Twain, 8).

"The Colonel's bullet ended its career in the fleshy part of my thigh" (Twain, 10).

"The Southern heart is too impulsive - Southern hospitality is too lavish with the stranger" (Twain, 12).

Twain - The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

Since I have a current desire to try my hand at writing and since I was born on American soil I figured I ought to study up on the greatest American author to have ever put pen to paper. At the moment though I have not read every notable American author so I figured I'd just study Twain. I kid, I joke.

Humorous Stories and Sketches

Mark Twain

1996

The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (1865) is a very short little story. The speed and shortness actually reminds me a bit of one of Voltaire's contes. Both are sharp, quick and satirical with heavy doses of irony. I love how the story began as a prank on the narrator to go and ask a man about a mythical friend that would ensnare the narrator in the clutches of a long winded storyteller. That is precisely what happens.

The story itself didn't sparkle for me but I liked the line, "he never smiled, he never frowned...but all through the interminable narrative there ran a vein of impressive earnestness and sincerity, which showed me plainly that, so far from imagining that there was anything ridiculous or funny about his story, he regarded it as a really important matter" (Twain, 1-2). The storyteller then weaved a tale of a compulsive gambler and how he was cheated out of $40 by a crooked man who filled a jumping frog's stomach full of led to ensure a victory in a bet. After this scenario the narrator escaped further stories about the gambling addict.

Pedro Paramo

I read Juan Rulfo's Pedro Paramo for the first time last night. I kept starting and stopping as I needed to go to bed. But, in the end I wound up staying up til 3 am to finish it. I have to read it again, and soon.

It is a crazy book. The surrealist aspects are grotesque, but not in the way that Bataille's The Story of the Eye is grotesque. Rulfo focuses on death in this book, not unseemly sexual encounters involving copious amounts of piss.

Juan Preciado is instructed by his dying mother to return to her hometown and take some sort of revenge on his father. The town of Comala is a ghost town in a more literal sense of the word. It is a quasi-purgatory where the disembodied souls of the townsfolk live in shame and fear of the dead Pedro Paramo. As I said earlier I have to read it again to grasp the fullness (or lack thereof) of the book. But, a couple things really struck me on this initial reading.

First, when Juan dies, or when he realizes he is dead - I am not sure if he was ever alive in the story or not, he is buried into a grave with Dorotea and the two begin to speak. That first encounter was fascinating. Dorotea takes over the narrative from this point, but her description of her death was truly incredible. She talks about her soul demanding that her body continue working, but the body is speaking to Juan inside their shared grave. The body tells him that she simply opened up her mouth and released the soul.

Second, when Juan encounters the burro driver you have no idea he's dead. Then he doesn't play much of a part for the whole book except to bring about what ever semblance of conclusion you can get. That was interesting too.

Third, and this might have been my favorite story arch within this multi-tiered story is that of Father Renteria. Father Renteria is a priest (whom we find out was killed by one of Pedro's many sons) that has been condemned to purgatory for putting up with Pedro and his horrible ways. Father Renteria even goes over into another town and finds another priest who refuses him absolution. It is a very intriguing story.

I'm finding that I enjoy some of the surrealist stories much better than others. I loved Queneau's Flight of Icarus and Rulfo's Pedro Paramo. I liked Nadja by Andre Breton. I hated The Story of the Eye. I don't think I can say that enough. I guess it's the same with all genres, but while Nadja and Icarus eventually wrapped up somewhat, Pedro and The Story of the Eye really offered no real ending per se. Yet of the four I would (at this moment) rank them my top and bottom of surrealist literature read so far. I guess the surrealist must have been on to something as style tends to outweigh substance in their genre.